There's some seriously lame rationale here. Who gives a **** about historical greatness - we're talking about THIS season.

All of the below players are on questionable ground for making ANY all-NBA teams this season. They have to be absolutely exceptional to overcome players that played 18+ more games (30 more, in the case of Lebron!)
They should be battling for 3rd team, and debatably shouldn't be on any all-NBA teams at all.

* Lebron 42 games (58%)
* Embiid 51 games (71%)
* Leonard 52 games (72%)
* Butler 52 games (72%)
* George 54 games (75%)
* Irving: 54 games (75%)
* Beal: 60 games (83%) - he played an acceptable amount of games, though 12 fewer than a full season.

I'd rank these guys above their position counterparts above:
* Donovan Mitchell (53 games) - I'd rank him above all of the guards ahead of him - he was more important than Butler
* Devin Booker (67 games) - top scorer on the 2nd best team
* Russell Westbrook (65 games) - Again, I'd rank the walking triple double above all of these folks
* Trae Young (63 games) - certainly he could sneak past one of those guys

* Zion (61 games) - and I thought Zion missed a bunch of games.
* Sabonis (62 games) - Shades of Jokic - I'd bet on a big season next year.
* Tatum (64 games) - huge scoring outbursts on a strangely shallow team.

For all-defensive... Matisse Thybulle? Thybulle played only around 20mpg and 65 games - incredible respect here for a relatively anonymous player. Marcus Smart - yes, he's perhaps the most fearsome defender at guard, but only 48 games?! They *could* throw a bone to Bullock, RJ, Randle, or Noel... heck even Payton! Bullock generally took on the toughest wing assignments for the most of the games. RJ was just really solid all around. Randle remarkably had to handle a lot of centers AND in spite of the physicality, managed to lead the league in minutes. Payton faded toward the end but was a physical pain in the neck at the point of attack. Noel... he was #2 in the league in blocks in relatively few minutes, but really turned it on in the 2nd half with Mitch out.

All-Rookie - Glad to see Quickley get recognized here. There were a LOT of productive rookies this season. I'm a bit curious about ROY. Edwards played 72, Ball played 51. While others hit the wall, Edwards was putting up monster stats to end the season. Ball stumbled a bit after his return. If he had stayed healthy in those 21 games he missed, would he have hit the wall?

6th man of the year - Did Derrick Rose do enough to get some accolades here?

technomaster wrote:

BigDaddyG wrote:

Panos wrote:Um... Doncic is the Mavs starting PG... smells like a hack to me...

Yeah, the NBA pull some BS this year. Zach made a good point that Randle could be considered a "center." I think I would slot Rudy above him, but whatever. I'm just glad Jewlz I getting recognition.

Nah, no way. Randle is not a center. His #1 argument is he played 39 minutes alongside Obi Toppin. Let's note that Randle played over 2600 minutes this season. We're talking around 1.45% of his minutes on the floor with Obi. That's not much of an argument. (And as Knick fans, we *know* Obi's minutes were very limited because Thibs insisted on giving Mitch/Noel/Gibson nearly all the minutes at C, leaving few minutes for Obi as Randle's backup. (and we're talking about a player who led the league in mins!)

Randle this season played a point-forward role very reminiscent of "playoffs" Lebron. Randle dribbles the ball up the court and initiates the offense, led his team in assists, had the 2nd most 3's made on the team. I'd be more likely to call Randle a PG than a C.

+1- my thoughts exactly on calling Randle a PG vs. C- clearly the guy watched 0 minutes of the Knicks.

technomaster wrote:

BigDaddyG wrote:

Panos wrote:Um... Doncic is the Mavs starting PG... smells like a hack to me...

Yeah, the NBA pull some BS this year. Zach made a good point that Randle could be considered a "center." I think I would slot Rudy above him, but whatever. I'm just glad Jewlz I getting recognition.

Nah, no way. Randle is not a center. His #1 argument is he played 39 minutes alongside Obi Toppin. Let's note that Randle played over 2600 minutes this season. We're talking around 1.45% of his minutes on the floor with Obi. That's not much of an argument. (And as Knick fans, we *know* Obi's minutes were very limited because Thibs insisted on giving Mitch/Noel/Gibson nearly all the minutes at C, leaving few minutes for Obi as Randle's backup. (and we're talking about a player who led the league in mins!)

Randle this season played a point-forward role very reminiscent of "playoffs" Lebron. Randle dribbles the ball up the court and initiates the offense, led his team in assists, had the 2nd most 3's made on the team. I'd be more likely to call Randle a PG than a C.

Exactly. It's as much of an argument as Embiid at "forward." These designations are arbitrary and voters should just be allowed to vote the best players, regardless of position.

Uptown wrote:How does Donavan Mitchell not any of the All NBA Teams? Best player on the best team? Mitchell should replace Butler, IMO. Feel like Butler is getting some carry-over love from the bubble performances.

Prob cause they don't even have media in Utah. It's all dial up Internet and radio

Uptown wrote:How is Donavan Mitchell not any of the All NBA Teams? Best player on the best team? Mitchell should replace Butler, IMO. Feel like Butler is getting some carry-over love from the bubble performances.

Turn down Nike. Signed with Adidas.

Beal was a makeup pick. He went after Lowe hard previously and said he was a liar and a cheat. People around the league hate Beal. He's a good player but has a toxic reputation. GSW were offered Beal in a trade and they turned it down. Apparently the internal locker room didn't want him. He's got a lazy streak to boot.

Lowe's pick of LBJ is a back door **** you. LBJ doesn't deserve it, but will get on it anyway since there is internal/external pressure on the voters to vote for him. It's the league office, the networks, the advertisers, the shoe companies, the agents, etc, etc, etc. Lowe is all but saying out loud that he's being leveraged to vote for LBJ but that it's not deserved. The worst thing that happened to Lowe is he lost Grantland. That was a good place for him and he could talk cleanly about the league at his own pace and with true opinions. Bill Simmons would and did protect him. But when he ended up on TV as a part time analyst, then he had to play the internal politics associated with doing something like that.

Kyrie Irving doesn't deserve it either. But Joe Tsai spent big money on the Nets and NBA China demands a Net get some representation accordingly.

These kind of awards are rigged and political, the problem is it does have impact on some actual contracts. Once that happened, the votes should have been anonymous and positionless.

The NBA is like American Idol. You can't just be a good singer. You need a story that will make people cry. You need to be an orphan in a wheelchair and watched the love of your life get shot in a Gotham alleyway. And you need to scream out woke social justice bull**** and only eat vegan and listen to the right kind of music and have a massive social media following where you are pushing your own cologne line.

One of the worst thing about these awards is it just generates tons of bitching. Jrue Holiday saying he's not one to complain, then he complains like a typical fat housewife who can't find her favorite organic kettle corn at the farmers market. The NBA has lost so many fans because so many of these superstar players come off as entitled jackoffs. Of course Curry doesn't do any of this and his reward is to get tomahawked on the court all the time - for the crime of turning down Nike.

It's a list of who sells the most shoes and who the NBA HQ wants to push as the next American Idol type narrative. It's like a real life Hunger Games. For a bunch of punk ass bitches.

TripleThreat wrote:<snip>
The NBA is like American Idol. You can't just be a good singer. You need a story that will make people cry. You need to be an orphan in a wheelchair and watched the love of your life get shot in a Gotham alleyway. And you need to scream out woke social justice bull**** and only eat vegan and listen to the right kind of music and have a massive social media following where you are pushing your own cologne line.

One of the worst thing about these awards is it just generates tons of bitching. Jrue Holiday saying he's not one to complain, then he complains like a typical fat housewife who can't find her favorite organic kettle corn at the farmers market. The NBA has lost so many fans because so many of these superstar players come off as entitled jackoffs. Of course Curry doesn't do any of this and his reward is to get tomahawked on the court all the time - for the crime of turning down Nike.

It's a list of who sells the most shoes and who the NBA HQ wants to push as the next American Idol type narrative. It's like a real life Hunger Games. For a bunch of punk ass bitches.

LOL. Love it. The NBA is promoted like the WWE... all about narratives, heels and faces. Tho they try to present everyone as a good guy when possible. "He just wants to win so bad."

Beautiful set up in the Western Conference with the Warriors/Lakers getting 2 shots at 1 win.

Chandler wrote:

Uptown wrote:How is Donavan Mitchell not any of the All NBA Teams? Best player on the best team? Mitchell should replace Butler, IMO. Feel like Butler is getting some carry-over love from the bubble performances.

good point. also no harden (who thinks he's in MVP level -- i actually like the guy but still...). No Anthony Davis (would still like him as a Knick; hoping he get's tired of Lebron)

The arguments against Harden is that he played less than 50 games and that a lot of people resent him for the way he acted in Houston this year. Plus, I sense a lot of people just don't like the Nets. Kyrie had a heck of season, yet we're still debating if he's third team.

BigDaddyG wrote:

Uptown wrote:How is Donavan Mitchell not any of the All NBA Teams? Best player on the best team? Mitchell should replace Butler, IMO. Feel like Butler is getting some carry-over love from the bubble performances.

Naw...check out Butler's stats. He's had a better season, at least statistically, than Mitchell this year.

The numbers are close enough that if you factor in the fact that Utah has the best record in the league, something nobody predicted, and the Heat have underachieved, record-wise, Mitchell, in my opinion should edge out Butler.