The All-Star Game, apparently no one wants to play, got its official rosters on Tuesday night. The NBA announced in each conference the seven reserves who will join the 10 starters in Atlanta on March 7. In the West, Chris Paul, Paul George, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Zion Williamson and Anthony Davis were named All. Stars. (Davis will likely be replaced due to injury.) James Harden, Julius Randle, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Zach LaVine, Ben Simmons and Nikola Vucevic will join them in the east. Here are some thoughts on the final selections …
Who has been rejected?
The first thing people want to talk about when the rosters are mentioned is who wasn’t on the list. LeBron James fired the first salvo, tweet his support for Devin BookerI don’t know if there are any blatant comments. Someone will always be left off the list. In the West, De’Aaron Fox and Mike Conley (alongside Booker) had good business … but who would they replace? The conference remains loaded despite the recent exodus of talent. Davis’ Achilles tendon injury will create room for at least one extra person. A Conley pick would give the Jazz three All-Stars, a nice reward for their surprising first place finish in the first half of the season.
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In the East, people will most likely embrace the rapture of Nikola Vucevic. It is important to note that coaches vote on reserves. Vooch may not get national attention, but he has been an incredibly prolific player on a Magic team for several seasons now that is always a few degrees more playful than thought. His teammate Aaron Gordon may have stolen more All-Star Weekend headlines in his career, but Vucevic is the better player. Having said all that, it’s a bit surprising to see that Bam Adebayo isn’t on the team. Maybe Adebayo is paying the price for the Heat’s up-and-down season, but he would have been a worthy choice in this place. (His teammate, Jimmy Butler, has missed too many games.) Another player with strong arguments for inclusion is Bucks’ swingman Khris Middleton, who basically averages 20/6/6 a night and only a few free throws away from a 50/40/90 season. But mainly because the East is so packed this season, usually taking away the qualification for ‘team success’, these choices usually stand the test of time.
Julius Randle! And Zach LaVine!
Two players who have upset the apple cart this season are Randle and LaVine, who have put in huge numbers for two franchises (the Knicks and Bulls) that had no highs in recent seasons. They are both more than creditable choices after starting this season without hype. The Knicks and Bulls would both be in the playoffs if they started today, and Randle and LaVine are the biggest reasons why. In any case, it’s a bummer that their first All-Star games come in a compromised product. The two players have seasons that earn all the normal bells and whistles that come with All-Star Weekend. Hopefully they have more selections in their future.
Jaylen Brown of the Celtics is also heading to Atlanta for his first All-Star appearance. While Boston is in the middle of a slide that will have nearly every Eastern time this season, he’s also putting on a spectacular season. This seems like it should be the first of many times that both Brown and Tatum are going to All-Star Weekend as a couple.
In addition to the three above, Williamson of the Pelicans will likely make the first of many appearances in this game. Only in his second season did Zion score an average of 7/25/3 on knees of 61.6% from the field. If there’s a basketball god we’ll see LeBron and Zion throw each other alley-oops at each other in Atlanta.
Should the rules change?
For people who are angry about players who have quit, there is a good argument for expanding the number of selections. The active NBA rosters themselves are 14 players (as opposed to just 12 for the All-Star teams.) And with the two two-way contracts assigned per club, there are more guys than ever playing in and out that night, especially compared to when the rules were established. I personally like the limited rosters! Most of the time I’m all for players to be included, after all, this game is mostly pointless. But the smaller number of selections makes the honor all the greater. If I offered tweaks, I would start with a) eliminating the conference differences, especially given the team captain’s format and b) perhaps adding a specialist role for each team as a 13th player. I have no idea how this specialist thing would work in practice as opposed to selecting the next best man, but it would be nice if a shooter like Duncan Robinson or Joe Harris or a dunker like Gordon were thrown into the mix to introduce a few. chaos. Whatever the NBA decides, you’re going to care a lot less about this on March 8.