Russell Westbrook and Kyle Lowry were famously “snubbed” from starting the 2017 NBA All-Star Game. On Thursday evening, however, both point guards were justly added to the reserve list to fill out the 24-player rosters for the East and West. That did not stop the league’s coaches from making a few missteps when compiling the rosters, though, and one was particularly jarring.
Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul entered the 2016-2017 season with nine All-Star appearances and he will end the campaign with the same amount. The veteran point guard is currently on the shelf with injury, meaning he would have forced a replacement choice under any circumstance, but Paul was unceremoniously left off the list despite averaging 17.5 points, 9.7 assists and 2.2 steals per game over 36 contests. Paul is no longer seen as the best point guard in the league thanks to the emergence of Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry and James Harden, but any list of the 12 best players in the Western Conference unequivocally includes the “Point God,” making this a bizarre omission.
Elsewhere, Rudy Gobert and Joel Embiid were both left off their respective rosters. Clippers center DeAndre Jordan made the cut ahead of Gobert, who many project as the front-runner for the Defensive Player of the Year award this season. Jordan is perhaps the more dynamic offensive threat, but Gobert’s rim protection and value to one of the league’s best defenses has been otherworldly and the choice was, at least slightly, controversial.
As for Embiid and fellow young big man Karl-Anthony Towns being omitted, the choices were more explainable, yet still sure to cause backlash. Atlanta Hawks forward Paul Millsap and Charlotte Hornets guard Kemba Walker both cracked the list despite considerably less flashy profiles than that of Embiid, but the Rookie of the Year front-runner has been under the constraints of a minutes restriction and has missed 14 of Philadelphia’s 44 games on the season. There is certainly an argument that Embiid, especially on a per-minute basis, is All-Star worthy but it is simultaneously easy to see why he would be left off the list given circumstances and the on-court success of Millsap, Walker and others.
Towns is a less surprising omission. The second-year big man is putting together lights-out numbers, averaging 22.4 points and 11.9 rebounds per game on the season. However, the Wolves have struggled from a team standpoint and the NBA’s coaches went with a lineup of more established reserves, including two members of the Golden State Warriors (four in total) with Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. In the end, both Embiid and Towns would be more fun to watch than the likes of Millsap and Gordon Hayward, but All-Star criteria is a moving target and the coaches took the safer, albeit arguably more controversial, route.
At present, there is no obvious injury replacement with the absence of Paul, but anything can happen in the coming days that would pave the way for one of these snubs to cross the threshold. Until then, though, there will be plenty of chatter about who should or should not be traveling to New Orleans in mid-February.
