All-Star Weekend has descended upon Los Angeles at last! Friday night will be loaded with interesting events, before the Rising Stars competition tips off. There’s even a Celebrity Three-Point Contest this year.
But who, exactly, will be available for the big game Sunday? That remains a bit up in the air. Given that the Chicago Bulls’ best player, point guard Josh Giddey, will be sidelined through the All-Star break, he’s not going to make the grade this year — no matter how many guys sit out.
© Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images Yet another injury replacement has been announced. Per Shams Charania of ESPN, Adam Silver has named San Antonio Spurs point guard De’Aaron Fox to his second-ever All-Star game. Fox will serve as an injury replacement for 10-time All-Star power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. Fox is the fourth player to be elevated to an All-Star berth by Silver this year. Embattled Los Angeles Clippers small forward Kawhi Leonard, Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun, and Toronto Raptors small forward Brandon Ingram are also now in the game, after missing out on being named to the coaches’ reserves. Lauri Markkanen, Michael Porter Jr., and James Harden seem like the most deserving current snubs to earn a promotion to the game, should more guys decide to sit out. 12-time All-Star point guard Chris Paul, 40, has been waived by the Toronto Raptors, reports Charania. The 6-foot Wake Forest product had been shipped there by the Los Angeles Clippers after being banished from the team in December. Paul has taken to his Instagram to officially announce his retirement, midway through his 21st pro season.“This is it! After over 21 years I’m stepping away from basketball. As I write this, it’s hard to really know what to feel, but for once – most people would be surprise – I don’t have the answer lol! But, mostly I’m filled with so much joy and gratitude!” Paul writes in part. “The game always gave me a reason to SHOW UP!!! And the true leaders and fighters know that right there – showing up – is half of the battle.”
Former San Antonio Spurs power forward Jeremy Sochan, the No. 9 pick out of Baylor in 2022, was surprisingly cut earlier this week after San Antonio couldn’t find a taker for his services via trade. Now, the 6-foot-8 forward has a new team — he’s signing with the New York Knicks, per Charania. Still just 22, Sochan will have an opportunity to carve out a bench role on a good team as a switchy forward with solid cutting and finishing abilities. The colorfully-haired Sochan could have been the kind of “second draft” addition worth exploring for our Bulls. Alas. Nikola Topić has had a fraught journey to the NBA. The Serbian-born point guard, 20, was selected with the No. 12 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft by the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder. The two-time ABA League champ, while playing with his home-country club Mega in May 2024 pre-draft tore his ACL, and was essentially redshirting his 2024-25 NBA rookie season. OKC won the title without him. Ahead of the 2025-26 season, Topić was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and underwent chemotherapy immediately. He finally made his NBA debut on Thursday, in a 110-93 home loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.Nikola Topić made his NBA debut four months after battling cancer ?What an amazing moment ? pic.twitter.com/MykN1LeraZ
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 13, 2026 Topić saw 12:22 of action, scoring three points on 1-of-3 shooting from the field and pulling down one rebound. The 6-foot-6 point guard notched a minus-5. Oklahoma City was playing without All-Stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, plus key role players Isaiah Hartenstein and Ajay Mitchell. Still, the Bucks were missing probably their top two players in Antetokounmpo and Ryan Rollins. A pair of young cast-offs have helped the Bucks quietly revive their postseason hopes, even sans Antetokounmpo. Former Thunder lottery pick forward Ousmane Dieng (who was briefly a Chicago Bull before being rerouted for Nick Richards) and former Brooklyn Nets shooting guard Cam Thomas have looked great in Milwaukee. Dieng paced Milwaukee against the Thunder with 19 points, 11 rebounds, six assists, four blocks and a steal. Off the bench, Thomas scored 12 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the floor and 1-of-1 shooting from the charity stripe. The Utah Jazz’s blatant tanking has finally been fiscally dinged by the league. More impressively, one could argue, the Indiana Pacers have also been caught trying to throw a game. The NBA has announced that it has dinged Utah $500K for “conduct detrimental to the league,” while fining Indiana $100K after determining the Pacers violated the league’s Player Participation Policy, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.The NBA fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 for conduct detrimental to the league and the Indiana Pacers $100,000 for violating the Player Participation Policy. Full details below. pic.twitter.com/8EJGHNWsde
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) February 13, 2026 Before having new All-Star addition Jaren Jackson Jr. undergo a likely season-ending surgery, Utah was sneakily sitting Markkanen and Jackson for the entire fourth quarters of clashes against the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat on Feb. 7 and 9. Indiana, meanwhile, sat out four-time All-Star power forward Pascal Siakam and two other Indiana starters, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith, while playing… the Jazz on Feb. 3. A league investigation — which even included an independent physician’s review — concluded that Siakam and the other starters were healthy enough to play. Teams have been trying to manipulate their own injury reports down seasons’ home stretches for generations, but things have gotten tough with the league facing a potentially stacked draft this year. Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports reports that some around the league are open to having teams’ lottery odds be frozen at a rotating date every year to prevent clubs from sitting healthy stars. His old boss at The Ringer, Bill Simmons, recently kvetched about tanking on his eponymous podcast. The Ringer’s Zach Lowe made a fresh appeal for a pre-determined draft wheel model, where picks are decided years ahead of time. The owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks intends to shutter at the end of this year’s NBA and NHL seasons, which will leave a whopping 13 basketball squads without a local broadcaster for 2026-27. John Ourand of Puck reports that the Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, Minnesota Timberwolves, Memphis Grizzlies, Bucks, Clippers, Heat, Magic, Pacers, Spurs, and Thunder are likely headed to a centralized, single platform that the NBA would then sell to a streaming outlet. Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner expects that the league will eventually seek to package all 30 teams’ local rights to a streamer — or, more likely, split the rights across a few.BLEACHER NATION: Go Ad Free | Subscribe to the BN Newsletter
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