Breaking Down The Debacle That Is The All-NBA Teams

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For years upon years fans, analysts and the basketball world as a whole are used to disappointment in how the All-NBA teams come out. It happens every year where certain players get robbed and other players get rated to high because of the market they play in or team they are on. This year was no different but with the NBA’s small ball epidemic at an all-time high the All-NBA teams are becoming more tough to select than usual. At the top you have your usual suspects such as LeBron James and Kevin Durant, but a defensive player of the year award allowed Joakim Noah to find his way onto the first team. There are positives and negatives all throughout these selections and I will break down just about every little aspect there is but before I do look at the All-NBA teams 1st through 3rd.

All-NBA 1st Team: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, James Harden and Joakim Noah

All-NBA 2nd Team: Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, Tony Parker and Stephen Curry

All-NBA 3rd Team: Paul George, Goran Dragic, Al Jefferson, Lamarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard

Postives

I’m a positive guy so I’ll start with the positives on the All-NBA Teams. This year marked the first season that Lillard, Dragic and Al Jefferson have ever had All-NBA honors. It’s good to see all of those guys get some very well deserved recognition, especially Dragic who at 28-years old put it all together from a scoring and efficiency standpoint. He averaged 20.5 points while shooting over 50% from the field and 40% from the 3-point line while leading the Phoenix Suns to a 48-34 record being the surprise of the western conference, he and Eric Bledsoe put their name in the hat this season for best back court in the NBA. Very few guards excited the crowd while effectively producing like Dragic did this year and he gave Phoenix fans a reason to be excited about their future moving forward.

Al Jefferson was heavily criticized for signing with the now Charlotte Hornets to a 4-year/$40 million contract last summer, critics said it was all about the money and talked more about his bed worth $23,000 more than how he would impact the Queen City’s team this season. He proved that not only was he a good move for the Hornets but that he is unquestionably the best offensive big man in the game today as he averaged 21.8 points on 50.9% shooting. He was finished 5th in the entire NBA in field goals made which help lead the Hornets to a 43-39 record and the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference. He was a franchise changer and has effectively changed the once bleak outlook for basketball in Charlotte.

Last but not least we have Portland Trailblazers guard Damian Lillard who is slowly but surely carving out his spot as one of the elites in this league. His 2nd year in the league was one of firsts in what is shaping to be a very productive career as he was the floor general for a Blazers team that won 54 games in the hotly contested western conference. He in the process also helped the Blazers capture their first playoff series victory in over a decade by beating the Houston Rockets in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. You could see the hunger in his eyes dating back to USA camp last summer and if this year’s any indication the sky is the limit for the 23-year old guard from Oakland.

All 3 of these guys changed the direction of their franchise this year and are all deserving of the recognition and all deserve to be noticed for what they did this season. I’m just hoping we see them all back here next season.

Negatives

This is where things get very ugly and you may not like some things I’m about to say, this will be the part where you probably get angry and call me a flaming idiot and go on about your business. However if you choose to continue reading I will have no choice but to deliver you the truth. James Harden, Kevin Love and Dwight Howard were rated to high. On the other hand Al Jefferson, Stephen Curry and LaMarcus Aldridge were not given their proper credit. So let’s get into it, shall we?

Let’s start with James Harden of the Houston Rockets, in his sophomore act as a full time face of a franchise he did disappoint. On the flipside just because you are 3rd in league in scoring behind only LeBron James and Kevin Durant doesn’t make you a slam dunk 1st team member. There’s more to basketball than scoring and although Harden scores as well as anybody he doesn’t grasp that concept. Harden’s inability to display consistent defensive effort hindered the Rockets on the defensive end and put them in the bottom half of the league in defense. He never improved that part of his game and you saw come playoff time that the Rockets were exposed and had it not been for the heroics of Troy Daniels they would have been swept. Harden was a sorry pick for the first team.

On the other hand you have Stephen Curry who was the 9th leading scorer at 24 points per game but it stretches far beyond just his points, its his overall efficiency that puts him over the top. Stephen Curry shot 42.4% from the 3-point line and was 4th in the NBA in win shares at 13.4 just in front of Harden at 12.8. While Harden remains as offensively sharp as a steak knife, Stephen Curry is the perimeter swiss army knife and dominates perimeter shooting like very few people in this league ever have.

Kevin Love from a statistical perspective is everybody’s dream, he was that one guy at the YMCA who you thought had potential growing up. While his statistics were as good as any player in the league at the end of the day it didn’t end the Minnesota Timberwolves decade long playoff drought. Is he an All-Star? Yes,would I want him on my team? absolutely, but at the end of the day stats are just numbers if they don’t contribute to overall team success. I think Kevin Love was fringe 3rd team material this year and you could make an argument that Dirk Nowitzki was snubbed which I will get into later. He had yet another gaudy season averaging 26.1 points, 12.5 rebounds and a gaudy 26.97 player efficiency rating. Kevin Love is statistically great but his intangibles aren’t there and did little to nothing to help the T-Wolves 26th ranked defense which allowed 104.3 points per game.

Now lets get to LaMarcus Aldridge who in my humble opinion was the best power forward in the NBA this season, unlike Blake Griffin he didn’t fold down the stretch in the playoffs and unlike Kevin Love his team made the NBA playoffs. While you can make the argument that Kevin Love has no supporting cast consider that the Blazers had the worst scoring bench in the league at 24.7 points per game which is 3 less than Minnesota. His usage percent (29.8%) and field goal attempts per game (20.6) are both slightly higher than Love’s. On top of that Portland has the most players in the NBA who rank in the top 20 in minutes played (Wesley Matthews- 20th/ 2,780 minutes, Nicholas Batum-6th/ 2,956 minutes, Damian Lillard-7th/2,937. No team in the NBA is as dependent on their starting 5 and Aldridge still got the job done at a high level ranking 4th in the NBA in field goals (9.56).

This next one was the most frustrating for me and that was the perception based pick of Dwight Howard on the 2nd team. Just from watching him we can see that Dwight has not improved his post game and has failed to change the defensive culture of the Houston Rockets. Keep in mind this a guy who has won multiple defensive player of the year awards and has actually regressed on that side of the ball. In fact this is the first year since 2006 that Dwight Howard hasn’t been in the top 10 in defensive win shares. Year 1 of Howard in Houston was a failure, point blank and his regression doesn’t deserve praise as the 2nd best center in the league.

On the opposite side of the spectrum we have Al Jefferson who has improved on the defensive end, in fact this past season he ranked 7th in the entire NBA in defensive win shares at 4.72. That stat is not in vain as the Hornets were the NBA’s 4th ranked defense giving up 97.1 points per game this season. Al was a huge part of that and on top of his defensive improvement he happens to have a higher average than Dwight in points, free throw percentage, field goals made, assists, steals, blocks, defensive win shares, defensive rebounds, defensive rating and player efficiency rating. The NBA truly got that wrong.

No Love For The Reliable?

Two guys that certainly have carved their place as the greatest players at their position where left off the All-NBA ballots. Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan where nowhere to be found on the ballots which is odd considering how regularly they make an appearance. They both led their teams to the NBA Playoffs and were pretty solid this season, I guess the voters are sick of them and don’t appreciate what these so called “geezers” are doing at their age. It’s just another reminder that there’s a changing of the guard slowly but surely at the power forward position.

Noah’s March To History

With his selection to the 1st team Joakim Noah became the 4th Chicago Bull to ever get selected to one joining Derrick Rose, Scottie Pippen and some guy named Michael Jordan. He became 1 of 4 players in the history to average 12 points, 11 rebounds and 5 assists in a season joining the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He also led the NBA in defensive rating (95.82) and defensive win shares (6.63) all while capturing defensive player of the year on the leagues most stout defense. It was a great year to say the least for Noah.

So there you have it, my problems and positives with the All-NBA teams, I hope you aren’t passed out from boredom after reading this. Let me know who you think got snubbed from the All-NBA teams.