Whether you agree with it or not, the NBA will be holding an all-star game on March 7.
The league announced its starters Thursday, with Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid getting the nod in the East, and Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James and Nikola Jokic making up the starters from the West.
All 10 of these players are very much deserving of the honour and there should be no issues about their all-star legitimacy at all.
Now we get into the more interesting conversation of who should be named as the 14 other all-star reserves.
Given the nature of this NBA season — one fraught with much parity — there are many deserving candidates on teams up and down the standings, whose records shouldn’t necessarily hold them back. Therefore, the amount of all-star “snubs” will likely be high.
Here’s a look at who we believe should be named to the all-star reserves this year.
Eastern Conference
G: James Harden
G: Jaylen Brown
F/C: Khris Middleton
F/C: Jayson Tatum
F/C: Bam Adebayo
WC: Ben Simmons
WC: Fred VanVleet
There are some very obvious picks here that we figure are veritable locks to make the team, such as Harden, Tatum, Brown and Middleton. But the other three spots (the remaining forward/centre and two wild cards) are much more difficult to decide because of the sheer number of deserving candidates.
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Starting with that forward/centre spot, though his team hasn’t been much good, Adebayo still deserves an all-star nod as an acknowledgement of his status as one of the game’s top big men on both ends of the floor.
There are other candidates you could look for here, such as the Toronto Raptors’ Pascal Siakam and the New York Knicks’ Julius Randle, both of whom are putting up bigger scoring numbers than Adebayo and are on teams with better records. But Adebayo is the choice here because of what he can do as a centre on offence and defence.
As for the two wild cards, Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young and the Chicago Bulls’ Zach LaVine will likely be popular picks. Both players have been excellent this season and are in the top 10 in scoring.
However, with Adebayo already kind of representing the mediocre, play-in-tournament-bound clubs among the reserves, adding a couple of other players from similar circumstances didn’t feel right. Instead, we went with Simmons of the Eastern Conference-leading Philadelphia 76ers and VanVleet from the Raptors.
The Simmons pick is an easy one. The 76ers are the East’s best team and deserve multiple all-stars because of it, and so adding Simmons, Philadelphia’s second-best player this season, makes the most sense.
As for VanVleet, while a bit of a homer pick, there’s good reasoning why he should be made an all-star, too. He’s been Toronto’s best and most consistent player all season long, had one of this season’s signature moments when he went off for a career-high, franchise-record 54 points. Plus, despite a 2-8 start, Toronto’s currently sixth in the East and looked to have nearly turned their season around thanks to VanVleet’s rock-solid play.
Toronto deserves to have an all-star, and if it’s only going to be one, then VanVleet is the guy.
Western Conference
G: Damian Lillard
G: Donovan Mitchell
F/C: Rudy Gobert
F/C: Paul George
F/C: Zion Williamson
WC: Mike Conley
WC: Chris Paul
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Like with the Eastern Conference, there are some very obvious selections, such as Damian Lillard (who probably should’ve been named a starter, but oh well) and Paul George.
Another no-brainer is Anthony Davis of the Los Angeles Lakers, who we very much believe will be named as one of the forward/centres, but he’s expected to miss at least four weeks with a calf injury likely to be replaced. The best candidate for that would be one of Williamson or Brandon Ingram on the New Orleans Pelicans, with the forer being the better choice as he’s not only been slightly more productive than his teammate, but will provide the game with the highlights people hope to see at an all-star event.
While they weren’t given the recognition they deserve among the starters, the Utah Jazz should have a big presence at the all-star game and that’s why we’re saying three Jazz players will be named reserves in Mitchell, Gobert and Conley.
A quick glance at the standings will tell you why this must happen. While this has been a bizarre, parity-filled season, Utah stands alone as the one true dominant team in the league.
Lastly, getting back to the Davis situation for just a moment, the likely need for an all-star replacement opens up a lot of possibilities for the final wild-card spot.
Should Davis actually be able to participate, this would likely belong to Williamson, but with it open, you can have players like Devin Booker, Jamal Murray, Ingram, Ja Morant and on and on.
However, the player most deserving for that last wild-card spot is Paul. Even though there’s certainly an argument to be made that Booker is Phoenix’s best player, the transformation the Suns have made this season can be directly tied to Paul’s arrival in the desert after he was traded there in the off-season. At 35 years young, Paul is seventh in the NBA in assists and is still able to impact winning in a huge way. The “Point God” deserves to be named an all-star for an 11th time.
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