If I’ve learned anything about writing in sports, it’s that it’s never too early to make predictions.
In this installment of way-too-early predictions, I offer a take on who will end up representing the Eastern and Western Conferences in the 2014 All-Star Game that is not scheduled to take place until February of next year.
Although it’s still an entire half-a-season away from commencing, and still at least two months away from voting even starting, there are still obvious choices as to who will make the roster. You can easily chalk up your obvious superstars to an appearance, as well as the veterans who have been a part of the festivities for over a decade.
Voter fatigue may be a real thing when voting for league MVP, as it was in the case of Michael Jordan losing to Charles Barkley and Karl Malone, but not in All-Star voting. The fans will vote to start the same player over and over again, no matter how well they are playing that year.
I’m sure we all recall the time Allen Iverson was selected to be a starter in 2010, despite averaging only 13.8 points and four assists in only 28 games, as well as Yao Ming being voted as the West’s starting center in 2011, even though he had played a total of five games that year and averaged 10.2 points and 5.4 rebounds.
The fans get what they want since it’s their weekend. If they want Allen Iverson and Yao Ming in the All-Star Game, they’ll get it. Basketball purists will complain, but there were at least a million people who honestly wanted to see a player past his prime and a player who had five games to his name that year participate.
The same will go for this year. It doesn’t matter who makes it because there will always be those who led grassroots campaigns to petition why their franchise star or secondary star should make the team. Even when the choices appear to be right in the All-Star Game, it’s still easy to be considered so wrong.
It always comes across as funny to me how people obsess over the All-Star Weekend. There’s so much criticism drawn from the selection of certain players and the snubbing of other players that we forget the All-Star Game is as meaningless and effortless as preseason games. The only difference between a preseason game and an All-Star Game is hype and talent.
Let’s not even get started on how blown out of proportion the dunk contest is. Year after year we assume this is going to be the year the contest makes its triumphant return, and year after year we’re disappointed when a role player wins the award with a dunk that you see on YouTube every day. But we’ll leave that for another time.
So before you get mad at the voters for sending a veteran or injured player in the starting lineup or the coaches for selecting certain players to the bench that may or may not be better than those who were not selected, direct your preseason ire here first.
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EAST STARTERS
Backcourt
DERRICK ROSE
NBA fans have been aching for the past year to vote Derrick Rose into an All-Star Game. As we are all aware of, we were denied the opportunity last year when the 2011 MVP chose to forgo the entire 2012-13 season in order to become completely comfortable with his body following the tearing of his ACL in the opener of the 2012 postseason.
But Rose is back now, and he’s showing shades of the explosive player we’ve all come to recognize him as. He debuted with 13 points on 12 shots in 20 minutes against Indiana, then followed it up with 13 points on eight shots, attempting 10 free throws, in 23 minutes in a win over Memphis. Finally, he dropped a vintage 22 points in 22 minutes last night at home.
On both occasions, Rose let it slip to the rest of the league that he’s as fast, athletic and efficient around the rim as he ever was:
However, he still has a long way to go to becoming absolutely confident in what his body can do at this point in his recovery. He recently sat out a preseason game due to soreness in the knee he tore his ACL in and will most likely be monitored throughout the season.
Nevertheless, it shouldn’t affect the voters. Rose had 1.5 million votes, only trailing Kobe Bryant for votes for guards overall, in the 2011-12 season where he was limited by ailments throughout the year.
As it’s been the past three years, Rose and the next player mentioned should round out an explosive and dynamic East backcourt.
DWYANE WADE
Considering Dwyane had the second-most votes of guards in last year’s All-Star Game, only trailing Kobe Bryant, it’s safe to say that he should end up as an All-Star starter based on how popular he is in the NBA community.
Combine Wade with LeBron James and he’s basically voted in by association.
Wade, currently with nine consecutive All-Star appearances and only missing out in his rookie year, shouldn’t have any doubts in making the All-Star Game, even with the possibility of a knee injury he suffered late last season throwing his game off in the early portion of the upcoming regular season.
Whether or not his role is reduced as a result, Dwyane’s going to end up as an starter in the East. He’s still the second-best player on the best team in the league and is going to consistently put up the 20 points, five rebounds and five assists he’s been averaging every year he’s been an All-Star.
Frontcourt
LeBRON JAMES
Is there a need to explain why LeBron James is going to end up as a starter for the Eastern Conference All-Stars? He’s the best player on the best team and has led all forwards in voting since joining the Miami Heat in 2010. Even with all the scrutiny and criticism in the world facing him, LeBron still maintains a heavy role in the lives of voters who want to see the best of the best performing.
James is coming off arguably the best season of his career, inarguably in terms of individual and team success. He won the gold medal in the ’12 Olympics, brought home a fourth consecutive MVP, won a second consecutive championship and took home a second straight Finals MVP on the same night.
His efficiency was through the stratosphere as he posted career-highs in field goal percentage (57 percent) and three-point percentage (40 percent).
Knowing LeBron’s work ethic, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if he does in fact improve. It wouldn’t be all that insane considering we previously thought James had peaked in a 2011-12 season where he shot career-highs in field goal and three-point percentage.
Scarily enough, LeBron’s claimed to have gotten better. That’s more of a threat than a statement.
LeBron is a two-time All-Star MVP, but hasn’t won the award since dropping 27 points, nine assists and eight rebounds in 2008. It’s not like he hasn’t tried, however. He finished with a triple-double in 2011, going for 29 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, and 36 points, seven assists and six rebounds, while hitting 6-of-8 from three, in 2012.
You could chalk at least one of those two years to politics as to why James didn’t bring home an MVP. With so much hardware entering the James’ household since 2011, this could be a year where LeBron is actually motivated to conquer another aspect, a meaningless one, of the NBA season.
CARMELO ANTHONY
He has New York backing him up, so of course Carmelo Anthony is going to make the All-Star Game as a starter. It’s not just because of the influence of New Yorkers getting to their computers and repeatedly voting for Anthony; he’s extremely deserving of being a starter. As one of the league’s elite scorers, Carmelo is one of the most feared offensive players the NBA has seen in its history.
He’s averaging 25 points for his career and is a few months removed from leading the league in scoring for the first time with 28.7 points per game. The volumous scoring transitioned to the postseason game, albeit on lower percentages, where he averaged 28.8 points in 12 postseason games.
The 22.2 attempts he averaged last season were mere percentage points away from the career-high he set in that category in 2007. He did, however, set a career-high in three-point percentage, aiding one of the league’s most prolific perimeter shooting teams with 38 percent shooting on a career-high 6.2 three-point attempts per game.
He overtook Kevin Durant in the final weeks of the regular season following an onslaught of devastating scoring outputs. In his final eight games of the season, Anthony scored at least 25 points, as well as at least 31 points in seven of them. His scoring high for the year came in a game where he scored 50 on only 26 shots against an undermanned Heat team.
He also showed out in last year’s All-Star Game, leading the East in scoring and rebounding with 26 points and 12 boards while also converting three of his seven attempts from beyond the arc.
With so much to prove and the flick of the wrist to do it, Carmelo should come out in the first half of the regular season with guns blazing and plenty of shots being fired.
KEVIN GARNETT
Consider this as one of those seniority votes that so many fans of the game wish would just go away.
Kevin Garnett is a good player, even at the age of 37 and with a reduced role in the near future, but it won’t stop voters from making him a starter. Even last year when he posted one of the lowest PERs of his career, Garnett was still voted in as a starter, playing an uneventful six minutes and scoring zero points on only two attempts.
He finished third in voting among forwards, earning over 20,000 more votes than fourth-place Chris Bosh and over 200,000 more votes than Paul Pierce. This came while he was still a Boston Celtic, so one can only imagine how much of a role New York ends up playing in the final voting this year.
There are plenty of other names who should be taking this spot, as so many did when Allen Iverson and Yao Ming were unfortunately and infamously voted to be All-Star starters despite obvious lack of production, but it’ll probably end up being the new Brooklyn Nets starting power forward who winds up starting in the volatile East frontcourt.
If Garnett was to make it to this year’s All-Star Game, it will be his 16th, four years away from breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar‘s all-time record. He won an All-Star Game MVP in 2003 when he dropped 37 points on 24 shots, grabbed nine rebounds and had five steals. Obviously times have changed, but there are still ways Garnett significantly impacts the game where a nod to the All-Star Game may still be deserved.
Although his offense isn’t nearly the same as what it used to be, he still commands a level of respect on the defensive end. In six years with Boston, the Celtics gave up more than 100 points per 100 possessions while Garnett was on the floor in only one year. He’s two years removed from leading an elite defense that allowed an NBA-low 94 points per 100 possessions.
Bench
RAJON RONDO
You know what’s better than one point guard who never smiles? Two point guards who never smile! With Derrick Rose sitting out last season, it opened the door for Rajon Rondo to start following a voting process where he earned 924,00 votes and finished 80,000 votes behind first-place Dwyane Wade in tallies for guards.
Rondo had 500,000 more votes than third-place Deron Williams. Are you starting to notice a trend among voting for guards in the East? It’s mainly split up among three players: Rondo, Wade and Rose. Unfortunately for Rondo, for so many reasons more than missing out as an All-Star starter, he’ll be relegated back to first guard off the bench.
Like Rose, Rondo will be returning from a torn ACL, although he’s likely to not require as much recovery time. Before missing the rest of the regular season, Rondo was averaging 13.7 points, averaging a career-high 5.6 rebounds and dishing out a league-best 11.1 assists per game.
With the Boston Celtics roster having the appearance of a team bound for the lottery, Rondo should be stuffing stat-sheets since it’ll most likely require him to do so if his team wants to win. Over the summer, Rondo found out Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry were replaced by Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace and MarShon Brooks.
The second-best player on this team is Jeff Green. You can argue amongst yourselves who the third-best is while Rondo is still on the team and not demanding a trade away from the franchise that bred him to become a perennial All-Star and one of the league’s best point guards.
KYRIE IRVING
In only his second year in the league and at the age of 20, Kyrie Irving became an All-Star for the first of what should be many times. He didn’t allow the spotlight to get to him, either, as he shot 3-of-6 from beyond the arc and finished with 15 points and four assists off the bench.
It’s scary to think that he can only get better. He’s only a few months removed from averaging 22.5 points, 5.9 assists and 1.5 steals, as well as shooting at least 39 percent from beyond the arc for a second consecutive season.
Injuries caused Irving to miss 23 games last year, as well as 15 in his rookie season, but it’s done little to affect his on-court performance. He’s still one of the league’s most lethal shooters equipped with one of the league’s most devastating crossovers. Those types of attributes need to be in an All-Star Game, so we can see more plays like this:
Unfortunately, Brandon Knight will most likely not be featured in the 2013 All-Star Game. Fortunately, we do still have Kyrie Irving, meaning that there could be a new victim to add to the early years of his highlight reel.
DERON WILLIAMS
Deron Williams was snubbed from last year’s All-Star Game in favor of teammate Brook Lopez, who wound up replacing the injured Rajon Rondo. This year could be retribution for Williams.
By missing the All-Star Game, it broke a stretch of three consecutive seasons where Williams had represented his conference. His usage rate dipping to 24.4 percent, by far the lowest in his time with the Nets and the lowest since 2009, and Lopez’s emergence as one of the league’s most gifted centers, at least on offense, resulted in Deron’s absence at All-Star Weekend.
Nevertheless, he still put up impressive numbers, averaging 18.9 points, 7.7 assists and three rebounds, while converting 38 percent of his nearly six three-point attempts per game.
With newcomer Kevin Garnett to eat some of Brook’s usage percentage, it could open the door for Williams to represent the East again. His role and ability to facilitate on the team will be instrumental and imperative in how far the Nets wind up getting this year. If he’s able to corral the likes of Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry and fully integrate them in a starting lineup that already includes two All-Stars in Lopez and Joe Johnson, Williams will begin to earn the respect he had lost last season.
PAUL GEORGE
Following a breakout season where he won Most Improved Player and helped lead his Indiana Pacers to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Paul George is ready to become a perennial All-Star for a Pacers team that could usurp the Heat as a representative in the Finals.
George, a member of the All-NBA Third Team and All-Defensive Second Team last year, has the type of all-around game that general manager’s pray would drop in their lap. He can score from inside thanks to freakish athleticism and an equally freakish wingpsan, can rebound (averaged 7.6 boards last year), facilitate as a passer (averaged 4.1 assists last year) and play defense as well as the majority of the league’s small forwards.
It’s a wonder how he slipped down to the No. 10 pick in the 2010 Draft. It’s entirely possible Minnesota regrets drafting Wesley Johnson, Golden State going with Ekpe Udoh and the Los Angeles Clippers taking Al-Farouq Aminu, because George has been a delight to watch at all aspects of the game.
In his first-ever conference finals last year, George dropped 19.4 points, six rebounds and 5.1 assists, while shooting 48 percent from the field and 41 percent on 34 three-point attempts. He displayed ice-cold veins when he drained all three of his free throw attempts in a gut-wrenching Game 1 loss.
He saved some of his best performances for last, going for 27 in a Game 5 loss and following it up with 28 in a Game 6 victory.
CHRIS BOSH
It’s going to be the year of the raptor for Chris Bosh. With Dwyane Wade ailing and the Heat looking to ease the pressure off of LeBron James, this may finally be the year Bosh receives a heavy role in the offense and is perceived as more than just a floor spacer.
Bosh’s usage rate of 22.7 percent was the lowest since 2005, his second year in the league, and the lowest since joining the Heat. However, his PER of 20 was his highest in a Heat uniform, propped up by the fact he shot a career-high 54 percent from the field and was arguably the league’s top midrange shooter last season, converting 49 percent of his jumpers.
In two of Miami’s first three preseason games, it was a point of emphasis to get the ball to Bosh. He dropped 21 points on only eight shots in the debut against Atlanta and followed it up with a 28-point showing against a Detroit frontcourt that had Andre Drummond defending Bosh.
The Drummond-Bosh matchup and how it turned out was exactly what the Heat want to see from their lineup that has Chris at center. His versatility is too much for slow-footed traditional centers such as Drummond, who was on skates and was forced to foul Bosh a number of times through the night. It’s only preseason, yes, but it could be a sign of things to come this year. Because of the circumstances surrounding Wade and James, as well as this being a possible contract year for Bosh if he opts-out, the underappreciated and underrated power forward/center could consistently become the Heat’s number two scorer if Wade’s injury ails him.
AL HORFORD
Because he’s in Atlanta, it’s unlikely you’ve noticed that Al Horford is one of the league’s five best centers.
Horford is coming off a season where he dropped career-highs in points (17.4 PPG) and rebounds (10.2 RPG), yet failed to make the All-Star team for a second consecutive year. This comes a year after he played in only 11 games following shoulder surgery.
He’s consistently been one of the league’s most efficient players at his position and there being no Josh Smith in Atlanta now really opens the door for Al to possibly have a 20-10 season.
It only helps that he gets to play Washington, Orlando and Charlotte 12 times out of the year. He has to be ecstatic that he gets to line up against Al Jefferson four times now.
ROY HIBBERT
The curious case of Roy Hibbert is an intriguing one because we still don’t know what type of player he is yet.
If we judge Hibbert by how easily he demolished the Heat, averaging 22 points on 56 percent shooting to go along with 10.4 boards per, you would assume he’s the reincarnation of Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal. If you go by his regular season numbers, however, when he’s not playing a team with a weak defensive frontcourt, you see a completely different player. Hibbert actually regressed in his fifth year in the league, putting up inferior numbers, including PER, to what he had the previous season in 2012.
He even managed to regress in personal fouls. A year after averaging a career-low 3.6 fouls per 36 minutes, the total skyrocketed to 4.4 per 36 minutes this past season.
Still, Hibbert is one of the league’s top defensive anchors, averaging a career-high 2.6 blocks per last year, and he does have the potential to become an All-Star once again following a down year in 2013.
Perhaps those summer workouts with Tim Duncan will aid him in his journey to become recognized as one of the league’s elite big men on both ends of the floor.
Borderline Misses
Joakim Noah, Brook Lopez, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Josh Smith, Andre Drummond, Josh Smith
WEST STARTERS
Backcourt
CHRIS PAUL
With the acquisitions of J.J. Redick and Jared Dudley taking place over the summer, Chris Paul has found a way to somehow make the game look easier. The impeccable, fluid play of Paul is about to become even smoother now that he has two of the league’s better shooters set to play alongside him in the starting lineup.
With a pair of pure shooters to stretch the floor, Paul is going to have a field day knowing he has two shooters to stretch the floor, while still always having Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan to keep defenders close to the rim.
No matter what type of situation you throw CP3 into, he’s going to find a way to thrive in it and bring it to a postseason. He’s led the league in assist ratio three times, including last season, and has led the league in assists per on two occasions.
Since joining the league in 2005, Paul has made six All-Star Games and was the most recent recipient of the All-Star game MVP after racking up 20 points, 15 assists and four steals in only 27 minutes.
Since he’s been a primary fixture of the event, Paul has had one of the funnest roles on the team as a distributor for the Western Conference’s best players. It should come as no surprise that he’s averaging over 12 assists in five All-Star Games, including going for at least 14 dimes on three occasions.
Paul should be able to become a starter yet again this year, unless the influence overseas for Jeremy Lin plays an even more significant role than last year. The NBA nearly had to hit the panic button when Lin came up less than 50,000 votes away from becoming a starter over CP3.
KOBE BRYANT
If Kobe Bryant is able to maintain relevancy for the next five years, he’ll pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most All-Star Game appearances. He’ll be 40 years old by the season where he would potentially break the record.
Actually, it’s not even Bryant having to remain relevant. He could just be in the league and he’d still receive a nation’s worth of voters year after year. He’s made the past 15 All-Star Games and it’s doubtful that changes, especially when he’s still being debated as a top five player.
Not even a torn Achilles he suffered late in last year’s regular season will deter Bryant from being voted in as a starter. He’s led all players in voting in two of the past four seasons, but only came up short by 100,000 and 45,000 votes, finishing second in the years he wasn’t first.
He’s won the All-Star Game MVP on four occasions, most recently in 2011 when he scored 37 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. Bryant is not one to take this event lightly.
Bryant, who said who could play today if need be, shouldn’t be in any rush to come back, despite the obvious fact that his team will desperately need him to win many games. A postseason berth, however, will be more of a long shot than anything the Lakers have faced since the post-Shaq, pre-Gasol era.
Interest will obviously drum up near Kobe’s return as we ponder whether or not he can be the same player. Bryant has been dealing with various ailments throughout his body over the 50,000 minutes of professional basketball he’s played, but he has never had to deal with an injury that may significantly affect his career.
Knowing Kobe and his work ethic, we should probably worry more about the rest of the league than if Bryant will return healthy.
Frontcourt
KEVIN DURANT
Kevin Durant keeps getting better and it’s a terrifying thought to think just how much more he can improve. On top of improving his inside game and ballhandling skills, he’s also worked significantly on his defense and facilitation through passing.
Durant’s facilitation and defensive improvement have shown the most strides. He just averaged a career-high 4.6 assist a year after dropping 3.5 per. In the four years before then, however, he had averaged either 2.4 and 2.8 assists.
Just looking at the numbers it’s obvious the past two years Durant has put an emphasis on his passing skills and it’s paying off; he set his career-high for offensive rating with the Thunder scoring 122 points per 100 possessions while he was on the floor. His defensive ratings also dropped to career-lows, helping to hold opponents to only 100 points per 100 possessions. His defensive win shares of 5.3 were also a career-high.
With James Harden out of the picture, the responsibility on Durant to become a better all-around player became apparent. The Thunder would need their second-place MVP to become a better player in order to compensate for the loss of their sixth man, and they’ll need even more this year now that the Thunder lost another sixth man in Kevin Martin.
It’s adding up to be a big year for Durant, who lost his scoring crown title in the final weeks following a frantic comeback by Carmelo Anthony. Durant had won the scoring title the three previous seasons and he’ll likely make another strong run at winning his fourth in his seven seasons.
Durant’s no stranger to All-Star Games, either. He took home the 2012 All-Star Game MVP when he scored 36 points on 14-of-25 shooting. He has dropped at least 30 points in three consecutive appearances and is averaging 28.8 points in his four All-Star contests.
BLAKE GRIFFIN
What’s an All-Star Game without Blake Griffin? How can we get through another All-Star Weekend without the league’s most athletic power forward highlighting the decadent midpoint of the season?
Even if his game deteriorates come playoff time and his jumper is still in dire need of an overhaul, the All-Star Game was made for players like Blake. He dominates the post and the air around the rim and with so many fast breaks taking place, because it is the All-Star Game, Griffin, who is the best at this type of thing, leaks out and runs the court with a familiar face in Chris Paul.
Griffin has shot 18-of-23 in the past two All-Star Games and is shooting 76 percent through three All-Star appearances. You can safely assume what types of shots those are.
Because people love shiny things, Griffin will get voted into the All-Star Game as a starter until his athleticism begins to wear. Last year he finished third in voting for forwards, keeping a far distance from fourth-place Tim Duncan, who was nearly 300,000 votes behind Griffin for the final starting spot.
The case was the same in 2012 when he finished ahead of Pau Gasol by 400,000 votes for second place in forward voting.
DWIGHT HOWARD
He may not have Los Angeles backing him up, they now have Chris Kaman to campaign for, but it won’t deter Dwight Howard from becoming an All-Star starer, especially with the year he’s about to have.
If the Houston Rockets are going to run in the regular season as they are in the preseason, it means Howard is going to run the type of play that we have all been waiting to see run: the pick-and-roll. You couldn’t ask for two better plays to facilitate, either. James Harden and Jeremy Lin are heavy utilizers of the pick-and-roll. Per Synergy, Harden and Lin ranked fifth and 43rd, respectively, when running the P&R… and that was before they received a center who ranked ninth last year as the pick-and-roll man.
When it comes to the All-Star Game, Howard is a perennial member. He led all players in voting as recently as 2012 when he received 1.6 million votes. However, his performance on the court doesn’t exactly reflect why he makes the All-Star Game as he’s scored less than 10 points in his past three appearances.
Howard’s also become known to take a few three-pointers in his contests. He’s 2-for-11 in his All-Star career and took as many as four attempts in 2012, missing every shot. The 0-of-4 three-point shooting brought his All-Star shooting percentage to only a mere 64 percent.
Since he’s rarely attemped to establish a jump shot as a part of his game, one has to wonder whether those threes by Dwight is the most practice he’s given in finding ways to score outside of the paint.
Bench
RUSSELL WESTBROOK
Not even recovering from knee surgery over the summer will deter Russell Westbrook from making a fourth consecutive All-Star Game. Westbrook has no timetable on his return, as of September 24th, but he has vowed to come back better than ever.
Prior to the knee injury he suffered in the Thunder’s first-round matchup with the Houston Rockets, Russell Westbrook had not missed a single game in his five years in the NBA. That streak will likely come to an end upon the start of the 2013-14 season.
The 24-year-old has been one of the league’s most electric and explosive players since his inception as the fourth pick in the stacked 2008 Draft. He has a solid midrange game that keeps defenses honest, but it’s his ability to get to the rim that’s truly frightening if you drew the black egg that night and had to defend Westbrook. He’s simply too fast and too athletic. He’s going to get to the rim if he has a running start and it would take a forest of elite defenders at the rim to deter him from scoring. Because he’s so quick and agile, while so powerful and strong at the same time, Westbrook has become one of the most difficult players to defend. Which is why it’s no surprise that even as a secondary scoring option, he’s still averaging at least 23 points in his past two seasons. The idea that he can be selfish is also a popular misconception as the Thunder point guard is averaging seven assists for his career, including 7.4 this past season.
JAMES HARDEN
James Harden sacrificed a lot when he left Oklahoma City. He left a championship-caliber team. He left one of the youngest cores in the league. He left becoming known as one of the best sixth men in the NBA.
A year later and Harden’s deal with the Rockets is paying off. He feasted as a primary option with Houston, averaging 25.9 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.9 assists, and made his first All-Star Game. He led the Rockets to an eighth seed, but was upended by his former, still stacked, team.
Now that he has Dwight Howard in his starting lineup, Harden’s Rockets have officially landed on the elite championship-contender tier. A few months from now, we could see Harden taking on his former team in a more pressure-filled situation, as opposed to last year’s first-round matchup.
Because he left Oklahoma City, Harden is going to be a perennial All-Star from here on out. Nobody in Houston is going to overshadow Harden as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook did. Not even Dwight Howard will be able to take the reins of Houston now that Harden has a feel for a role that suits him.
With his usage rate shooting up to 29 percent last year, all of Harden’s numbers reflected what we all thought he was in OKC. When he was given the opportunity, he took full advantage of it, and ended up making his franchise a contender because of his ability to play the game that accommodates everyone on the floor.
STEPHEN CURRY
Stephen Curry will make his first All-Star Game this year simply because the NBA needs to have more of this on display:
Can the All-Star Game become a shooting exhibition rather than a dunkfest? It could with Curry. The former Davidson guard turned Golden State’s savior unleashed some of the most impressive displays of his shooting ability in his team’s postseason series with Denver and San Antonio.
The Warriors were the only team out West that beat the Spurs. San Antonio swept the Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies in their first round and conference finals matchups, but succumbed two games to Curry’s Warriors. The staunch Spurs defense surrendered 44 points to Curry in a Game 1 win and allowed the budding star to average 22.5 points and shoot 35 percent on threes.
But it was his series against the Nuggets that really attracted some attention. Curry played at a supernova level at certain points, becoming an unstoppable shooting machine that was pulling up from as far as 30 feet and coolly converting each one of them. On 52 attempts, Curry shot 44 percent from three, and averaged 24.3 points and 9.3 assists for the series.
It’s hard to believe there was doubt initially surrounding Curry at some point. He was the seventh pick, but the fifth guard that was taken. Minnesota legitimately thought Jonny Flynn was a better choice when he was selected sixth. Five years later and Curry is shooting 45 percent on nearly six three-point attempts per game for his career. He actually shot a higher percentage from three last year than overall, while also pushing his career free throw percentage to 90 percent.
Golden State is a great buy on League Pass this year, if only to watch Curry on offense.
TONY PARKER
Had Ray Allen not made the clutch shot to end all clutch shots, Tony Parker would have probably been the one hoisting the Finals MVP trophy, which would have been his second, after the crucial shots he made to win Game 1 and what should have won Game 6.
Parker may not have the hardware, but he’s finally getting the respect he deserves after averaging 15.7 points and 6.4 assists in a hard-fought series with the Miami Heat. He’s being recognized as a top three point guard and deservedly so after going through such challenges as Steve Nash, Stephen Curry and Mike Conley, Jr. just to get to the NBA Finals.
Last year was one of his best, nearly setting a career-high with a PER of 20, setting a career-high for offensive win shares with 7.1 and also setting a career-high in assist percentage at 40.4 percent. Somehow all of this flew under the radar, as the Spurs usually do. The lethal interior guard also set a career-high in field goal percentage with a conversion rate of 52 percent.
Parker has made five All-Star Games in his career, including the past two. In a league filled with so many quality guards, however, Parker has never started an All-Star Game. It’s unlikely to change because of the monopoly Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant have on the West backcourt. Nevertheless, he and his future Hall-of-Fame teammate will continue to be fixtures of the game until one of them is ready to relinquish their talent.
DIRK NOWITZKI
For the first time since 2001, Dirk Nowitzki was not a part of the All-Star festivities. An injury that forced him to sit out the first two months of the season and the following month-long struggle it took to get his 34-year-old body back into game shape ruined any chances of a 12th consecutive All-Star appearance.
He finished with only 146,00 votes, less than the likes of Ricky Rubio and Luol Deng.
The second half of the season belonged to Dirk, however. He eventually found his usual rhythm and finished the season strong, averaging 17.3 points and 6.8 boards, while shooting 41 percent from three, in the 53 games he was featured in.
The Mavericks are putting a lot of faith in Nowitzki to bring them back to the postseason. They’re only three years removed from winning their first championship, yet failed to make the postseason last year and were swept the year before that.
This offseason the Mavericks picked up a few complementary pieces for Nowitzki, including two expert pick-and-roll players in Jose Calderon and Monta Ellis. This team has no intention of trading or releasing Dirk. They intend to keep him until he retires as a sign of respect for all he’s done for the Mavericks franchise.
While he’s still there, the Mavericks figure they might as well get all they can before Nowitzki is no longer able to perform like the All-Star he’s been throughout his career. What that means for Dirk is a role where he’s still the primary option on a veteran-laden team and is featured more heavily now that he’s playing with a pair of guards who can run plays that suit him.
KEVIN LOVE
A year after injuries derailed Kevin Love, the forward is now healthy and ready to lead an oft-injured Minnesota Timberwolves team to their first postseason since the days of Kevin Garnett.
Love was featured in only 18 games last season due to a knee injury that required surgery. Before he was shutdown for the season, Love was shooting a paltry 35 percent from the field and 22 percent from beyond the arc. He wasn’t exactly reminiscent of the player who had averaged 26 points and was shooting 37 percent from the perimeter the year before.
The Wolves power forward is one of the league’s most offensively-gifted players at his size. He’s able to command a presence down low because of his rebounding skills on both ends of the court, and his ability to hit from the perimeter is rivaled only by the likes of Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Bosh, who take far less three-pointers than Love.
Love had taken at least 211 three-pointers in the two years leading up to the injury-plagued 2012-13 season. He shot 42 and 37 percent, respectively. The 26 points he averaged in 2012 was good enough for fourth in points per game.
Scoring may not even be his strongest suit. Love’s original claim to fame were his rebounding skills, where he led the league in boards per at 15.2 in only his third season. He followed that season up with 13.3 boards per game, good enough for second in the league. Even playing on a bum knee last year, Love was able to grab 14 boards per.
Love had been a two-time All-Star prior to the knee injury, but should be back to consistently making the roster now that he’s healthy and ready to put up similar numbers to what he had in 2011 and 2012.
TIM DUNCAN
It’s going to be a sad day when Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant aren’t in the All-Star Game. It would represent the loss of the former generation that excelled in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We’ve already lost Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady, but it’s going to be so much worse when those four begin to depart.
So appreciate it while you have them, and appreciate Tim Duncan still being able to consistently put up double-doubles as his ticking clock churns into his late 30s. He’s still the league’s most fundamental player, still hitting the same bank shot and standing in the same strange free throw stance.
He’s arguably the best power forward in basketball, but has been playing as the Spurs center since 2006, according to Basketball-reference.com. There’s far more significant competition at that position, but it does little to affect his stock as one of the 10 best players in NBA history.
Duncan has 14 All-Star Game appearances to his name. Although it’s unlikely he’ll break Kareem’s record, he’ll go into his final years as an All-Star. The NBA will not make the same mistake they made in 2012 when keeping him out of his first missed contest since 1999. Before then, he had made the All-Star Game in all but one season, even making it his rookie year.
He won the All-Star game MVP back in 2000, posting 24 points on 12-of-14 shooting to go along with 14 rebounds in what was only his second appearance. It was his first year starting.
Borderline misses
Marc Gasol, David Lee, Zach Randolph, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol, Ty Lawson, Damian Lillard, DeMarcus Cousins
Who do you think will make the All-Star Game this year that no one is talking about?
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