The NBA season is only a few weeks old, but already some players are standing out. Who deserves consideration for the 2020-21 NBA All-Star Team rosters?
The NBA All-Star voting is supposed to be well underway already. In a normal season, early January would mark the first wave of returns for All-Star voting. We would be in awe of LeBron James‘ vote totals, laughing at the European role player ranked too highly and arguing about the player in line to be “snubbed” by the voters.
In a year like no other, we are instead just reaching the three-week mark for the season. No player has logged more than 11 games. Bradley Beal leads the league with 315 points; Andre Drummond has both the most offensive rebounds and the most defensive rebounds, for a total of 152. Nikola Jokic, a center, paces the league with 104 assists. And of course Patrick Beverley leads the league in personal fouls with 42.
That doesn’t mean it’s too early to highlight which players have been balling out. In a condensed season, we likely already have a third or more of the information we will be using to vote on All-Stars. While there won’t be an actual game, there is the expectation of a similar process to honor players this season.
To check the pulse of the league three weeks in, we will fill out some way-too-early NBA All-Star Team rosters. To jog your memory, that means each starting lineup will have two backcourt players and three frontcourt players. All-Star reserves will be made up of two backcourt, three frontcourt and two “wild card” players. We will be fluid with positional determinations if necessary, but in the end that didn’t factor in.
One final note: given the small sample size and uneven games played due to COVID contract tracing and other factors, we will not factor games played into the mix too heavily. Additionally we won’t factor in a player’s stardom or overall ranking in the league except as a tiebreaker; for example Jimmy Butler is a much better player than some of those to make the Eastern Conference roster, but he didn’t make it because he hasn’t played as well as them.
We start in the East, where one surprise player sneaks his way into the group of deserving starters.