After months of voting between the fans, media, and players, the final list of NBA All-Stars was finally revealed this week. On Thursday, it was the reserves who got revealed and the West was up first with some familiar names: Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Devin Booker, Anthony Edwards, Stephen Curry, Paul George, and Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns.
The East continued the heavy focus on winning and rewarded many of the guys on top-performing teams in the Conference. The East reserves include Jaylen Brown, Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Bam Adebayo, Julius Randle, Tyrese Maxey, and Paolo Banchero.
The starters, which were revealed last week, showed interesting trends across the NBA and the reserves reflect a similar trend of the way that things are leaning. In today’s score-first league, those who can rack up the points are playing in these games. All-in-all, while it’s a solid roster, fans still had their usual gripes with the results and many of them took to social media to get their point across.
Who Are The Biggest Snubs?
As far as snubs go, it didn’t take the fans long to notice some very deserving players who missed out on the prestigious recognition. In the East, Trae Young was arguably the biggest guard who didn’t get the recognition. He’s averaging 27.0 points and 10.9 assists and still didn’t get any love from the coaches or media.
No Trae young? … wild pic.twitter.com/1k7q4xTK5j
— BiggBreeze (@BigBreezy29) February 2, 2024
Scottie Barnes is another player who has a case to be in the game, but it seems his time has not yet come.
https://twitter.com/omnipotent32/status/1753212294236897555
Again, the focus this season seems to really be about winning and any player whose team was below .500 really hurt their chances of All-Star recognition. Of course, in the West we see the same rule followed but there were still a few players who controversially missed the cut.
Domantas Sabonis is one such West star, and his exclusion from the list is surprising, considering the Kings are 5th in the West.
https://twitter.com/RareGoatee/status/1753209475844931674
Victor Wembanyana and Alperen Sengun might have made the cut had their teams been performing better, but the standards are higher than ever before with the new NBA and only those who can win at the highest level will be rewarded with accolades. Ike it or not, these are the final rosters and the fact that it’s so stacked speaks volumes about the talent level across the league.
The NBA Is Changing
Right before our eyes, we’re seeing a new generation take over the NBA landscape. While many veterans and multiple-time All-Stars are there (like Giannis, Lillard, LeBron, and Kevin Durant) some of them (like Stephen Curry) came off the bench for the first time in years and there were many young players and under-25-year-olds who were among the leading vote-getters. Luka Doncic was among them and he’s on pace to be one of the best players ever with a ridiculous scoring pace and near nightly heroic performances. There’s also 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey, who has busted out into a borderline top-10 player this season with averages of 25.7 points, 6.6 assists, and 3.6 rebounds per game on 44.8% shooting.
Of course, the lack of bigs is also notable. Besides Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, and arguably Bam Adebayo, the All-Star game doesn’t have any true big men, and guys like Rudy Gobert and Domantas Sabonis lost out on their recognition this year. Whatever the case, the All-Star show is shaping up to be quite the event this year and the weekend itself is drawing much anticipation between the game and the three-point contest between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu. Let’s just hope the dunk contest finally improves after years of disappointing showings.
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