Houston‘s Alperen Sengun was added to the roster for the NBA All-Star Game, being selected as a replacement pick on Sunday for Oklahoma City‘s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Sengun — who becomes Turkey’s first two-time All-Star, after also being picked last season — will take Gilgeous-Alexander’s place on the World team in the Feb. 15 event at the LA Clippers‘ home in Inglewood, California.
Gilgeous-Alexander had to withdraw from the game because of a strained abdominal muscle. Sengun is averaging 20.8 points, 9.4 rebounds and 6.3 assists this season for the Rockets.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver chooses injury replacements. The first 10 All-Stars are selected in a system of weighted votes from fans, media and current NBA players, and the 14 players designated as reserves are chosen in balloting by the league’s head coaches.
Silver also added the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard to the All-Star roster last week. Leonard was needed to bring the total number of U.S. All-Stars for the new U.S. vs. World format to the required 16 — ensuring that each team would have the required minimum of eight players.
There are two U.S. teams in the event, one World team. The teams will play a round-robin tournament, then the top two teams will meet again in the All-Star final. All four of those games will last 12 minutes, or one standard NBA quarter.
Sengun is one of only two All-Stars from Turkey. Mehmet Okur is the other, getting his lone All-Star selection in 2007.
