All-Star Selections: Same Names, Same Mistakes

One of these two is having a phenomenally well-rounded season (18 ppg, 6 rpg, 8 apg, 2 spg) that's spurring his team ahead like an MVP, and the other is having a real stinker on a bad club that actually improves when he's not in the lineup. Too bad ASG rosters don't reflect this.The NBA announced the full rosters for the All-Star Game on Thursday and, as usual, most of the names on there were pretty familiar. A lot of the time, guys are named to the team simply because they’re perennial All-Stars. It’s sort of an entitlement thing—once you’ve been to four or five games, the fans and players automatically assume that you deserve to be there every year. But why does that have to be the case? The All-Star Game is a reward for performance during the 2011-12 regular season. I know that only amounts to about 27 games, but this isn’t the All-Star Game for the best players of the last decade. It’s the All-Star Game for the 2011-12 season. So, based on that criteria, here’s a look at some guys who made it based on reputation (because that’s how it always works) and some guys who missed (even though they shouldn’t have) because they lack that same name recognition.

They Made It Because They Always Make It

Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo is one of the most talented players in the NBA. He’s a fantastic scorer, especially at the end of games. These are facts. So are these:

1. The Knicks are 12-15 this season (9th in the East).
2. The Knicks are 10-12 when Carmelo plays.
3. New York is a worse team this year even though they added a great defensive center who leads the league in FG% at over 70%.
4. Carmelo is averaging 22 ppg, his lowest output since 2004-05.
5. He’s averaging 6 rpg, his lowest output since 2005-06.
6. He’s shooting 40% from the field, by far his lowest ever.
7. He ranks 100th out of 107 qualified players in FG%.
8. He attempts four three-pointers a game despite shooting just 30% on them (100th out of 114).

So why is Carmelo starting his third consecutive All-Star Game? Because of this fact:

1. Carmelo started the past two All-Star Games.

If you’re an established star in a big market, this is simply the way things work. As far as making it to the All-Star Game is concerned, helping your team win games is secondary to number of previous ASG appearances and name recognition.

Dirk Nowitzki

In June, 2011, Dirk was the best player in basketball. That’s the main reason Dirk will be in Orlando on February 26—not anything he’s done on the court this season. His stats, for Dirk, are terrible: 18 ppg, 6 rpg, 47% FG and an atrocious 25% 3FG. There are a bunch of reasons for that, some more valid than others. On the one hand, Dirk is 33 and is coming off a long, grueling postseason in which he played a lot of minutes at a very high level. He followed that up with an appearance for Germany at the EuroBasket tournament in September. Dirk knows that the Mavs are going to make the playoffs and he’s doesn’t want to overextend himself now, leaving him unable to peak in May and June. On the other hand, Dirk got much more rest for this season than usual, since the season started two months late. Kobe’s also 33 and is still managing to play at a high level even with a bum wrist. And Dallas isn’t exactly locked in to a playoff spot in the uber-competitive West; only two games separate 4th-place Dallas and 10th-place Memphis. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who’s at fault for Dirk’s sub-par season; we just have to admit that, to this point, Dirk hasn’t been Dirk. And that means that, no matter what he did in last year’s Finals, he shouldn’t be playing in the All-Star Game.

Paul Pierce

Like Dirk, Pierce looked old and slow coming out of the lockout. Unlike Dirk, who only started to resemble the old Dirk recently, Pierce has played well over the past couple weeks, keying a stretch in which the Celtics won 9 of 10 (all but the last three came without Rajon Rondo). His stats (apart from his 42% FG) are in line with what he’s averaged over the past couple seasons, but what it comes down to is that, in previous seasons, the Celtics and Pierce have started really strongly out of the gate whereas this season, both the player and the team stuttered. Electing Pierce based on what he’s done over a 10-15 game stretch isn’t really fair to someone like Paul Millsap, but since 10-15 games amounts to about half the season so far, it is a little bit more justified than usual. Pierce probably doesn’t deserve to be going, but I have a lot less qualms over his selection compared to that of Anthony or Nowitzki.

They Missed It Because They Always Miss It

Paul Millsap

Millsap had a great season last year that went unrecognized, and he seems destined to be the kind of player that everyone admits is underrated/helps a team win but that no one is willing to really recognize as a very, very good player. He’s averaging 16 ppg, 10 rpg (remember, he’s 6-foot-8), 1.4 steals per game, 51% FG and 81% FT and is the best player on a Jazz team that no one predicted to do anything this year (they’re 13-12, one game out of the six-seed). Seriously, C.J. Miles and Gordon Hayward are Utah’s #3 and #4 scorers. And this is a potential playoff team! Because Millsap is a second-rounder and a guy everyone’s always pegged as underrated, he’s never gotten his due as an elite rebounder and efficient scorer. This season, Millsap’s best in the league so far, deserves to be rewarded with a trip to the All-Star Game.

Ty Lawson

Like Millsap, Lawson has been the key to the surprising Nuggets’ success. The 5-foot-11 point guard, quite possibly the league’s fastest man, averages 15 ppg, 7 apg, 4 rpg, 1.5 steals per game and shoots 46%. What the stats don’t account for, though, Lawson’s ability to run the break and turn Denver into the league’s highest-scoring team at 104 ppg. Without someone as fast and well-conditioned as Lawson, the Nuggets couldn’t run their up-tempo offense every night, especially in a season as condensed as this one. Lawson’s speed and playmaking ability, however, leads to better opportunities for Danilo Gallinari, Al Harrington and Nene, a huge reason why Denver started the season so strongly. It’s hard to tell who the Nuggets will be for the rest of the season: the team that’s dropped seven of its last eight or the team that won eight of nine immediately preceding that run, including a 13-point victory over the Heat and five straight on the road. Lawson’s been fantastic for the majority of the season (and it would be hard for voters to fully incorporate Denver’s recent slide since the full rosters were released on Thursday), which should outweigh his team’s less-than-stellar recent play.

Kyle Lowry

Lowry’s been one of the league’s best points this season, but, like Lawson, a recent poor stretch of form (Lowry’s came in the second half of January), derailed any sleeper All-Star potential Lowry may have had. The Rockets have exceeded expectations this season (noticing a trend among these snubbed players?) and are on a 13-4 run after a slow start out of the gates. Lowry only shoots 41% from the field, though that figure is deceiving because of a few horrible performances (including a 4-for-29 three-game stretch vs. Milwaukee, Washington and New York on Jan. 25-28). The bottom line is that Lowry (15 ppg, 8 apg, 6 rpg, 2.0 steals per game) is a quality defender, fills up the stat sheet and a key reason a shallow Houston squad is fifth in a deep Western Conference right now. Is that any less impressive than what Steve Nash or Tony Parker have been doing? No, but because they’ve been doing it for longer, Lowry misses out.