{"id":605810,"date":"2026-02-16T06:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T06:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/605810\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T06:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T06:00:20","slug":"anthony-edwards-criticizes-luka-doncic-nikola-jokic-for-not-playing-all-star-game-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/605810\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Edwards Criticizes Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic For Not Playing All-Star Game Seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Edwards<\/a> earned the NBA\u2019s All-Star Game MVP<\/a> tonight after a stellar performance led Team USA Stars to the win in the inaugural attempt of a new format for the coveted weekend. He dropped 32 points across the three games played to win the award.<\/p>\n

As the new format displayed a spark of hope for making the All-Star game more competitive from now on, the Timberwolves<\/a> star spoke to the media after the game and addressed the viral narrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo shade towards like Luka and Jokic, but like they are two of the best players in the league. They\u2019re not really trying to play an All-Star game,\u201d said<\/a> Edwards.<\/p>\n

He resonated with Kevin Durant\u2019s<\/a> sentiments from before the game, who said the European players like Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic should be criticized<\/a> for not taking the All-Star game seriously. But Edwards scrutinized Jokic and Doncic further for not participating seriously despite all the criticism that has surrounded the iconic weekend<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Doncic and Jokic came under public scrutiny this season, very shortly before the All-Star weekend. But unfortunately, they are both recovering from injuries currently. Therefore, both of their participation was heavily limited tonight.<\/p>\n

After playing just five minutes and dropping two points, two assists, while shooting 1-3 from the floor (33.3 FG%), the Slovenian superstar Doncic\u2019s All-Star Game ended early as he still recovers from a left hamstring injury<\/a> that has had him sidelined since the last four games for the Lakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Similarly, after just five minutes of action for the Serbian superstar Jokic as well, his night ended early while recording no points and just two rebounds while attempting just one shot from the floor. Even the Nuggets\u2019<\/a> star is recovering from a knee injury<\/a> that had him sidelined for 16 games<\/a> until recently.<\/p>\n

Hence, with both players struggling with injury management, they could not have been expected to play competitively tonight amid the recent criticism. Meanwhile, Edwards ended up averaging 12.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 0.5 assists in the two games he played tonight.<\/p>\n

Even though Edwards was probably trying to show support to Durant, shifting the blame from the \u2018OGs\u2019 to the Europeans, he should have done his due diligence before unnecessarily pointing to Doncic and Jokic for not playing seriously.<\/p>\n

At one point, Edwards himself did not want to play during the All-Star weekend and was not optimistic about improving the public narrative around the All-Star game. Now turning around and blaming the two European stars seems a bit unjustified.<\/p>\n

Now, of course, we\u2019ll have to wait another year for Jokic and Doncic to have a chance to respond and correct the narrative. Doncic already tried to clap back<\/a>, but until basketball fans see the action on the court, they will not believe the errors have been fixed.<\/p>\n

But it will be interesting to see if this criticism fuels the European duo to perform better individually in the upcoming season. Especially against Edwards and Durant\u2019s respective teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Edwards earned the NBA\u2019s All-Star Game MVP tonight after a stellar performance led Team USA Stars to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,308],"class_list":["post-605810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-basketball","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesotatimberwolves","tag-nba","tag-timberwolves"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116078786994224507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605810","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=605810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}