Reserve Judgment: Stein's All-Star Picks
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Want to be an NBA coach?
Or at least make All-Star picks just like an NBA coach does?
You came to the right place.
You can just use the same formula employed in our annual compilation of All-Star reserve selections, which have been made by adhering to the same guidelines sent to the league's 30 coaches in an e-mail that went out Friday morning.
Head coaches are asked to vote for seven players in their respective conferences -- albeit none of their own players -- by Tuesday at 3 p.m.
Each ballot must include two forwards, two guards, one center and two wild cards -- with those picks ranked from one to seven to give each vote a point value for tiebreaking purposes -- but the coaches are also encouraged to ignore the listings on the actual All-Star ballot if they feel a player can play multiple positions. The goal there, obviously, is to get as many of the sport's biggest names into the game as possible, as opposed to, say, forcing the selection of a backup center who might not have unquestioned All-Star credentials.
The starters in the West, as announced Thursday night, are Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant and Denver's Carmelo Anthony at forward, Houston's injured Yao Ming at center and New Orleans' Chris Paul and Los Angeles' Kobe Bryant at guard.
The East's starters are Miami's LeBron James and New York's Amare Stoudemire at forward, Orlando's Dwight Howard at center and Miami's Dwyane Wade and Chicago's Derrick Rose at guard.
Using the instructions outlined above, here's how ESPN.com's benches would look:
Western Conference reserves
Forwards: Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas), Kevin Love (Minnesota)
If Carmelo Anthony wasn't voted in by the fans, I'm not totally sold that he'd make the West roster, even when he's rebounding the ball better than he ever has (8.0 rpg) and still scoring at an elite clip (23.6 ppg) in the face of the trade drama that has polluted the Rocky Mountain air since late September. That's how deep the talent pool is on this side of the conference divide.
There is zero hesitation, furthermore, when it comes to the following claim: Nowitzki should and would be starting over Anthony at West forward if the coaches had any control there. Dirk was shooting a ridiculous 54.5 percent from the floor and playing MVP ball before a knee sprain that wound up costing him nine games ... and the time away might have actually made a bigger impression on observers leaguewide who have grown somewhat numb to the German's greatness because the Mavs were so unwatchable without him.
Yet nothing about this process is harder than settling on two more forwards to fill out the West's roster, with as many worthy names in circulation as I can ever remember. Trust us: That point will be slammed home once you get to the full list of Westerners we're snubbing here.
So how does Love snag the spot opposite Nowitzki when the menu is overflowing with choices? The Mavs' Rick Carlisle publicly acknowledged this week that "the coaches' vote is always tipped heavily toward winning" -- and I know I've annoyed plenty of readers over the years with my own stubborn support of the same team-success doctrine -- but I can't ignore what Love is doing in the arctic climes of Sota. He's assembling a historically special season that has convinced me that Carlisle and his peers, for once, are going to look past Minnesota's 10-35 misery.
As you've surely heard by now, Love is bidding to become the first player since Moses Malone in 1982-83 to average 20 points and 15 boards for an entire season ... except that Moses sure didn't shoot 44.7 percent on 3s while he was vacuuming in board after board. It's only a humble hunch, but something tells me Love is going to get as much or more support from the coaches as Blake Griffin, partly because rookies (fair or not) always have it tougher to score All-Star votes but also because the Wolves aren't universally mocked like most 10-35 teams would be, since they've been in so many games before their youth eventually doomed them in crunch time.
It also doesn't hurt that folks are still buzzing about the magical 30/30 game Love uncorked against New York, which is something else we haven't seen since Moses did it in the '82-83 season.
Center: Pau Gasol (Los Angeles Lakers)
Tyson Chandler, Nene and Emeka Okafor are all having impactful seasons as legit centers in the West. But this conference is so absurdly deep that there's no way West coaches can even try to find room for one of the other 5s who appeared on the ballot with the injured Yao Ming. Not when there are so many studly West forwards who demand consideration and not when, as Professor Hollinger so thoroughly explained earlier this week, we've long since reached the stage where it's time to think in terms of "bigs" as opposed to old-school centers.
You can thus rest assured that the coaches are going to the accept the NBA's invitation to apply the sort of points-wings-bigs thinking Hollinger outlined and, as stated right in the e-mail coaches get from the league office, make their selections based on what's "most advantageous for the All-Star team."
Unfortunate as that is for the likes of Chandler -- who didn't even appear on the ballot but is from Los Angeles and has a case to make his All-Star breakthrough in his hometown after helping Dallas forge its most credible defensive iden y of the Mark Cuban era -- Gasol looms as the obvious choice to be voted in as the backup 5-man. Given how much the champs relied on him to play center early in the season while waiting for Andrew Bynum's return from offseason knee surgery and how much they still ask him to play there when Phil Jackson wants max mobility, Gasol getting the West's backup spot would only be appropriate.
Despite a so-so December based on the Spaniard's high standards, Gasol has given the Lakers plenty of his typical reliability and versatility, contributing 18.6 points, 10.5 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.9 blocks while averaging 37.3 minutes and missing zero games so far.
Guards: Manu Ginobili (San Antonio), Deron Williams (Utah)
Reinforcing the long-held notion that the Spurs are at their most dangerous when their crafty Argentine lefty is healthy, Ginobili has been the best player on the league's best team through the season's opening half. Which makes him an automatic.
D-Will, meanwhile, has carried one of the biggest loads in basketball and remains as individually dangerous as ever, despite being stripped of pick-and-roll partner Carlos Boozer and surrounded by new guys. The way he's coped without Boozer and all the changes in Utah puts him just ahead of Russell Westbrook in our backcourt pecking order, since D-Will doesn't have the benefit of playing alongside anyone in Durant's zip code.
Wild cards: Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City), Blake Griffin (Los Angeles Clippers)
I'm sure some voters are going to have Westbrook ahead of Williams on the West ladder given the leap made to elite status by the Thunder's springy lead guard ... and the way Utah has been sliding this month in spite of D-Will's nightly damage. I can handle that.
What you absolutely can't do is leave Griffin off this roster.
I know it's out there, but I'm not sure anyone is really listening any more to the stuff about how rookies never make it. Or the usual deterrent about how voting for Griffin and Love means putting two youngsters from losing teams on the squad at the expense of all those snubees from more successful programs. Point blank: Griffin, like Love, is in the midst of a for-the-ages season. He's almost made you forget last season's knee injury ever happened, displayed more all-around ability with his passing and board work than anyone imagined and has rebranded the Clippers into a relevant and borderline popular operation in one half-season.
Throw in the fact he was born to play in this game with his inimitable rim-assaulting skill set and Griffin has to be just the second rookie since 1980 -- joining Tim Duncan -- to be selected by the coaches. If there's any debate, it should only be about whether Griffin belongs in Nowitzki's section, with Love dropping down into the wild cards.
(P.S.: Something tells me this season will be the last time for a long time that we have to worry about whether the coaches vote for Griffin.)
(P.P.S.: Can't lie -- It does worry me for Blake's chances whenever someone reminds me that not even LeBron James was voted onto the East squad as a rook in 2004.)
West snubs: Tim Duncan (San Antonio), Steve Nash (Phoenix), LaMarcus Aldridge (Portland), Zach Randolph (Memphis), Monta Ellis (Golden State), Kevin Martin (Houston), Tony Parker (San Antonio), Eric Gordon (Los Angeles Clippers), David West (New Orleans), Rudy Gay (Memphis), Lamar Odom (Los Angeles Lakers), Luis Scola (Houston).
You counted right. That's another dozen luminaries out West with legit All-Star credentials ... which easily could have stretched to 15 by adding Chandler, Okafor and Nene.
The mere order that they're listed in here is bound to cause arguments, but Duncan shows up first -- even ahead of our beloved Nash -- because (A) San Antonio deserves more than one All-Star more than anyone else with that 39-7 record and (B) it's widely assumed that West coaches won't be able to resist voting for Timmay in a nod to the graceful manner in which he's accepted his diminished role (13.6 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 29.4 mpg) and still holds it all together chemistry-wise in the Alamo City.
You likewise get the feeling that David Stern will make Duncan his Commissioner's Pick to replace Yao if the coaches don't pick him ... so I decided to bank on that and leave him available to Stern.
Either way? Don't think I could ever mount a passionate protest against Duncan, who has to be on the team (and will be) one way or another.
As for the rest? I feel undeniable sympathy for Aldridge and Randolph especially -- ditto for Ellis and Martin in the backcourt -- but this is what the West is even after all of last summer's free-agent defections to the East.
Flat-out loaded.
The Line's 1-7 West Order:
1. Ginobili, 2. Nowitzki 3. Williams, 4. Gasol, 5. Love, 6. Griffin, 7. Westbrook
Eastern Conference reserves
Forwards: Chris Bosh (Miami), Kevin Garnett (Boston)
No one got more heat for Miami's 9-8 start than Bosh, but you scarcely remember that now because he was such a steady Heatle during the 21-1 surge after the infamous team meeting in Dallas on Nov. 27. And you can already see how much Miami misses its only reliable big man, after just three games without Bosh thanks to an ankle injury expected to shelve him for a week or two.
Paul Pierce has likewise been an overlooked source of dependability for the injury-hit Celtics -- averaging a team-best 19.1 points on 51.4 percent shooting from the field, 42.6 percent shooting on 3s and 85.3 percent shooting from the line -- but I'm taking advantage of the invitation coaches get to ignore the positions guys play for their primary employers and shifting Pierce to guard to counter the East's well-chronicled lack of backcourt depth.
My other forward spot thus goes to Garnett, who was inching back toward his Year 1-in-Boston form before the calf injury that knocked him out for nine games. The way he's quickly hushed the doubters who said we'd never see this KG again and his usual impact as Boston's defensive anchor makes Garnett as automatic as Pierce with East coaches ... no matter what they think of his various flaps with Charlie Villanueva, Howard, etc.
Center: Al Horford (Atlanta)
This spot almost surely would have belonged to Chicago's Joakim Noah had Noah (thumb) not missed the past 21 games.
Horford, though, still might have made the East squad for the second consecutive season after landing one of the league's few contract extensions for the draft class of 2007 just before the extension deadline on Halloween and then supplanting $120 million man Joe Johnson as the most reliable Hawk.
Guards: Paul Pierce (Boston), Rajon Rondo (Boston)
Pierce, as stated, has to get a spot for the high efficiency he's maintained in the face of a heavy, heavy burden caused by the Celts' various injuries to Garnett, Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, Jermaine O'Neal and Delonte West.
Rondo, though, tends to leave you with the same impression, despite those 11 games he's missed. There is undeniable frustration when you see Rondo's 47.1 percent shooting at the line -- he's made only 24 free throws in 33 games -- but he's the league leader in assists as a Stocktonesque 13-dimes-a-game guy while ranking No. 2 in steals behind MVP candidate Chris Paul.
Wild cards: Carlos Boozer (Chicago), Ray Allen (Boston)
Don't have a great argument for ruling out Noah when Boozer has missed almost as many games (18 to Noah's 21). But the Bulls are 20-7 record with their new 20-and-10 power forward in the lineup and have maintained their spot as the league's No. 1 team in defensive efficiency without Noah. Which might be all the justification we need, although Kurt Thomas' effectiveness as a fill-in is a huge factor there, too.
Our final spot, then, comes down to New York's Raymond Felton and Allen ... with the elder Ray winning out because of the consistently deadly shooting (50.5 percent from the floor, 45.3 percent on 3s, 86.5 percent from the line) that has made him as feared at 35 as he's ever been when it comes to crunch-time clutchness.
If the coaches go with Allen, too, that'll almost certainly mean that four of the East's seven reserve spots are claimed by members of the Celtics. There's an equally good chance that the coaches, as we did here, wind up choosing seven Easterners out of 12 from Boston and Miami.
Have to confess, however, that I'm more comfortable with that lopsided proposition than sending two Knicks in spite of all the November and December raves for Felton. The Knicks and their point guard have dropped off noticeably in January to make it a must to make room for Allen.
The snubs: Joakim Noah (Chicago), Raymond Felton (New York), Joe Johnson (Atlanta), Andrew Bogut (Milwaukee) and Josh Smith (Atlanta)
There are not nearly as many snubees in the East, but here are five good names.
Noah, as stated, heads this group and only lost out through injury. The exclusions of Felton (shooting 36.3 percent from the field in the Knicks' 5-9 slide), Johnson (haven't forgotten his iffy November or his ongoing 3-point woes) and our man Bogut (dragged down by Milwaukee's unexpected struggles and 41.7 percent shooting at the line) were tough but unavoidable.
And Stein Line favorite Josh Smith, like Joe Johnson, couldn't quite displace Horford to fill the East's lone opening for Hawk.
The Line's 1-7 East Order:
1. Bosh, 2. Pierce, 3. Garnett, 4. Rondo, 5. Horford, 6. Allen, 7. Boozer
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