Because it fascinates me. It's rare that we get a glimpse at how players feel about the best player hierarchy in real time. We get retired players talking about their peers years later, but almost never do we get clear signs of who players think are the best while they are in their prime. I want to know if curry would pick Giannis over Harden or is Lebron would pick Harden over Durant. Or which of those big men are the most valued. Players have a unique perspective that differs from fans and analysts.

6'10 240 7'6 wingpsan and lordy this kid's shot is WET.

24.5/8.9 per 36 in 20 GLeague games, 60% fg%, 40% on 108 3PA, leads all players in TS% and EFG%. He was 99th percentile in spot ups his final year in college as well.

He's nowhere near where he needs to be as a defender tho, and I skeptical how much progress he will make. He's an okay rim protector and that's about it. If he figures it out tho, oh my goodness. His energy on the bench is pretty awesome to watch too.

Lou Williams and Andre Drummond both are upset publicly with not being all-stars. and i'm here like "well, yeah, that's because 12 people in your conference are better than you."

Drummond's tweet was "Guess I gotta start doing back flips after every point I score to get attention around here!", which is interesting because the obvious reply is "well, also, you could try, maybe, scoring another point after every point you score. because, ya know, that's the amount of points those guys score". and yeah, its not all about points, but he's the guy who went there, not me. 14 backflips would be cool and all, but so would playing consistent D and not congratulating yourself on making 6 out of 10 free throws. there is no argument that he is straight up better than Embiid, Porzingis, Love, or Horford. so he can eat shit imo.

and Lou Williams' response was "lol". meanwhile, the west guards were Curry, Harden, Butler, Westbrook, Klay, and Lillard. they legit might all end up in the hall of fame one day (3 of them are guaranteed hall of famers). Lou Williams thinking he's snubbed because one of those guys beat him is insane. also, every single one of them is on a better team, and 4 of those 6 score more points (and yes, i bring up points because its actually the ONLY thing Lou Williams does and he still does it worse than 4 of those 6 guys). and those 2- Klay and Butler- actually play defense and, if i haven't made this clear, are also unarguably better players than him. fuck Lou Williams and fuck Andre Drummond. if Paul George wants to complain, let him. maybe even Ben Simmons. but not Lou Will or Drummond. they aren't even top 40 players in the league, and they are bitching about not being among 24 players picked for the game. i get it, they've had good seasons, big fucking deal.

I think the two biggest contenders for an Eastern Conference All Star slot are Drummond and Kemba Walker. The two weakest All Stars are Kevin Love and John Wall, who is really not having an All-Star year. I think the combination of team success and reputation put Wall in and Love is about as good as Drummond, based on their current years. Now, for entertainment, Love is far ahead of Drummond. So, ultimately, no complaints.

along those lines, is Paul George really a "snub"?? i mean who do you take off the roster for him?

i don't know if he's a snub in the sense of him being deserving over another player. more of a "13 guys were really deserving and he's the odd one out". but whereas Lou Will and Drummond are a tier below the rest of the chosen players (even despite having career years), PG can look at those rosters and say he's at the very least as good, in a vacuum, as probably half of them. doesn't mean he's necessarily having a better season, but its possible he is. 20ppg with 42% from 3 and All-Defense caliber play on that end (the RPM numbers are idfgetit at this point), while being the 2nd best player on the 5th seed. part of the problem is he's in the more loaded conference, obviously. and that the Thunder got a lot of bad press early in the season that still sort of follows them around. but i mean, if I asked you who was better- Dame or Lou Will? you'd answer pretty quick. but Dame vs PG? or Aldridge vs PG? or Towns? or a lot of those East players? I can see why he'd look at it and think "how they hell are there 24 all-stars and I'm not one of them?", even if the logic there is incomplete.

and i'm saying that as a Pacer fan who has no reason to defend him.

It would probably be Klay. I wouldn't call it a snub, but he does have a case since he's been playing at an All-Defensive Team level this year. Alternatively, he could be in over Lillard, but I can't have him miss again.

so all we learned from the all star draft is that curry is fucking terrible at it. not fascinating at all. the fact it wasn't televised makes it a pointless exercise.

that second point is spot-on. these guys' egos can handle being picked last (or they can't, but that's on them).

but as for the Curry thing, how so? LeBron had first pick, which means Durant and nothing Curry can do about that. from there, Curry looks to have taken the right choices (Harden, then Giannis, etc). if anyone made a mistake in the starting lineup, it was LeBron, because he either picked Kyrie before he had to, or he picked two bigs in a row (Davis then Cousins), leaving Curry to snatch up the extra wing (which was the position of most scarcity overall). and yes, Curry passed on Westbrook with that first bench spot (because Curry had first pick of the reserves), but ended up with 3 of the 4 best reserves overall- Klay, Draymond, and Butler- all of whom fit so much better with Curry/Harden/Giannis than Westbrook anyway. without knowing the actual order of the reserve selections, its hard to say what picks were worse, but we know LeBron had to have left one of those three (Klay, Draymond, and Butler) on the board when picking his second bench player and that means either Wall or Porzingis or Love or Beal? really? none of those guys should be picked before Klay, Draymond, or Butler.

anyway, it would have been so much better on tv, because that's the whole point is the drama of the picking. i'm with you on that. i would have loved to have seen when Love was picked, which of Klay and Draymond went before the other, etc. although one interesting thing that seems obvious from the selections is that they both seemed to value having guys who have played together (LeBron picking both Pelicans, both Wizards, the Wall/Cousins reunion, and also the holy shit Kyrie-Westbrook-Durant-LeBron-Love lineup which is amazing from a history standpoint that all 5 guys have together... and then Curry with both Raptors, both Wolves, and obvs picking the Warriors that he could). would have been even better if LeBron could have re-united Dame and Aldridge cause that'd be like 7 guys with "do they hate each other?" buzz on one team.

I'm amused that Westbrook thought he was the last pick because the list was alphabetical.

Small hot take:

It's not remotely bad that the two best teams face in the Western Conference Finals instead of the NBA Finals. The only negative is that they're on ESPN instead of ABC.

i don't see a problem with it, it's kinda like getting two nba finals. i don't mind breen and jvg, wish burke could be the third person instead of jackson tho.

there goes that man!

I like Doris Burke. JVG is okay with me but I get that he's annoying. The rest of em really stink. For play-by-play guys Kevin Harlan is my favorite ever.