With February quickly approaching, the discussion for who belongs on an All-Star team this year is the hot topic in the minds of many.
The time for fans to vote in the starters is officially over, and the coaches can then consider who they’ll want to select as the reserves of their respective conferences. I’ve already put plenty of thought into this (which you can check here), but we’ll have to see what the fans did first before going into detail on who should be selected as a reserve.
The opinions, though, aren’t limited to just the fans, writers and coaches. The players, of course, also have a lot to say when it comes to who has played like an All-Star in their minds, and it’s a different perspective because they actually play against each other.
Mo Williams, who poured in a career-high 52 points against the Indiana Pacers last week and received Player of the Week honors on Monday, provided his input on who should be selected as All-Stars this year for each conference:
Starters LeBron James Carmelo Anthony Pau Gasol Dwyane Wade John Wall Reserves AL horford Paul… http://t.co/dIDmObepm1
— Mo Williams (@mowilliams) January 21, 2015
Starters Anthony Davis Blake Griffin Kevin Durant Kobe Bryant Steph Curry Reserves Damian… http://t.co/dIm9G6IFqV
— Mo Williams (@mowilliams) January 21, 2015
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and Williams certainly provided his.
That said, I am going to question just a couple of things here: where is Jimmy Butler on the list? I can understand the desire to put in Wade as the starter given his star status (even though his team positively stinks with an 18-23 record), but Butler couldn’t even make it to the “honorable mentions” list? Butler has arguably been the best player for the fourth best team in the East, so it is certainly curious to see him nowhere near this list in favor of names like Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, Joakim Noah and DeMar DeRozan – none who have come close to playing at the same level as Butler this season on both ends of the floor (even when healthy!).
Also, did Williams really put Kobe Bryant in as the starter? This season? Over James Harden, a clear MVP candidate? Are we talking about the same Bryant who has missed eight games just for resting purposes and is shooting 37.2 percent from the field on 20.6 shot attempts? The one whose team record is 12-30? You can’t help the fans voting Bryant in over Harden: that’s just something we all have to live with regardless of knowing just how wrong it is. An active NBA player, though? In the words of Mark Jackson, you’re better than that, Mo.
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Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
Other than KD/Marc, Mo put all the top vote getters from the most recent voting results in as starters. That seemed obvious.
Actually, he specifically stated he would put out a personal list of All-Stars from each conference, hence the difference between starting KD over Gasol and some of the weird reserve selections.
It’s his list, but he didn’t ignore fan voting when picking his starters. That or he did ignore fan voting, and picked 9/10 the same anyway. Seems more likely that he assumes KD will pass Marc Gasol by the time the final fan vote results come out, rather than he actually thinks Kobe deserves to be there. He specifically mentions body of work – everyone has a different definition of body of work, but that would likely eliminate Kobe (poor play), and KD (missed half the games) etc.