Raptors' Siakam Earns 2nd Team All-NBA Honours

Toronto Raptors' forward Pascal Siakam earned second team All-NBA honours, beating out Jayson Tatum and Jimmy Butler for the honour

Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam earned All-NBA second team honours Wednesday.

The 26-year-old beat out Boston's Jayson Tatum and Miami's Jimmy Butler for the honour, joining the second team alongside Kawhi Leonard as the other forward on the team, behind Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo and Los Angeles' LeBron James who earned the first team forward spots.

He became just the sixth Raptors player to be named to an All-NBA team, joining Vince Carter (twice), Chris Bosh, Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan (twice), and Kawhi Leonard.

Siakam received one first team vote, 36 second team votes, and 55 third team votes, appearing on 92 of a possible 100 ballots cast by NBA media. Voting for the award was on only the games that took place before the NBA's COVID-19 shut down on March 11. All games played in the Orlando Bubble did not count toward All-NBA voting.

Siakam's 2019-20 campaign showed another impressive step forward for the Raptors' forward. He topped a 2018-19 Most Improved Player season by earning his first all-star game appearance while averaging 23.1 points on 46% shooting with 7.5 rebounds per game before the pandemic.

Making the team will slightly tweak Siakam's max contract extension that will kick in next season. Had he not earned All-NBA honours, he would have made 25% of the salary cap which is expected to be around $109 million next season, meaning something around $27 million next year. Now he is in line to make 28% of the salary cap, approximately $30 million next year, which could have a significant impact on Toronto's ability to retain its free agents this offseason.

He earned his spot pretty convincingly, beating out Tatum and Butler by 15 and 21 points, respectively, and Khris Middleton, who did not earn All-NBA honours, by 86 points. Points are tallied with three points for every first team vote, two for every second team vote, and one for every third team vote.

No other Raptors player earned All-NBA honours.

First team All-NBA: Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, James Harden, Anthony Davis, Luka Doncic

Second team All-NBA: Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Jokic, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Pascal Siakam

Third team All-NBA: Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Rudy Gobert, Ben Simmons, Russell Westbrook