It's time to swallow hard, split some hairs and pick our annual All-Star rosters. A reminder of the ground rules:
I ignore the voting results and pick my full roster from scratch. It's more fun! That's sort of what happens now anyway, since the NBA included me among the 100 media panelists who voted for the starters.
I base almost everything on player performance this season. Some experts, including estimable pocket square enthusiast Kevin Pelton, place a little more weight on recent past performances. Others value legacy and name value.
I might use those variables as tie-breakers, but as long as we're holding this sucker every year, we should reward the guys playing the best in each particular season. That approach also injects more roster turnover. I like a few new faces in the midseason showcase.
I follow the same rules as coaches in filling out the seven reserve slots: two guards, three "frontcourt" players, and two wild-cards from any position.
Gulp. Let's go.
Eastern Conference
Starters
G Kyle Lowry
G John Wall
FC LeBron James
FC Giannis Antetokounmpo
FC Jimmy Butler
Reserves
G Isaiah Thomas
G Kemba Walker
FC Kevin Love
FC Paul Millsap
FC Paul George
WC Kyrie Irving
WC DeMar DeRozan
The six best guards should all get in, but it's worth shouting one last time: There is no case for any of them to start over Lowry. The lack of support for Lowry among fans, media, and fellow players has been borderline shocking. Maybe the Spooky Mulder contingent of Toronto fans is right that people ignore what's popping in the T-Dot -- except that Lowry's co-pilot is starting!
Perhaps Lowry just doesn't look the part of a superstar. He's small, and he doesn't manipulate every possession with the slow precision of Chris Paul. Paul's control over the game is almost ostentatious: "I AM CHESS MASTER!" Not so with Lowry. He doesn't have an identifiable go-to move other than pulling from Curry-level range. He doesn't dunk. He gets a lot of mileage from coaxing mediocre defenders into dumbass fouls.
But he's shooting 43 percent from deep on high-wire triples, and the guy never stops moving. That sounds YMCA-level simple, but ceaseless movement is a weapon against defenders who exhale the second their guy gives up the ball. In that moment, Lowry vanishes. He's off to take a give-and-go from Jonas Valanciunas, spot up from a new location, sneak in for an offensive rebound, or snag a dribble-hand-off. Maybe constant motion is Lowry's go-to move.
Lowry has been something like the tenth-best player in the league over the last two-plus season. He drives the Raptors; for the second straight year, the Drakes fall apart when DeRozan plays without Lowry and thrive in the opposite circumstance -- just as the Cavs disintegrate when Irving runs the show without LeBron.
Noise clouds those numbers, but when the same trend pops up year after year, we should take notice.
Lowry is nearly even with Irving in raw scoring, and outdoes him in every other measure -- especially on defense, where (to be polite) it's not close. Lowry hasn't played to the same level in the postseason, and if you need a do-or-die bucket in the last minute of an elimination game, Irving is the coldblooded shooter for the job. But those are not the criteria for All-Star spots -- at least not on this ballot.
Thomas laps everyone in points per game. He's ridiculous -- a hunched blur with a bottomless bag of tricks to toast fools one-on-one, and coax floaters over and through the poor big men waiting in the lane. He has more variations on the hesitation dribble than most guards have dribble moves, period. He improves his passing every season; his assist numbers are middling, but he is near the top of the league in hockey assists -- a reflection of how he punctures the defense, and triggers ping-ping passing sequences that lead to open 3s. Still: There are three or four contorting drives per game where you wish he'd make the simple kick-out pass.
He's averaging 29 points per game. That is insane. Boston's offense scores just 101.5 points per 100 possessions when he sits -- about equivalent to Orlando's 29th-ranked offense, per NBA.com.
Lowry is the lifeblood of Toronto's scoring machine in the same way, and he's in a different universe on the other end. Boston hemorrhages about 111 points per 100 possessions with Thomas on the floor, a mark that would rank almost dead last on the team level. That is not all on Thomas. Boston hasn't defended with the same in-your-face growl this season, and three key defenders among their starting five -- Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, and Al Horford -- have all missed time. Thomas mostly plays against the best opponent lineups.
But Thomas is not part of the solution. His size will always be a soft spot for teams to pick at.
Thomas also doesn't have a DeRozan-level scorer to whom he has must defer. That argument cuts both ways: Lowry could pour in more points as an undisputed alpha dog, but perhaps at a cost to both his shooting accuracy and his defense. On the flip side, pair Thomas with another elite off-the-bounce scorer, and he might refine the other parts of his game.
Right now, Lowry is a better player.
So is Wall. Wall is by far the best passer among this crew, and inflicts the most damage on defense when he dials in.
He hasn't committed on that end the same way he did two seasons ago, when he was a speeding apparition popping up all over the floor, but he's big and fast enough to make plays when it matters. He has conjured a bunch of clutch deflections and steals.
Boston backers base much of their case for Thomas on his crunch-time brilliance, but Wall has matched the little guy shot for shot; Wall is 16-of-29 from the floor in the last three minutes of games when the score is within three points, a hair better percentage-wise than Thomas's sterling 18-of-35 mark. Irving's silky pull-up is a more reliable last-minute weapon than anything in Wall's arsenal, but Wall has been among the league's best clutch players in the period under consideration here.
Wall is shooting a career-best 50 percent on 2-point shots, and has matched Irving in points per game. He's been better than Irving at basically everything else.
Wall has trimmed some weight, and looks to have rediscovered peak dynamism after two knee surgeries. There are five-minute stretches in which Wall, blazing from end-to-end, can create two-dozen potential points -- with rampaging drives to the rim, corner 3s for teammates, steal-and-dunk sequences. Wall in transition invokes the same fear factor as prime Jason Kidd.
OK, let's talk about Joel Embiid. The East frontcourt pool is shallow. He has played like an All-Star, and that should matter more to Philly and its fans than his participation in an exhibition staged between concerts. He is going to make a ton of these.
Even so, it's hard to justify rewarding a guy who played so (relatively) little over three deserving candidates -- including two indispensable alpha dogs, George and Millsap, whose .500-plus teams rise and fall with them.
Embiid has now appeared in just 30 of Philly's 44 games, and he's averaging only 25 minutes when he plays. That just isn't enough. I'm not sure where the threshold is, but for me, Embiid falls below it. The Sixers have the scoring margin of a postseason team with Embiid on the floor -- remarkable considering the state of the roster. They might be a postseason team if he played more. Embiid isn't holding himself out, but his absence still hurts the team and muddles Brett Brown's rotation.
I've been polling team executives on Embiid's candidacy for the last week, and the response of one Embiid supporter stood out. He lobbied for Embiid over Millsap largely because Embiid would be more fun. Millsap's game is all subtle positioning, canny passing, and laborious drives to the rim. There is no room for subtlety in the All-Star Game, this person reasoned.
And then he concluded: "I realize that's not really fair to Paul Millsap."
Bingo. The All-Star Game would be more fun with Embiid! His selection would mean so much to Philly fans who have waited so long for The Process to produce something real. All of that makes sense.
It also comes with an unspoken, less fun cost: another deserving player misses out. This is a zero-sum game. And Millsap, even in a down shooting year, belongs. He is the best all-around player on a 26-19 team. The Hawks collapse when he rests.
Maybe I'm stodgy. I've always valued minutes and games in doling out (fake) All-Star spots. The game isn't serious, but we -- the media, fans, Hall of Fame voters -- use All-Star appearances as a Very Serious criterion in deciding a player's historical import. As long as we're doing that, I'm going to weigh on-court performance -- including basic availability -- more heavily than fun. Sorry. At least I'm consistent! Do you know how badly I want to see Nikola Jokic in New Orleans with Embiid?
We apply the Fun Factor selectively. People don't seem to mind inviting Rudy Gobert even though his rim protection isn't exactly welcome or useful at All-Star. (Gobert might be the guy who tries so hard, he annoys everyone else. I love That Guy at All-Star. Every game needs one.)
Love is a third option, but he's a more involved third option this season, and he's shooting well enough from deep on a huge volume of attempts. He looks more mobile, and the Cavs trust his defense enough to run out unguardable all-shooting lineups in crunch time. Carmelo Anthony carries a greater burden than Love (and Kristaps Porzingis) as a first option, and he has surged from the field. But every other part of Anthony's game has slipped, and he's playing horrid defense for a dysfunctional team. Pass.
Porzingis is still a year away. He is a monster patrolling the rim, but he's slipshod and out of sorts defending in space. There are too many 12-point, 4-rebound-type games to merit inclusion over the George/Millsap/Love trio. (The gap between Porzingis and Myles Turner isn't all that wide, by the way.) Jabari Parker is slipshod at basically every part of defense, and that disqualifies him despite a slightly stronger dossier than Porzingis.
Additional apologies to Dwight Howard, Hassan Whiteside, Goran Dragic (having a sneaky good season), the aforementioned Boston starters, Andre Drummond, and Bradley Beal.
Western Conference
Starters
G Russell Westbrook
G James Harden
FC Kevin Durant
FC Kawhi Leonard
FC Anthony Davis
Reserves
G Stephen Curry
G Mike Conley
FC DeMarcus Cousins
FC Draymond Green
FC Gordon Hayward
WC Rudy Gobert
WC Marc Gasol
This doesn't feel great. The 38-7 Warriors get three All-Stars; the Spurs Borg, just two games below them, get but one -- fewer than Utah and Memphis. It seems unfair to penalize San Antonio for its depth, but that is only kind of what happened here.
LaMarcus Aldridge is their next-best candidate, and he's a victim of the annual Western Conference frontcourt bloodbath. If the Spurs had a borderline guard, I'd have slotted that player in.
I even thought about cheating a bit, sliding Hayward into a guard spot, and finagling an extra frontcourt spot for Aldridge. You can argue that Hayward kinda, sorta plays "guard" in super-big lineups featuring the Hayward/Joe Ingles and Hayward/Joe Johnson combos on the wing, but that feels like a stretch given how rarely such groups play when Utah is at full health. (It also highlights how silly it is to distinguish between the wing positions for All-Star purposes.)
Aldridge has been on fire over the last month after another slow start, and he's an underrated, reliable defender. He just does the right stuff on almost every possession. He moves the ball, sets smart screens, shoots when he should and never coughs up the rock. He'd have better counting stats if the Spurs needed them.
He marks an interesting contrast with Gobert. The French Rejection could never approximate the load Aldridge carries for San Antonio's offense. Gobert has made a mega-leap, but he still looks clumsy with the ball now and then. He rarely shoots outside dunk range, and he's taken just 17 shots via post-ups all season, per Synergy Sports. Imagine what might happen to the Spurs' offense if Aldridge and Gobert flipped teams, and the Spurs actually asked Gobert create more. (Just kidding. The Spurs would be fine, because they are the Spurs.)
Gobert needs really good offensive players around him in order for his transcendent skills on the other end to flourish. Aldridge can do what he does anywhere.
But Gobert has become an elite rim-runner. His hands are better. He is patient and coordinated enough to catch in traffic, wait a beat to settle himself as the limbs fly around him, and rise up for an emphatic cram job. He's up to 67 percent from the line on a ton of attempts; he welcomes contact, a career-changing Rubicon for every big man who lives near the rim. The Jazz can throw Gobert the ball as much as they like.
You know about the defense and rebounding. Gobert had to reach a level of competency on offense to stay on the floor in every matchup and let his defense sing, and he's has exceeded that. He has also been Utah's lone survivor amid an injury epidemic.
Hayward has been a rock since missing Utah's first six games with a broken finger. He remains their best all-around player, and he can tailor his game to fit Utah's turnstile rotation. If Rodney Hood and George Hill are rolling, Hayward can off-load some scoring to focus on other things. He's a wily off-ball cutter, and when Utah needs it, a borderline All-Defense-level option at both wing spots.
When those guys are out -- and holy hell, have they been out a lot -- Hayward can put up an efficient 25-spot. His numbers outpace Aldridge's; he falls somewhere between Leonard and Aldridge in terms of hierarchy within their teams.
Gobert and Hayward have carried a ravaged Jazz team to a 50-win pace. They're in.
The last guard spot got hairy the moment Chris Paul broke his thumb. Paul has missed 11 games, right on the edge of where I start getting queasy about All-Star status, and he is among the league's half-dozen best players when healthy. This is his spot. If the coaches award it to him on ceremony -- and pick a 13th All-Star to replace him -- I'm fine with that.
There are six realistic candidates behind Paul: Conley, Klay Thompson, C.J. McCollum, Damian Lillard, Eric Gordon, and Eric Bledsoe -- the last putting up monster numbers on a forgotten team. That team stinks, and Bledsoe's effort on defense comes and goes. Gordon deserves credit for stabilizing a Houston bench that started off belching up every lead Harden provided, but he doesn't do enough to compete with the first four options.
McCollum and Lillard are vicious in their versatility as scorers. Portland needs so much more from them just to stay afloat than the Warriors ever need from Thompson. They are also reasons No. 1 and 1A why Portland's defense has cratered to 27th in points allowed per possession. They try hard, but they just aren't very good; Lillard is a screen magnet, and McCollum's size is an issue almost every night.
Neither has been able to lift Portland solo; the Blazers are solid when both McCollum and Lillard are on the floor, but flounder when one plays without the other, per NBA.com. Given Portland's record, it's hard to reward either over Thompson and Conley.
I can hear Sixers fans shrieking: What's the difference between Conley missing 12 of 46 games and Embiid missing 13 of 43? I get it. I almost picked Thompson for this reason.
Conley has already played 345 minutes more than Embiid -- the equivalent of about seven extra games. In an 82-game season, that alone is massive. Conley is healthy now, and Embiid will continue to miss games. The Grizzlies can extend Conley in close games -- and the grit-and-grind crew plays a lot of those -- while Brett Brown has to rejigger his rotation around Embiid's minutes ceiling.
This isn't Embiid's fault. Dude wants to play. He's a killer. But it's a thing. Conley's playing time issue isn't the same impediment as Embiid's.
Conley is a very close No. 2 in Memphis behind Gasol, and on some nights, he surpasses Big Spain. The Grizzlies went 7-2 when Conley missed nine straight games recovering from an ugly back injury, but that would not have lasted; five of those wins were nail-biters against sad sacks, and the last came against a Cleveland team sitting Irving, James, and Love.
Their backup point guard spot is a sinkhole, and the wing rotation is unsettled mishmash of castoffs, fogies, one-dimensional players, and a giant, injury-related question mark. The Grizzlies more or less are Gasol and Conley.
Conley is also playing the best ball of his life. He looks like he finally realized he's a star, and feels comfortable exercising dominion over the game. He's jacking hair-trigger 3s whenever someone ducks under a pick, and zipping to the rim with new ferocity.
Conley has always played with a certain caution. Some of that comes from the level of craft in his game -- the change-of-pace dribbles and crossover moves he uses to prod defenses before finding something he likes. Some of it reflected a reluctance to be selfish, and take over. That is gone. Conley understands the Grizzlies need him to assert control over games, and he has the confidence to do it. He has amped up his scoring without sacrificing his always-feisty defense.
It's easy to glance over Thompson. He is probably the fourth-best player on his own team. His advanced stats remain ho-hum; his Player Efficiency Rating is just over league average, and our adjusted plus/minus system continues to paint him as a bad defender -- perhaps in part because he doesn't snare many rebounds or steals.
But I don't buy that. This dude is so damned good. He's still pouring in 21 points per game, and he and Durant partner on an unfair hybrid second unit that has obliterated teams at the start of the second and fourth quarters. He doesn't hold the ball or dribble much, but there is immense value in having one of the greatest shooters ever sucking attention away from Curry, Durant, Green, and the rim area.
His ability to defend point guards spares Curry, and frees Golden State to switch a ton of pick-and-roll combinations that would otherwise be unswitchable for them.
Thompson is basically the perfect second option.
I'm fine with any of Davis, Gasol, Cousins, or Green in that final starting frontcourt spot alongside Leonard and Durant. Davis gets a slight edge on this ballot when you combine his scoring burden, efficiency, defense, and, umm, locker-room stability. But all four of these guys are studs.
I don't really see an argument for any other frontcourt player, though Karl-Anthony Towns is making a late push. His defense has just been so spotty. DeAndre Jordan is doing what he always does, but Gobert's version has been better. Harrison Barnes isn't quite there.
Welp. We'll know the official reserves on Thursday, and then the NBA gets to the serious All-Star business: picking rosters for the Skills Challenge, dunk contest, and 3-point shootout.