All-NBA teams announced with Paul George and Russell Westbrook earning honors

OKC Thunder superstars Paul George and Russell Westbrook earn spots on  All-NBA teams and are one of only two teams with two players among the 15 to receive the honor.

The NBA announced all their team honors this week with the All-Rookie and All-Defensive teams out the last group and most prestigious group was released today with two OKC Thunder players making the cut.

Not surprisingly Paul George made the first team. The reason this isn’t a surprise is the NBA already tipped their hand when they announced the three Most Valuable Player finalists. That pretty much guaranteed George would make the cut.

As for Russell Westbrook, his inclusion on any team wasn’t as much of a guarantee. However, a third consecutive season averaging a triple-double likely swayed voters. There were other candidates who might have pushed him off All-NBA such as Kyle Lowry of the Raptors or Khris Middleton of the Bucks since those teams registered the highest mark in wins this season.  In fact, only two teams (Warriors) received two players on one of the three teams with the Thunder being one of them.

Who missed the cut?

In fact, it’s a little surprising the two teams (Bucks and Raptors) who collected the most wins in the NBA and were the only two teams ranked top five in offense and defense didn’t get more than one player each on the All-NBA teams.

Still, it’s hard to take anyone off the list. I don’t disagree in the exclusion of Karl-Anthony Towns for example because his team didn’t make the postseason and his vault upward came about more in the second half of the season. Towns I’m sure won’t be thrilled as not making an All-NBA team will cost him just like it did Anthony Davis a few seasons ago.

Speaking of Davis, it’s a little surprising he missed the cut and as mentioned part of his contract is filled with bonuses and missing the cut will once again cost him a pretty penny. To that end Klay Thompson will lose some $30 million in bonuses as per Brian Windhorst and wasn’t too thrilled about the news as his liver reaction noted.

Here’s the list of players by team:

All NBA First Team:

• Stephen Curry – Golden State Warriors
• James Harden – Houston Rockets
• Paul George – OKC Thunder
• Giannis Antetokounmpo – Milwaukee Bucks
• Nikola Jokic – Denver Nuggets

All NBA Second Team:

• Damian Lillard – Portland Trail Blazers
• Kyrie Irving– Boston Celtics
• Kawhi Leonard – Toronto Raptors
• Kevin Durant – Golden State Warriors
• Joel Embiid – Philadelphia 76ers

All NBA Third Team:

• Russell Westbrook – OKC Thunder
• Kemba Walker – Charlotte Hornets
• Rudy Gobert –  Utah Jazz
• Blake Griffin – Detroit Pistons
• LeBron James – LA Lakers

Now that all the awards have been announced in hindsight the OKC Thunder fared extremely well. Sure, it would’ve been great to see Jerami Grant get some shine on Most Improved Player or second team All-Defense. But the reality is the OKC Thunder struggled post All-Star break and voters tend to have recency bias.

Plus with so many accolades already coming to the Thunder it makes sense there weren’t more given the squad finished sixth in the West.

That wraps up all the announcements for awards this season. We’ll find out the individual award winners on Monday, June 24th when the Kia sponsored event hands out the hardware. The show starts at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard time on TNT.