The NBA All-Star Game is cursed. That is all.
Personal feelings aside on how fan voting impacts the overall scheme of the All-Star Game, it’s been a hectic few weeks for some of the NBA’s best. Kobe Bryant was voted in somehow, Dwight Howard wasn’t selected but wouldn’t be playing in it anyway, Anthony Davis got hurt and Blake Griffin had surgery.
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In the Western Conference, if you’re alive and walking, you will get considered into the All-Star game.
So, when it was announced Davis would miss the All-Star Game (which is well deserved, as his MVP numbers would explain), there were a plethora of names that could’ve been inserted as replacements.
DeAndre Jordan, the primary example, comes to mind. If you’re grabbing 14 rebounds per game, you should get some consideration. Then there are other bigs like Serge Ibaka and Zach Randolph that come to mind.
None of them made it. Not one of those three names I just mentioned got any consideration.
The one who replaced Davis? Dirk Nowitzki.
Dirk was named to his 13th All-Star game, an incredible feat the likes of which only a select few players have been named that many times. He’s a class act personified, we all know this, and is a first-ballot Hall of Famer when all is said and done.
All of these things we already know. Dirk is great, has been great and will continue to be great until he decides to retire his one-legged fadeaway. He deserves to be an All-Star once again.
But he deserves it for all the wrong reasons: The same wrong reasons that Tim Duncan was named an All-Star, and the same wrong reasons Kobe was even voted as a starter in the first place.
Not many players have made the overall international impact that Dirk has. Only a select few can lay claim that they have made an impact globally, and Dirk is on that list. He’s a legend that’s still playing and continues to be an impact player.
Even in a down year, Dirk continues to lead the Dallas Mavericks in a crowded Western Conference. They’re the fifth seed in the West and slightly behind Houston and Portland for the fourth and third seeds respectively. Dirk is averaging 18.3 points per game on 46.7 percent shooting and 36 percent from 3-point range. Respectable numbers, even by Dirk’s standards and his age.
But did Dirk really deserve an All-Star bid over guys like DeAndre Jordan, Zach Randolph or Serge Ibaka? Or even his own teammates like Monta Ellis and Tyson Chandler?
No, he did not.
It’s not an insult to Dirk. In fact, he probably would’ve enjoyed the week off than have to play 5-10 minutes in the All-Star game. If you recall last year’s All-Star game, which was definitely deserved for Dirk, he was the only player who didn’t score a single point in that game.
You really think he cares about being there, when he’d probably rather spend time at home with his wife, who by the way, is about a month away from giving birth to their second child?
Commissioner Adam Silver had to make the decision, but the reality of the situation is that there are players who deserve the nod more than Dirk, and Dirk would probably be fine with that if you asked him.
But then we go back to him deserving it for all the wrong reasons. Tim Duncan was named an All-Star once again, and just like the last few years, it’s been mainly due to the legend treatment. Other times, you can definitely say Duncan is deserving because the San Antonio Spurs ran roughshod through the NBA at this point.
If not for Duncan, the Spurs would not be sniffing the playoffs right now. He’s averaging 14.5 points and 10 rebounds per game. He’s keeping San Antonio alive at the No. 7 seed.
So the NBA is telling us he deserves being an All-Star more than Randolph, who’s averaging almost 17 points and 12 rebounds per game?
Same goes for Kobe. Even when he was playing, the Los Angeles Lakers were (and still are) a walking abomination that even evil foreign powers would be afraid of. Yet, because he’s a legend, Kobe will be voted in as an All-Star, and maybe even a starter, until he is 70 years old.
That same argument can be used for Carmelo Anthony in the Eastern Conference, but that’s a debate for another day.
Even young players are getting All-Star consideration and aren’t deserving of it. Damian Lillard has the Portland Trail Blazers sitting pretty in the third seed, and his teammate LaMarcus Aldridge is having another MVP-caliber season. Yet his pouting and absurd whining got him an All-Star nod.
So we’re just going to ignore the fact that Lillard shot 37 percent throughout the entire month of January, and only one member of the Memphis Grizzlies made the All-Star team? Mike Conley, despite not scoring as much as Lillard, should have been an All-Star.
The day the NBA All-Star Game stops being a popularity contest and actually rewards players for the work they’ve done throughout the season, the world will be a better place. Four members of the Atlanta Hawks made the All-Star Game. It’s acceptable because the Hawks are the best team in the NBA right now and the only thing that can remotely stop them right now is a nuclear war.
The NBA got it right with having Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson both in the game. It took them forever to get it right regarding DeMarcus Cousins.
It’s a never-ending cycle, and Dirk just happens to be right in the middle of it. It’s not his fault he’s in the All-Star Game. For his work throughout his career, Dirk deserves to be in the game. If we’re going off that logic, so does Duncan and even Kobe.
The legend treatment for the All-Star Game is a good idea, but it’s also terrible. The NBA doesn’t have a criteria of who should be an All-Star. If it did, Kyle Korver wouldn’t be playing in the game. It’s a crime that the likes of Randolph, Conley, Jordan and others didn’t make it. The argument before was that there were too many good players at every position. What’s the argument now?
Unfortunately for Dirk, he just happened to fall in the vicious cycle of the legend treatment. For being a legend alone, he deserves it. People should be happy for Dirk because he’s getting such recognition for the years he’s put in for the Mavericks, as well as the NBA.
But in the grand scheme of things, Dirk shouldn’t have been in. He deserves it, but he doesn’t deserve it.
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