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NBA: The 25 best NBA players never to make an All-Star game

By Josh Cornelissen

DENVER - NOVEMBER 9: Marcus Camby #23 of the Denver Nuggets pumps his fist after a big play against the Sacramento Kings in the fourth quarter on November 9, 2005 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
DENVER - NOVEMBER 9: Marcus Camby #23 of the Denver Nuggets pumps his fist after a big play against the Sacramento Kings in the fourth quarter on November 9, 2005 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /
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Rod Strickland
Rod Strickland (Mandatory Credit: Doug Pensinger /Allsport) /

The 25 best NBA players never to make an All-Star game — 2. Rod Strickland

14 times in the history of the NBA has a player made an All-NBA team after not making the All-Star roster earlier in said season. The math holds up — only 15 players are named to an All-NBA team, while 24 plus injury replacements make the All-Star rosters. Generally, this happened when a player had a strong close to the season after a middling start.

Of those 14, nine would make an All-Star game in another season. Two more had their careers cut short (Drazen Petrovic and Phil Ford). Two more were centers, which sometimes were shoehorned in as All-NBA selections because of the positional requirements of that list.

The final player is Rod Strickland, a distributing point guard who spent his career locked into good-but-not-great teams. He made the playoffs 11 times in a 17 year career, but only advanced past the first round twice. His best seasons in terms of team success came alongside David Robinson on the San Antonio Spurs early in his career. As he became a more prolific passer and scorer, the quality of his teammates dropped off and he struggled to win at a high level. In the 1994-95 season with the Portland Trail Blazers, he put up 23.3 points and 12.3 assists per game in the postseason, only to be swept in the first round by the Phoenix Suns.

He was a willing passer, setting up teammates as he knifed inside. Seven times Strickland ranked in the top-five in assists per game, including a league-leading 10.5 per game in the 1997-98 season. For his career, he is 12th in total assists, joining Andre Miller as the only players in the top 20 without an All-Star nod.

Closest Call: In the 1997-98 season, Strickland was at the peak of his prime, putting up per-game averages of 17.8 points, a league-leading 10.5 assists and 1.7 steals per game; he even pulled in a career-best 5.3 rebounds per game. At the end of the season, he was named to the All-NBA Second Team. Yet, somehow he was a complete after-thought in All-Star voting (not even placing in the top-10 in voting at his position) and missed out on the game entirely.