With the All-Star starters announced Thursday night, it's time for the fun-slash-agonizing annual exercise of picking 12-man All-Star rosters for each conference.
The parameters:
* I am among the media who vote for starters; those votes count. My reserve choices do not.
* I follow the same positional rules as fans in voting for starters, and the coaches who select reserves. For starters, that means two guards and three amorphous frontcourt players. For reserves, the coaches pick two guards; three front-court players; and two wild cards from either positional group.
Positional designations are rigid. Players are either guards or frontcourt players, never both. That is different from All-NBA voting -- which is more consequential -- where players can be listed at multiple positions, allowing voters more flexibility in selecting who they deem the 15 most deserving players. In All-NBA, for instance, Jimmy Butler is typically eligible at both forward and guard. For All-Star, he's a frontcourt player only.