2018 All-Star starters announced OK3 miss cut and aren’t guaranteed reserve spots

TNT’s Inside the NBA revealed the starters for the 2018 All-Star Game in L.A. which did not include any OKC Thunder players.

It wasn’t necessarily a surprise no OKC Thunder players made the starting lineup although Russell Westbrook and  Paul George did make late charges.

Ernie Johnson of TNT’s Inside The NBA revealed the ten players who did get voted in based on fans, players and media votes.

The 10 finalists although broken down by East and West Conferences will not necessarily suit up beside each other. That’s because a new twist will find top vote recipients LeBron James and Stephen Curry as captains and will pick in a schoolyard type vote. By virtue of receiving the most votes LeBron James will get to select first.

The five players from the Eastern Conference are:

Guards: Celtics -Kyrie Irving, (5th appearance). Raptors DeMar DeRozan (4th appearance).

Forwards: Cavaliers – LeBron James (captain 14th appearance), Bucks – Giannis Antetokounmpo (2nd appearance) 76ers – Joel Embiid (1st appearance)

The five players voted in from the Western Conference are:

Guards: Warriors – Stephen Curry (captain, 5th appearance), Rockets – James Harden (6th appearance)

Forwards: Warriors – Kevin Durant (9th appearance), Pelicans -Anthony Davis (5th appearance), Pelicans -DeMarcus Cousins (4th appearance)

Notably the West’s five players come from three teams whereas the East had no double players.  Feeding into this being a popularity vote was no  Heat (4th), Wizards (5th) or Pacers (7th) made the squad in the East. In the West no Spurs (3rd), Wolves (4th), Thunder (5th), Blazers (6th) or Clippers (8th) made the squads.

How the votes worked:

The voting was weighted to reflect three groups :

• Fans 50 %
• NBA Players 25%
• 99 Members of media 25%

Captains were selected based on the top vote recipients in each conference as selected by the fans and head coaches will select the 7 reserves from each conference.

Final Vote Totals:

Fans:

East Frontcourt: James 2.6 million, Antetokounmpo  2.5M, Embiid 1.285M. The players who missed out were Kristaps Porzingis who recieived 1.11M and Kevin Love who got 771k votes.

East Backcourt: Irving got 2.17M vote , DeRozan just shy of 1M. The next three who didn’t make the cut were (incredibly) Ben Simmons with 669k, Oladipo (who should make the reserves) with 634k and a popularity vote for Dwyane Wade with 617k.

Noticeably missing in the fans votes were John Wall, Bradley Beal, Kyle Lowry, Jonas Valanciunas or any Heat players.

West Frontcourt: Kevin Durant 2.23M, Draymond Green 1.13M, Anthony Davis 1.08M, DeMarcus Cousins 922k and Paul George 881k.

West Backcourt: Stephen Curry 2.37M, Manu Ginobili 1.80M, James Harden 1.48M, Russell Westbrook 1.24M and Klay Thompson 1.23M.

Notes: the fans had several choices who did not make the final cut with Draymond Green and Manu Ginobili specifically placing second in their position but getting surpassed. The other notable is Westbrook didn’t come close to catching Harden but Paul George was very close to catching Cousins via fan voting.

Players:

East Frontcourt:

• Antetokounmpo -226
• James -220
• Porzingis – 100
• Embiid 94
• Drummond 38

East Backcourt:

• Irving 181
• DeRozan  105
• Oladipo 73
• Wall 57
• Beal 43

The takeaway here is the Greek Freak beats out LeBron in the players minds and the Unicorn beats the Process plus Simmons doesn’t make the cut.

West Frontcourt:

• Durant – 204
• Davis -150
• Cousins – 114
• Aldridge – 65
• Towns -58

West Backcourt:

• Curry -146
• Harden – 141
• Westbrook -102 (finally a little love for the MVP)
• Damian Lillard 27
• Devin Booker – 27 (remember he was my pick as a possible first timer at season start)

Media: (99 members voted)

East Frontcourt:

• James – 99
• Antetokounmpo – 99
• Embiid – 66
• Kristaps Porzingis -14
• Al Horford – 13

East Backcourt:

• Irving – 96
• DeRozan – 89
• Victor Oladipo – 11
• John Wall – 1
• Bradley Beal -1

West Frontcourt:

• Durant – 98 (wonder if the one writer was from OKC – insert laughing face)
• Davis – 73
• LaMarcus Aldridge 40 (so Media had him starting over Cousins)
• Cousins – 34
• Karl-Anthony Town -34

With so much love for KAT and some love for Butler I wonder how Andrew Wiggins is feeling down in Minnesota.

West Backcourt:

• Harden – 94 (placed higher than Curry by media)
• Curry – 83
• Russell Westbrook 17 (this is shocking to me)
• Jimmy Butler (2)
• :Klay Thompson 1
• Chris Paul 1

Pundits weigh in on reserves:

TNT Inside the NBA:

Ernie, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal commented on who they believe the coaches should select to fill the reserve spots. There are seven additional players per conference to add.

The players the quartet unanimously agreed on were:

West: LaMarcus Aldridge, Jimmy Butler,  Karl-Anthony Towns, Klay Thompson Draymond Green

East: Kristaps Porzingis, Victor Oladipo,

EJ: 

West: Russell Westbrook, Lou Williams

East: Bradley Beal, Andre Drummond, Al Horford, Kevin Love, John Wall

Kenny:

West:  Lou Williams, *Damian Lillard

East: Kyle Lowry, Hassan Whiteside, Tobias Harris, Kevin Love, John Wall

Chuck:

West: Russell Westbrook, Nikola Jokic

East: Tobias Harris, Andre Drummond, Bradley Beal, Al Horford, Dwight Howard

Shaq:

West: Russell Westbrook, Lou Williams

East: Kyle Lowry, Bradley Beal, Andre Drummond, Al Horford, Kevin Love

Notes: * Initially it appeared Kenny had left Russ off the team, but he was adamant he sent in a second text with Westbrook on it to replace Lillard (it offered some amusement). Then again, this points to the real possibility he might not make the team and there is no way Paul George makes it over Russ so it will be interesting to see what happens.

NBA Game Time:

More from Thunderous Intentions

• Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

The panel each selected their picks with unanimous agreement in the West for:

•  Thunder -Russell Westbrook
• Spurs – LaMarcus Aldridge
• Wolves – Jimmy Butler
• Wolves – Karl-Anthony Towns
• Blazers – Damian Lillard

And in the East:

• Cavaliers – Kevin Love
• Celtics – Al Horford
• Wizards – Bradley Beal
• Pacers – Victor  Oladipo
• Pistons – Andre Drummond

Matt Winer:

West Clippers -Lou Williams, Warriors –  Klay Thompson

East: Knicks – Kristaps Porzingis, Wizards – John Wall

Grant Hill:

West: Warriors – Draymond Green and Klay Thompson

East: Knicks – Kristaps Porzingis, Raptors – Kyle Lowry

Mike Fratello:

West: Warriors – Draymond Green, Clippers – Blake Griffin

East: Heat – Hassan Whiteside and Goran Dragic

The Eastern selections for me were the most interesting with each of the pundits willingly sending two Celtics and Cavaliers to the show and Winer putting in two Wizards, Fratello two Heat and only Grant Hill looking at two for the second place (4th ranked team in NBA) Raptors – who could conceivably be in first in the East by the time the All-Star break hits.

The other notable was this panel felt the hardest person to not include was Paul George although they felt the lack of chemistry was an issue.

To publicize or not?

There are still a number of pundits, fans and players who want the selection of the teams to be publicized and general curiosity over why the NBA is so against televising it.

Reserves and Team announcement:

Next week TNT will announce the reserves on Tuesday the 23 and the teams will be announced on Thursday the 25. Keep your fingers crossed at least Westbrook makes the team Thunder Nation.