These All-Star Snubs Have a Right to Be Sore

About a month ago, Bulls guard Derrick Rose—last year’s Rookie of the Year—was considering the question of representing the East in the NBA All-Star game. “I don’t know about that,” Rose said, setting up the classic pat answer of NBA players on this subject. “I try not to think about that sort of thing. It would be an honor, but I just really want to help my team win games.”

Rose has, in fact, made the All-Star team, and he will be one of seven first-timers appearing in the game, along with Gerald Wallace, Al Horford, Kevin Durant, Deron Williams, Rajon Rondo and Zach Randolph. Funny thing, though, is this—as nice a season as Rose has had, he really shouldn’t have been an All-Star; not yet, at least. That’s because, in putting him on the team, coaches who voted for the reserves ignored more worthy candidates. In fact, by my count, there are three players who have a right to be pretty ticked off by their exclusion from the All-Star team.

Chauncey Billups, Nuggets. The fact that Williams beat out Billups among the West guards was the biggest shocker of the reserves announcement. Williams, of course, is a great player, but no way should he beat out Billups, who is the unquestioned leader of the second-best team in the Western Conference. Each has had injury trouble this year, and each has put up pretty good numbers this year. But the difference should have been Billups’ leadership capabilities.

Josh Smith, Hawks. You had to have a hunch that Smith, who has been something of a knucklehead in the past, was going to get hosed on this. Smith has been tremendous this year, though, in all facets of the game, and whatever flighty things he did as a youth—ill-advised dunk attempts, worse 3-point attempts, bickering with the coach—are behind him. He is far too valuable to the Hawks, even more so than Al Horford, to have been ignored.

Chris Kaman, Clippers. The coaches showed zero guts in doing the easy thing—putting Pau Gasol of the defending-champion Lakers onto the All-Star team instead of Kaman, who is having a better year and who has actually been on the floor. The Lakers have played 46 games. Gasol has suited up for 29 of them, meaning he has missed 37 percent of his team’s games. How can someone who has missed nearly four out of every 10 games be considered an All-Star? Because, as Kaman himself said, Gasol plays for the Lakers.