Fred VanVleet Snubbed In All-Star Voting

Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet did not earn enough votes to make the 2020-21 NBA All-Star team this season

SI Staff | Feb 23, 2021

Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet will not be heading to Atlanta for the NBA All-Star Game next month. The 26-year-old was left on the outside looking in, coming just short of the votes necessary to beat out James Harden, Julius Randle, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Zach LaVine, Ben Simmons, and Nikola Vucevic who were named Eastern Conference All-Stars.

Sources: 2021 NBA All-Star reserves:

West: Chris Paul, Paul George, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis

East: James Harden, Julius Randle, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Zach LaVine, Ben Simmons, Nikola Vucevic
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 23, 2021

VanVleet had been hoping this would the year he'd make his first All-Star appearance. He's been averaging a career-high 20.1 points on 40.8% shooting to go with 6.6 assists, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.7 steals per game.

"Of course I feel like I’m an All-Star. I’m a confident guy. I don’t work this hard to not feel that way," VanVleet said on Sunday. "I would love to be an All-Star. I would love to have the respect of the coaches in the league."

It will be the first time in seven years the Raptors will not be sending a player to the All-Star game. VanVleet had been Toronto's best bet to make the game. Not only were his box score stats impressive, but he grades as one of the Eastern Conference's best players in almost all the advanced metrics.

All-Stars based on each of the impact metrics (looking at total value so playing more minutes helps). I think the East has too many guards for RPM so I added in Simmons who would replace Kyrie if there needs to be an extra frontcourt. pic.twitter.com/VWWcjppqLN
— Krishna Narsu (@knarsu3) February 23, 2021

BBall-Index's LEBRON statistic has VanVleet as the seventh-best guard in the NBA and the second-best in the East behind only James Harden. Over at FiveThirtyEight, VanVleet is ranked the third-best player in the league by their RAPTOR statistic behind Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid.

Instead of heading to Atlanta, VanVleet said he will be heading to a beach somewhere for the All-Star break.

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