The 6 greatest NBA players to never make an All-Star Team
By Elaine Blum
Non-All-Star #2: Jason Terry
On draft day in 1999, Jason Terry was the 10th overall pick and in the 19 seasons since that day, he put together a solid career. Terry played for the Hawks, Celtics, Nets, Rockets, and Bucks, averaging 13.4 points on efficient shooting, 2.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.1 steals.
He was at his best with the Dallas Mavericks, though. In August of 2004, the Hawks traded Terry and Alan Henderson to Dallas in exchange for Antoine Walker and Tony Delk. Despite being the replacement for Steve Nash, whom the team let walk in free agency to the dislike of many fans, Terry quickly became a fan favorite.
With the Mavericks, he won Sixth Man of the Year in 2009 as well as the 2011 NBA championship and became only the fifth player to score 30 or more points in his first Finals game, joining Michael Jordan, Shawn Kemp, Tim Duncan, and Allen Iverson. That is elite company but the biggest difference between Terry and the other four is that Terry never made an All-Star team.
When he won Sixth Man of the Year, Terry averaged 19.6 points, 1.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.2 steals. A couple of years earlier, in 2000-01, Terry averaged similar numbers with 19.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and 1.3 steals. From the 2000-01 season to 2012-13, he averaged double digits every season and shot more than 35 percent from three in all but one.
Those have been All-Star numbers in other cases and Terry did it consistently for a long time. Nevertheless, it was never quite enough to get him the All-Star nod.