Another year of the NBA, a new take on the NBA All-Star game, and somehow they keep finding new ways to disappoint us. At least I can say that this is the first time I have seen the All-Star game underwhelm the masses before the game itself is even played. How in the world do they expect us to watch this game with three of the NBA’s best players watching courtside?
I have seen snubs before, but I’ve never seen them in such volume like we have this year. It shows me that it’s time for the NBA to REALLY overhaul the All-Star game. I know they’ve made changes to try to spruce it up by doing a draft, and having two teams with a mix of East and West players, but it only feels like a half measure to me.
They need to COMPLETELY change it and make the All-Star game about the BEST players in the league. It’s pathetic to look at the stat-lines from some of the players coming out of the Eastern Conference and compare them to players in the Western Conference who were snubbed this year.
You can’t sit there and tell me that Bradley Beal and Kyle Lowry deserve to be playing in the All-Star game over Lou Williams or Chris Paul. Paul is averaging 19 PTS, 5.9 REB, and 8.9 AST with a whopping 25.6 PER. That’s the 6th highest PER in the league and the other five players ahead of him are all All-Star starters. Williams is averaging 23.3 PTS and 5.1 AST with a 22.5 PER and is easily the Clippers best player this year. Lowry and Beal both have below a 20 PER, with pretty decent stats themselves, but not so great that they deserve to be playing in the game over the two clearly superior West guards in Paul and Williams.
In what universe do Al Horford and Draymond Green deserve to play in the All-Star game over Paul George this year?
This might be the first time that I have ever agreed with Russell Westbrook on anything:
Russell Westbrook called it “outrageous” that Paul George was not named an All-Star: pic.twitter.com/62vmKKbFSx
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) January 24, 2018
Now I know he’s just going to bat for Paul George here, but this pertains to this year’s three big snubs.
The Warriors don’t need four players in the All-Star game, especially when two of them, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, don’t deserve to be there. It’s frustrating to watch the NBA screw this up so badly when I actually really like All-Star weekend. I used to countdown the days until the Dunk Contest and the All-Star game, but over the years the entire weekend of All-Star festivities has just become a big pile of “meh”.
Luckily, I have two ways that they can fix it.
Just make the game about the best players in the NBA. Don’t make it about the best players in each individual conference. If they are going to go the route of doing a draft and have players from each conference mixed anyway, just go all out and make it about being an All-Star for the ENTIRE league instead of breaking it up between the East and the West.
I would much rather see ALL of the best players in the NBA competing against each other, than forcing voters, coaches, etc. to pick players based on skill AND conference. Just have the BEST players play.
My second fix is by only allowing a maximum of two players from each team. Not every team in the NBA is going to get an All-Star selection, that’s fine, but there is absolutely no reason that almost an entire starting lineup from one single team should all make it as an All-Star.
I hate the popularity contest shenanigans that go along with this game. I’m not talking about the voting either. I’m talking about the reserve selections. Every year it never fails that a player having a great season gets snubbed because they just aren’t as popular as the “other guy”.
The NBA is going to sit there and try to convince me that the Warriors’ 3rd and 4th best players deserve to be All-Stars over the Rockets’ 2nd best player? I’m sorry, I’m not buying it.
Yet again the NBA All-Star game isn’t going to have all of the best players playing in it, which means it’s going to be terrible—as always.
Until they decide to make some fundamental changes to the way the All-Star game is run, and how the All-Stars themselves are picked, it’s going to continue to be forgettable NBA programming and that’s a shame.
