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>\nThe 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’s Intuit Dome.<\/p>\n
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
Shouldn’t be a shocker to see Mitchell added to the event. He’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’s quite the jump from last year’s role, where he was a solid two-way player before injuries cut his season short.<\/p>\n
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
Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Jan. 26, 2026, 5:55 p.m. CT A couple of weeks away from the NBA All-Star break, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[72400,7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,30882,72482,72492,72404,73922,72487,72444,72422,75234,72484,72405,72485,72406,312,72403],"class_list":["post-563276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-sstssportsnbathunder","tag-sstsnokc-thunder","tag-tagajay-mitchell","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagcarmelo-anthony","tag-tagchet-holmgren","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagnba-all-star-game","tag-tagoklahoma-city-thunder","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagshai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-tagsports-news","tag-thunder","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115964990429987309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563276","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=563276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Jan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769485214_978_88077911007-usatsi-27954332.jpg\")
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