![\"Giddey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/8e40aad1-8bbd-4181-902e-85786b05b4e5.jpg\")
\n Josh Giddey has been averaging close to a triple-double each game so far this NBA season. (AP PHOTO)<\/p>\n
Basketball legend Andrew Gaze feels Josh Giddey is more than justifying his huge $US25m salary and must be in the conversation for a maiden NBA All-Star call-up.<\/p>\n
The Australian guard has hit career-best form in his second season with Chicago to quash any doubts he is up to the task of running the floor at the Bulls.<\/p>\n
Giddey averages close to a triple-double per game with 19.5 points, 9.2 assists and 9.1 rebounds. All three statistics are career-highs across his five NBA seasons.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old has seven triple-doubles for the season, setting a new record for the fastest triple-double by a Bulls player by completing the feat in 20 minutes, two seconds against Atlanta last week.<\/p>\n
Giddey has also improved his three-point shooting markedly this season as the Bulls continue their rebuild.<\/p>\n
\n Josh Giddey has been averaging close to a triple-double each game so far this NBA season. (AP PHOTO)<\/p>\n
In the opinion of Gaze, often regarded Australia’s greatest-ever player, Giddey is showing he’s worth every penny of his recent $US100m, four-year contract extension.<\/p>\n
“He’s a walking triple-double,” Gaze told AAP.<\/p>\n
“(His season) has been as good as you could expect, I think, to a point where I know he just recently signed a very, very large contract but he’s playing, relative to other players, well above the value that he’s got.”<\/p>\n
The mercurial Ben Simmons remains the only Australian selected as an NBA All-Star, earning the honour three times between 2019 and 2021.<\/p>\n
But Gaze feels Giddey is doing enough to join Simmons in an elite club among his countrymen.<\/p>\n
“The recognition that comes with being an All-Star would be justified,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think there’d be too many people who would raise their eyebrows if he did get selected. I don’t think it’d be, ‘That’s a shock’. He’s right there in the conversation.”<\/p>\n
Fellow Australian and defensive ace Dyson Daniels is also in the mix amid a great season with the Atlanta Hawks, though would be more of a left-field choice than Giddey.<\/p>\n
“The numbers don’t jump out as dramatically as Josh’s do but there’s no doubt that he continues to make progress,” Gaze said.<\/p>\n
A change in the structure of February’s All-Star weekend for the 2025\/26 season could work in the Australian duo’s favour.<\/p>\n
![\"Daniels](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/f66625a0-8d01-4041-8637-03c3379bc8c5.jpg\")
\n Not such a sure bet, but Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels is also a chance to see All-Star action. (AP PHOTO)<\/p>\n
This season, two teams of American stars and one featuring players from elsewhere, dubbed ‘Team World’, will play a round robin tournament.<\/p>\n
The move recognises the growing influence of overseas talent on the league, with Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander among the NBA superstars who hail from outside the US.<\/p>\n
The All-Star weekend has been criticised as gimmicky and uncompetitive in recent years and Gaze was glad to see the NBA experiment with the concept.<\/p>\n
“I came from an era when, sure, the All-Star game wasn’t blood, sweat and tears, but Magic (Johnson), Larry (Bird) and Michael (Jordan), that era, they were still competing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“(The NBA) needed to try something. It was unwatchable, as a basketball lover, watching the All-Star game previously, it was terrible. It was uncompetitive.”<\/p>\n