Four Corners: Who should make their first All-Star appearance this year?
With the holidays behind us and the 2016-17 NBA campaign nearing the halfway mark, it’s time to turn our attention to the league’s midseason exhibition extravaganza: the 2017 All-Star Game, coming to us Feb. 19, 2017, from Smoothie King Center in the Big Easy. This week’s Four Corners roundtable asks: Which players deserve to make their first All-Star appearance this year?
NBA players might not be super stoked that media members like us — but not actually us, since we’re not on the NBA’s panel — will now get All-Star votes, but we’re still within our rights as hoop-watching citizens to spread love to deserving debutants. Here are our picks. Share yours in the comments below.
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Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
The “Greek Freak” was our unanimous selection for this season’s Most Improved Player, and he was also the name at the tips of our tongues when this question came up, because … well, duh. A sampling of our recent praise of the emerging superstar:
Kelly Dwyer: “What Milwaukee does have is Giannis. Turning terrible transition spacing into loping fast break buckets with just an inside-out dribble and/or slight pivot. Turning broken plays into streaking jams in the half-court with just a lope and a half. Doing everything at once yet […] making you feel as if we’ve only pulled a few trinkets out of the treasure chest.”
Ben Rohrbach: “He’s averaging career highs across the board, leading the Bucks in every major statistical category, and he’s even begun improving his jump shot — the one aspect of his game that could launch him from All-Star to transcendent talent. So, yeah, there’s even more potential here.”
Eric Freeman: “It’s rare to see someone play so well while simultaneously indicating that he could be much better. Always a marvel, Antetokounmpo is now the kind of player who can decide a game. If we’re lucky, he’ll become something even rarer.”
Dan Devine: “The 22-year-old is turning in a remarkable fourth NBA season, leading his team in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals, and leading the Eastern Conference in Player Efficiency Rating, Real Plus-Minus, Box Plus-Minus [and] Value Over Replacement Player […] while serving as the [Bucks’] primary ball-handler, scorer and defensive disruptor […] At this point, Giannis’ only statistical antecedents are immortals.”
It’s going to take a little while for Antetokounmpo to catch up to his coach’s on-court accolades, but that journey should start in New Orleans next month.
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Kemba Walker, Charlotte Hornets
For the past three-plus years, Michael Jordan has patched together his squad on a shoestring budget, stitching together serviceable role players to fill out a competitive 15-man roster. But they’ve remained an Eastern Conference playoff contender — save for an injury-riddled 2014-15 season — with one constant at the top: Walker, “Charlotte Ranger.”
This time around, the Hornets (19-16) are in place to nab a home playoff seed sans the benefit of a big name on the marquee, but that’s only because Walker isn’t getting his due as a Big Name. He warranted consideration last year, when East coaches filled out their All-Star bench with guards DeMar DeRozan, Isaiah Thomas and John Wall — all of whom deserve repeat bids this season. With a healthy Kyrie Irving likely to start alongside Kyle Lowry in the East’s backcourt, Walker must unseat Dwyane Wade for a fifth guard spot or force coaches in charge of choosing reserves to carry one more guard than usual. Walker deserves the nod on either count.
The NBA is, after all, being dominated by guards, and Walker is unquestionably in the handful of best players at that position in the conference. Excluding the positionless Antetokounmpo, Walker ranks fifth among East guards in scoring behind Thomas, DeRozan, Irving and Wall; of that quintet, only Thomas has been more efficient than Walker’s 58.8 True Shooting percentage (thanks to his career-best 3-point shooting marks of 42 percent on 6.6 attempts a game). As far as advanced statistics go, Walker places in the top five of East guards in Player Efficiency Rating, Win Shares, Box Plus-Minus and Value Over Replacement Player.
Just as important, he’s the best player on one of the conference’s four best teams. Really, any way you slice it, Walker warrants the words “All-Star” in lights before his name on the marquee. — Ben Rohrbach
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Kristaps Porzingis, New York Knicks
The case for Porzingis might not be as strong as those for some of the other players on this list. The 21-year-old Latvian enters Wednesday with numbers that portend a future star, but not a current one — 20.1 points on very good but not overwhelming shooting percentages, a middling 7.9 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks per game for a player who should exceed those totals in the future. This season has seen Porzingis make leaps forward and become a more legitimate hope for New York’s future, but he still has a long way to go to be one of the league’s best frontcourt players. Hell, he’s not even playing his ideal position and might be struggling to hold up under his current workload.
But the All-Star Game is an exhibition, not just a reward for deserving players. Porzingis has considerable star power as a unique big man playing for one of the league’s marquee franchises, and All-Star Weekend would be much more watchable if he played a prominent role. Few players hold the fascination of the second-year pro — he’s a 7-foot-3 Latvian who immediately erased concerns about his rawness by displaying a preternatural feel for the game, turned around the worries of the league’s angstiest fan base within a few weeks, and then managed to flourish even more in his second season despite a series of offseason moves that seemed likely to impede his development. He provides a basketball experience as joyous as anything else in the league.
Just imagine him trading 3-pointers with DeMarcus Cousins, or executing the world’s highest high-five with Antetokounmpo. It would be so fun! — Eric Freeman
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Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
It’s damn near impossible to snag a spot in the Western Conference frontcourt. Established All-Stars Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Draymond Green, LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol are all playing tremendous ball for winning teams, while monsters Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and Karl-Anthony Towns continue to produce incredible stat lines for their comparatively struggling squads. But after turning in Defensive Player of the Year-caliber work for the team with the fifth-best record in the West, Gobert deserves to be in that mix.
Gobert leads the league in the NBA in total blocks and defensive Real Plus-Minus, is tied with Davis for the top spot in blocks per game, and ranks third in block percentage and shots contested. Nobody defends more shots at the rim, and the “Stifle Tower” holds opponents to microscopic 42.7 percent shooting on those attempts, second-best among dudes who defend at least five such shots a night. And those are just the ones opponents actually take; most teams don’t even want to test Gobert in the paint, meaning Utah gives up way fewer shots inside the restricted area with him in the game than when he sits (and, with his back-stopping emboldening Jazz perimeter defenders to more aggressively defend outside, fewer 3-point attempts, too).
He’s been the driving force behind the NBA’s No. 4 defense — which, by the way, has allowed 7.2 fewer points per 100 possessions with him on the floor than when he’s sat, equivalent to the difference between the league’s best defense and its fourth-worst — and he’s also leading the league in field-goal percentage, finishing absolutely everything in sight to help unlock a Jazz attack that has entered the top 10 in offensive efficiency. He might not be the best center in the NBA, but he’s closer than you might think, and close enough to merit midseason recognition. (With apologies to his teammate Gordon Hayward and the Grizzlies’ Mike Conley, both of whom are having career years, but who have missed just enough time to injury to leave them on the outside of brutal positional battles in the West.) — Dan Devine
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Jason Terry, Milwaukee Bucks
Jason Terry has never made an All-Star Game, but I can name two-dozen different All-Stars between Jason’s 1999 NBA introduction and 2017 that I’d brush past in an instant to go watch him play basketball.
The man is a delight. The perfect hybrid guard offensively, potent enough to pour in buckets from the outside while retaining the quickness needed to take advantage of lacking defenders. Terry can still make the expert pocket pass, as it was his screen-and-roll brilliance that helped the Dallas Mavericks withstand the loss of two MVP years from Steve Nash in 2005 and 2006, prior to Terry becoming a champion with the Mavs in 2011.
Throughout his 18-year career, Terry has acted the consummate professional while contributing averages of 14.1 points and four assists in 30.7 minutes a contest. His best season perhaps came in 2008-09, when he helped lead the Mavs to 50 wins while averaging 19.3 points. Or in any of the campaigns from 2000 through 2003, when he averaged 18.7 points and six assists for the Atlanta Hawks.
Never an All-Star, though. Let’s change that. Let’s get the man in. We need as much of Terry’s ebullient charm as we can get, as he works for the Bucks (his sixth team, but in a good way) at age 39.
Let’s make Jason Terry an All-Star.
(I’ll do this again next year, for Jamal Crawford.) — Kelly Dwyer
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