{"id":563071,"date":"2026-01-27T01:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/563071\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T01:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:36:27","slug":"ajay-mitchell-named-rising-star-for-2026-nba-all-star-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/563071\/","title":{"rendered":"Ajay Mitchell named Rising Star for 2026 NBA All-Star weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks away from the NBA All-Star break, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/25\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Oklahoma City Thunder;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> learned that another player from their roster will participate in the weekend festivities. Ajay Mitchell will take part in the 2026 Rising Stars challenge.<\/p>\n<p>The mini-tournament highlights the best rookies and second-year players throughout the league. There will be four teams and three games that take place on Friday, Feb. 13 at LA&#8217;s Intuit Dome.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The 21 NBA players will be drafted onto three teams on Tuesday, Jan. 27. A fourth team of G League players will also join in. The team coaches are Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Austin Rivers. The entire player pool can be viewed below:<\/p>\n<p>Shouldn&#8217;t be a shocker to see Mitchell added to the event. He&#8217;s had a breakout season. The 23-year-old has averaged 14.1 points on 48.7% shooting, 3.7 assists and 3.5 rebounds. That&#8217;s quite the jump from last year&#8217;s role, where he was a solid two-way player before injuries cut his season short.<\/p>\n<p>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was recently named an NBA All-Star starter. Chet Holmgren could join him for the All-Star Game as a reserve. The Thunder have campaigned for him to earn the career accolade. The game will be played on Sunday, Feb. 15.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/okcthunderwire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/thunder\/2026\/01\/26\/ajay-mitchell-named-rising-star-for-2026-nba-all-star-weekend\/88370377007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Ajay Mitchell named Rising Star for 2026 NBA All-Star weekend;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Ajay Mitchell named Rising Star for 2026 NBA All-Star weekend<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple of weeks away from the NBA All-Star break, the Oklahoma City Thunder learned that another player&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[5577,3664,7,3628,366,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,209,312,8079,2685],"class_list":{"0":"post-563071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-ajay-mitchell","9":"tag-austin-rivers","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-carmelo-anthony","12":"tag-chet-holmgren","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-oklahoma","15":"tag-oklahoma-city","16":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","17":"tag-oklahomacity","18":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","19":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","20":"tag-thunder","21":"tag-tracy-mcgrady","22":"tag-vince-carter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115964502743890609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}