Today, the NBA all star reserves were named which means barring any injuries and/or players pulling out, the final player pool for the 2020 All Star game. With the rosters being finalized, comes all the fanfare and media propaganda of who got snubbed from the team. Obviously, the hardest part of naming someone a snub is that you have to knock someone off who got selected. We are going to look at who I believe to be the biggest snubs from each conference.
The way I look at snubs is pretty simple. I just look at who was selected and if someone makes me say “what the fuck?” (sorry Mom), I vote that player off and find someone who I think to be more deserving. This was pretty tough this year because the player that made me do this for the Eastern Conference was Toronto Raptor point guard, Kyle Lowry. Look, Lowry is having a fine season and the Raptors deserve to have two all-stars, I will admit that. However, Bradley Beal is putting on a show in Washington. Beal is currently third in the Eastern Conference in scoring with 28.6 points per game behind Trae Young and Giannis. His Wizards are not a great team but they are only five games out of the eight seed in the East. He has virtually the same shooting percentages as Lowry and is asked to do a lot more than Lowry. To be fair, Lowry does have a higher win share, but the Raptors also have more wins. My personal belief is that Beal was snubbed because of the season the Wizards are having as a team. Now, I know what you may be thinking; that doesn’t make sense since Trae Young is a starter. To that I will say, I agree with you, but Trae is a starter largely because of the fan voting aspect and because the ballot classifies Jimmy Butler as a forward instead of a guard, which is ridiculous but that is a story for another day. If the ballot classified Butler as a guard, then it would probably mean that Beal still would not be an all star, but it would be because of Trae Young and not Kyle Lowry, which would have been much more respectable to me.
The Western Conference, as always, is tougher than the East. This one hurt me a little to say because I love this player I am about to boot off the roster. First of all, Devin Booker should be in this game. I’m tired of people not showing this man’s game the respect it deserves. Booker was the butt of a lot of jokes the past few seasons as he was asked to do so much facilitating for the Suns offense, they wanted him to be James Harden. With the arrival of Ricky Rubio, this offseason, Booker has been able to go back to what he is meant to be, a phenomenal off-ball guard who can score the hell out of the basketball; and that is exactly what he has done. He’s averaging 27.1 points per game on 51% shooting, while posting a player efficiency rating of 21.5 (an average rating would generally be 15). Again, just like Beal, Booker’s team is not having a great level of success, but definitely are not playing like the worst team in the league. To me, Booker has to be on this roster, but that means I would have to take off my guy, Chris Paul. CP3 is averaging 17 points per game this year while shooting 47.8% from the floor and posting a PER of 21.1, he is having a nice statistical season. Looking deeper than the stats, Paul has really been fantastic for the Thunder this year and it’s hard for me to take him off. I definitely understand why the coaches voted him on as a reserve because the leadership and play he has brought to the Thunder have made them a fairly dangerous team this season when no one was really that hopeful for them. However, this is the all star game, it’s a night of entertainment and Booker is just more entertaining in an all star setting than Chris Paul; what more does Booker have to do?
While there are other arguments to be made, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker will be like you and I an spectating the NBA All Star game instead of playing like they should be.
