Predicting the NBA All-Star Snubs
Tonight, the rest of the players for the 2019 All-Star game will be announced, and as always it will be very interesting to see which players will be snubbed. But, before they’re revealed, we will predict which players won’t make it to All-Star weekend this year.
Luka Doncic
The first snub already happened between the last voting return and the starters announcement, as Luka Doncic got the second most fan votes of all Western Conference players, just behind LeBron James, but he still wasn’t named a starter. Of course, the starters are named by the fans, players and media, but it almost seems like both his peers and the media still have a grudge against European players, or rookies in general, as he received way too little votes in either of those categories. Only 43 of his peers voted for him, which is less than voted for Steven Adams, Bradley Beal and LaMarcus Aldridge. On top of that, he only received TWO media votes. Unfortunately for Luka, the fact that he ‘just’ missed the starting five, probably means he won’t get into this year’s All-Star game at all.
Tobias Harris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH8nu348KGs
Harris is quite a difficult case, as he’s doing a great job leading the Clippers, though they’ve currently dropped down to the 8th place in the Western Conference. Harris’ problem is that he doesn’t stand out in a single statistical category, but performs well in all of them. Therefore, he doesn’t really seem to stand out, or is All-Star caliber, though he really would deserve it. Both Harris, and his frontcourt partner Danilo Gallinari, didn’t receive a lot of fan votes, player voter or media votes, and ended up on the 14th and 15th place in the rankings.
Nikola Vucevic
Vuvevic is having a great year with the Orlando Magic, but there’s only a very small chance he’ll actually make it into the All-Star game. Though Vucevic has upped his game, and is scoring 20 points and 12 rebounds per game, this doesn’t make up for the fact that the Magic are still 11th in the Eastern Conference. On top of that, there are a lot of good frontcourt players in the Eastern Conference.
Devin Booker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKu3M2VGuuw
Booker’s situation is a bit similar to Vucevic’s. He manages to rack up some great stats almost every night, as he’s now averaging 24.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. But, that just doesn’t make much of an impact if your team is still losing almost every night. Up to now, the Suns have still just won 11 games in the season. He keeps improving every year, and hopefully for him, the Suns will soon improve their team, or let Booker go to a team where he can actually use his exceptional skills. Otherwise, he might just be wasting his career in Phoenix. Booker
