Devin Booker’s All-Star snub should foster selection changes
Devin Booker’s absence from the All-Star Game is another example of the need for the NBA to do away with conferences when it comes to the selection process.
From 2017-19, Devin Booker averaged 25.8 points, 5.8 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game with a true shooting percentage north of 57. Those figures were on par with the best the NBA had to offer over that period and certainly seemed All-Star worthy.
After all, the only other players to match or exceed those numbers were regulars at the midseason festivities, including names like LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant.
Alas, the Phoenix Suns won no more than 21 games either year, making it difficult for supporters of the electric 2-guard to cobble a legitimate argument over those whose efforts translated to more team success, fair or not.
So when Trae Young was named a 2020 All-Star starter for the Eastern Conference for the 12-36 Atlanta Hawks, the hypocrisy was clear as day.
The wrath only grew larger when Booker, who’s averaging a career-high 27.1 points to go with 6.4 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game and a true shooting mark of 63.7, couldn’t even crack the reserves out West in a statistical threshold all his own.
Mind you, these Suns are not showing the same ineptitude as in years past. They’re 11th in the conference and below .500, but they’ve already amassed 20 wins, eight more than Atlanta.
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Booker was emphatically told to get his wins up, only to watch as those same guidelines failed to apply on the other side of the country.
As the NBA continues to tinker with the weekend’s main event, from implementing a playground-style draft to the complex adjustments to honor the late great Kobe Bryant, how have they not taken measures to ensure the 24 players in the All-Star Game are indeed the best of the best?
The game itself might be meaningless with a level of competitive fervor that varies considerably, and yet those without a guaranteed spot seem to care a great deal. It’s factored into the legacies we so intensely examine and the money certain contracts give out.
Part of the problem also stems from the league’s indifference towards transitioning from the stiffness of filling rigged slots to the more position-less style that defines the game today.
Booker is currently having a better season than Brandon Ingram with the edge in advanced numbers such as PER, win shares, box plus/minus and VORP. His Suns have one more win and two fewer losses than Ingram’s New Orleans Pelicans.
But the latter is a forward and the former a guard. With Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell and Chris Paul already selected, there simply wasn’t any more room for Booker.
Ingram, on the other hand, had no issue asserting himself in a much less crowded field that included Paul George and his 21 missed games and Karl-Anthony Towns riding a personal 14-game losing streak.
There are some unfair aspects of the selection process that are out of the NBA’s control. They can’t make up for a gap in supporting talent that might contribute to an excess of wins for one player compared to another.
They can’t set up an objective value system when it comes to pit a player’s individual numbers against the overall success of his team.
What the league can do, however, is remove the potential roadblocks that stand in the way of the player’s path to the All-Star Game, where who they are is more important than who is or isn’t around them.
It might bring out the wrath of salty Eastern Conference owners who don’t want to see the scales tipped against their favor, but Booker is unquestionably an All-Star by every measure.
That he wasn’t officially named one isn’t an indictment on his game. It’s a glaring reminder of the one change the NBA should be making to the All-Star Game and how its unwillingness to do so continues to reward the circumstances it should be looking to remove.