Midway through an NBA season in which he’s become an MVP favorite, Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was announced Thursday night as an All-Star starter in next month’s game in San Francisco.

This stretch of January around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is usually peak evaluation time in the NBA front-office world. It’s one of the milestone points where teams will have full-staff pow-wows and talk things out,

Before Thursday night’s home game versus the Dallas Mavericks, Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault downplayed the rivalry narrative surrounding both franchises. That will be even easier to do following OKC’s 121-115 loss,