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On Thursday, the NBA revealed its second wave of All-Star voting. There appeared to be a bit of a course correction from the first wave that had some truly wild returns.
Still, fan voting in general is always going to have issues. Even after people were able to see where things went haywire last week, there are still some fairly significant snubs from the list that includes the top 10 guards and frontcourt players from each conference.
Some of the head-scratchers above are even harder to understand when you consider three candidates who are missing entirely: Jalen Brunson, Aaron Gordon and Domantas Sabonis.
This is far from a perfect exercise for ranking individuals, but if you sort every qualified player by the average of their rank in catch-all metrics from around the internet, those three rank 35th, 31st and 11th, respectively.
Put another way, Brunson is ninth among Eastern Conference guards (if we count Jaylen Brown and DeMar DeRozan as guards), Gordon is eighth among Western Conference frontcourt players and Sabonis is third in the latter group.
Their All-Star cases are a lot stronger than the voting might have us believe.
Jalen Brunson
This one might be the most confusing, for a few a reasons.
First of all, Brunson plays in the league’s biggest media market, and the New York Knicks are trending toward a playoff spot. For a team that’s had only four seasons with an above-.500 record since 2000-01, that alone should generate plenty of attention for the new point guard.
After all, the addition of Brunson in the offseason was the biggest change to the roster. You’d think he’d get some credit for the turnaround.
On the season, Brunson is averaging 21.9 points and 6.4 assists while shooting 39.0 percent from deep. Even with today’s supercharged offenses, those numbers are fairly unique. In fact, Stephen Curry is the only player in the league who currently matches or exceeds all three of those marks.
At the very least, that kind of production should be enough to put Brunson over his backup, Derrick Rose, who’s still clinging to a spot in the top 10 Eastern Conference guards.
Yes, the voting process is clearly about more than what’s actually happening on the floor. Rose has die-hard fans that will probably find some way to vote for him even after he retires. But it’s time to start honoring Brunson, too.
Aaron Gordon
Fan voting is used to determine All-Star starters, and Gordon probably shouldn’t be that. Still, these results are underselling his 2022-23 campaign.
His Denver Nuggets are currently tied for first in the West. At the very least, it looks like they’ll still be in the mix for that spot by the time the All-Star Game rolls around. And with apologies to a suddenly surging Jamal Murray, Gordon has been Denver’s second-best player this season.
Gordon is putting up 16.5 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists while shooting a career-high 36.7 percent from deep. The numbers may not leap off the page, but that’s because he’s playing less than 30 minutes per game and is willingly fitting in as a cog in a machine rather than showing out as a star.
Minus the wave generated by a K-Pop star that Andrew Wiggins rode to an All-Starter spot last season, Gordon’s case is relatively similar from a narrative standpoint. Statistically, Gordon’s case is quite a bit stronger.
The idea that he’s less deserving of an All-Star spot than Kawhi Leonard (who’s played in 19 total games), Kevon Looney (averaging 6.6 points) or Wiggins (who’s appeared in only 24 games for a team hovering around .500) is frankly absurd.
Domantas Sabonis
Of the three snubs detailed here, Sabonis is probably the most egregious. For Brunson and Gordon, it’s weird that they’re outside their respective top 10s. For Sabonis, there’s a very real argument that he should be an All-Star starter.
Statistically, Sabonis is Nikola Jokić Lite, with a 67.9 true shooting percentage and 18.9 points, a league-leading 12.4 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game. He’s putting up those numbers for a Sacramento Kings team that’s competing for home-court advantage in the West.
It’s not hard to show that Jokić has been better than Sabonis, and LeBron James leading the way in votes shouldn’t surprise anyone. (James has a strong case to start with or without his popularity.) But after those two, there aren’t any obvious “Player X over Sabonis” arguments.
Anthony Davis has played 14 fewer games than Sabonis, while Zion Williamson has played 10 fewer. In terms of the impact metrics referenced above, Sabonis is in a similar range as Lauri Markkanen (both of whom are ahead of Zion, LeBron and Paul George).
Sabonis is the engine (or at least co-engine) of one of the game’s best and most exciting offenses. Like others in this rising generation of point centers, he makes his teammates (and his team) better.
His being outside the top 10 frontcourt players in the West isn’t remotely indicative of what’s happening on the court this season.
Unless noted otherwise, stats courtesy of Basketball Reference, NBA.com, Cleaning the Glass and Stathead.