Who Got Snubbed? Breaking Down the Final NBA All-Star Rosters

Looking at first-time All-Stars, snubs and more as the final rosters for the NBA All-Star Game are announced.

The All-Star Game seemingly nobody wants to play in got its official rosters Tuesday night. The NBA announced the seven reserves in each conference who will be joining the 10 starters in Atlanta on March 7. In the West, Chris Paul, Paul George, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Zion Williamson and Anthony Davis were named All-Stars. (Davis will likely be replaced due to injury.) Joining them in the East will be James Harden, Julius Randle, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Zach LaVine, Ben Simmons and Nikola Vucevic. Here are some thoughts on the final selections…

Who got snubbed?

The first thing people want to talk about when the rosters are named is who was left off the list. LeBron James fired the first salvo, tweeting his support for Devin Booker. I don’t know that there are any egregious snubs. Somebody is always going to get left off the list. In the West, De’Aaron Fox and Mike Conley (in addition to Booker) had good cases...but who would they be replacing? The conference remains loaded despite the recent exodus of talent. Davis’s Achilles injury will create room for at least one more person. A Conley pick would give the Jazz three All-Stars, a handsome reward for their surprising first-place surge through the first half of the season.

Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports

In the East, people will most likely be up in arms over Nikola Vucevic’s inclusion. It’s important to note coaches vote on the reserves. Vooch may not receive national attention, but he’s been an incredibly productive player for multiple seasons now on a Magic team that’s always a few degrees more frisky than given credit for. His teammate Aaron Gordon may have stolen more All-Star Weekend headlines in his career, but Vucevic is the better player. Having said all of that, it’s a little surprising to see Bam Adebayo not on the team. Perhaps Adebayo is paying the price for the Heat’s up-and-mostly-down season, but he would have been a worthy choice in this place. (His teammate, Jimmy Butler, has missed too many games.) Another player with a strong argument to be included is Bucks’ swingman Khris Middleton, who is basically averaging 20/6/6 a night and is only a few free throws away from a 50/40/90 season. But particularly with the East being so bunched up this season, thus mostly taking away the “team success” qualifier, these picks mostly stand the test of time.

Julius Randle! And Zach LaVine!

Two players who upset the apple cart this season are Randle and LaVine, who have put up huge numbers for two franchises (the Knicks and Bulls) that have been devoid of any highs the last few seasons. They are both more than deserving picks after coming into this season with no hype. The Knicks and Bulls would both be in the playoffs if they started today, and Randle and LaVine are the biggest reasons why. If anything, it’s a bummer their first All-Star games will come in a compromised product. The two players are having seasons that deserve all the normal bells and whistles that come with All-Star Weekend. Hopefully they have more selections in their future.

The Celtics’ Jaylen Brown will also be headed to Atlanta for his first All-Star appearance. Though Boston is in the midst of a slide that nearly seemingly every East time is going to have this season, he’s also putting up a spectacular season. This seems like it should be the first of many times both Brown and Tatum will be headed to All-Star Weekend as a pair.

In addition to the above three, the Pelicans’ Williamson will be making likely the first of many appearances in this game. Only in his second season, Zion is averaging a knee-slapping 25/7/3 on 61.6% shooting from the field. If there is a basketball god, we will see LeBron and Zion throwing alley-oops to each other in Atlanta.

So, Do the Rules Need to Change?

For people upset about players left off, there’s a decent argument for expanding the number of selections. NBA active rosters themselves are 14 players (as opposed to only 12 for the All-Star teams.) And with the two two-way contracts allotted per club, there are more guys than ever playing night in and night out, especially compared to when the rules were set. Personally, I like the limited rosters! Usually I’m all for players being included, after all, this game is mostly meaningless. But the smaller number of selections makes the honor that much greater. If I were offering tweaks, I would start with a) eliminating the conference distinctions, especially considering the team captain format and b) maybe adding a specialist role for each team as a 13th player. I have no idea how this specialist thing would work in practice as opposed to just selecting the next best guy, but it would be fun if a shooter like Duncan Robinson or Joe Harris or a dunker like Gordon was thrown into the mix just to introduce some chaos. No matter what the NBA decides, you are going to care a lot less about this on March 8.