Why LaMelo Ball is such a glaring All-Star Game snub

LaMelo Ball is not an All-Star this year. He could theoretically get in as an injury replacement. The Charlotte Hornets guard is probably first or second (maybe Trae Young) in line for that. However, that would require his ankle healing and someone else in the East getting hurt.
The numbers are there for Ball to have made it in some capacity. It's understandable that he didn't make it as a starter, but there's no planet where a player with the fourth-most points and the ninth-most assists (and 13th-most rebounds among all guards, which includes some players who play forward spots, too) per game isn't All-Star-worthy.
There's no illusion about why Ball didn't get in. His team has 12 wins. Coaches tend to favor that, and they made it clear that it was important in the selections this time. The Cleveland Cavaliers got three total All-Stars, two of which were reserves. Obviously, winning teams got the boost in the voting.
Nowhere in the voting process does it state that a player must have a specific team record or a certain winning percentage. There is no caveat to the voting process. Team record, with the first word being absolutely key, is also not an individual stat. By its very definition, it's how the entire team performs.
Ball is just one of five people on the court at a given time. He's one of maybe eight to 10 that will play throughout a 48-minute game. He can only do so much to influence a win, and holding any single player to a team standard is wholly unfair. Tyler Herro isn't solely responsible for the Miami Heat's record. Cade Cunningham isn't solely responsible for the Detroit Pistons being solid.
This is endemic in the sports world. It's not just basketball, although it might be most prevalent there. There were baseball fans who complained when Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout won MVPs for the Los Angeles Angels that they couldn't possibly be valuable because their team didn't make the playoffs.
Eastern Conference All-Star Reserves:
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) January 30, 2025
- Darius Garland
- Damian Lillard
- Jaylen Brown
- Evan Mobley
- Tyler Herro
- Cade Cunningham
- Pascal Siakam
This is such a poor argument against a player. Putting in players with worse stats just because their team is better is not the way to honor actual All-Stars. There are a lot of deserving guards in the East, but let me know when Ball gets the teammates they have.
Ball doesn't get to play with Evan Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, and Jarrett Allen. He also doesn't get to play with Jimmy Butler (sometimes) and Bam Adebayo. He doesn't have Jayson Tatum as a running mate. Ball doesn't have Giannis Antetokounmpo on his squad.
Ball sometimes has Mark Williams, Brandon Miller, and Miles Bridges. With respect to them, they're not All-Stars. Miller is a Rising Star, but he's only played 27 games this year and won't see the floor again. Bridges has missed 14 games and his 19.0 points per game doesn't exactly scream starpower. Mark Williams has only played in 20 games. His 15.5 points and 9.4 rebounds per game aren't necessarily All-Star level, either. Williams couldn't believe the snub, either.
crazy https://t.co/laMjJku3eH
— Mark Williams (@MarkWi1liams) January 31, 2025
To put it simply, Ball is alone out there. He's had 77 minutes with his other four starters, and that lineup is not exactly daunting. There are no other playmakers on the floor. He has to create for himself and others without much help from anyone else.
Bridges can sometimes get his own shot, but he's not going to create for Ball. Miller does a better job at both, but he's not elite at either, and again, he's out for the season. Williams is no Nikola Jokic, so he's not creating much from the paint. Josh Green may as well be a placeholder with regard to offensive creation.
That should tell you the kind of team Ball is being saddled with every night, but it should go a step further. NBA defenses know everything detailed above. They know it's Ball or bust. They more often than not cater their coverages to him, and he has to break them down on his own to create his own shot and get others open looks.
This is not the true determining factor of whether or not he's an All-Star, but no one else on the Eastern Conference squad has to do that like Ball. Every single one of them has at least one teammate better than Charlotte's next-best player.
The NBA complains about ratings. No one watches the NBA anymore, right? Fans do watch, and the fans overwhelmingly wanted to watch LaMelo Ball in the All-Star Game. He had about 500,000 more votes than any other Eastern Conference guard.
Fan voting isn't everything when it comes to starters, which is totally fair. The ZaZa Pachulia situation was probably an outlier, but it's understandable that the NBA didn't want that. But when there's a player who's obviously not in the Pachulia category that leads in voting, they should get in.
Ball was first in fan voting and third in player voting. His own peers, some of whom did make the All-Star Game, voted him in. They believed he should be the first guard off the bench. The fans believed he should start. The media and coaches disagreed.
It's rare for someone to get so much love from any of the sections of the voting and not get in. Fans wanted to see him play. His league-mates did, too. The NBA, though it wasn't necessarily their implicit decision to snub him, made an egregious error.
The league will continue to complain about the ratings while not allowing the one player people want to watch over most others into the All-Star Game. But sure, Adam Silver, let's look into shortening the games to 40 minutes.
There's still a path for the NBA to rectify this if someone gets hurt and Ball gets healthy, but the voting is done. The league, meaning coaches, media, and everyone involved in the process, made their choice, and that won't change even if Ball is retroactively added to the roster.
The NBA had perhaps the most creative player that everyone wanted to see on a silver platter for a contest that they keep trying to make more engaging and they truly fumbled it.
- MORE STORIES FROM HORNETS ON SI -
LaMelo Ball snubbed from 2025 NBA All-Star Game
Hornets center Moussa Diabate drawing comparisons to Dennis Rodman
Former Hornet Terry Rozier is under investigation in illegal gambling scheme
NBA Mock Trade: Hornets, Clippers link up for five-player deal