PHILADELPHIA, PA – JANUARY 25, 2017 – Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor and Dario Saric have been selected as participants for the BBVA Compass Rising Stars Challenge during NBA All-Star 2017, the NBA announced today.
Embiid and Saric will represent the World team, while Okafor will represent the U.S. team.
Three Sixers have been selected to the game for the second time in the past three years. In 2015, Michael Carter-Williams, Robert Covington and Nerlens Noel were selected. This selection marks the second of Okafor's career and he joins Carter Williams (2014 and 2015) and Andre Iguodala (2005 and 2006) as the only Sixers to be selected as a Rising Star as both a rookie and a sophomore.
The game will take place at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans on Feb. 17 at 9 p.m. ET as part of NBA All-Star 2017 in New Orleans and will be televised by TNT.
Embiid, who finished third among Eastern Conference frontcourt players in NBA All-Star fan voting, is averaging 25-plus points, 11-plus rebounds and three-plus blocks per 36 minutes. Only three players have finished a season such averages: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson. The Cameroonian seven-footer has won the NBA's Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month Award each month this season.
Saric, a native of Croatia, leads all rookies with 255 rebounds this season. He and Embiid are the only rookies with at least 200 boards. He is currently averaging 10 points, six rebounds and two assists in 24 minutes per game.
Okafor, who grew up in Chicago, holds a scoring average of 15.2 points per game since the start of his rookie season. He has appeared in 31 games this season (16 starts) and is averaging 11 points and five rebounds on 53% shooting from the field in 23 minutes per game. He was selected to the NBA All-Rookie First Team as season ago.
League assistant coaches selected 10 U.S. Players and 10 international players for the game, with one ballot for each of the NBA's 30 teams. Both 10-man rosters include four guards, four frontcourt players and two additional players regardless of position. Each team features a minimum of three first-year players and three second-year players.
