I'm lying in bed and I had to get out and write this post. If Paul, Lillard, Harden, (and now) Klay, Aldridge, and Cousins are locks, there's only one more spot! Only one of Durant, Westbrook, Dirk, Conley, Duncan, Dwight Howard, Tony Parker, or Monta Ellis get in. Never mind Bledsoe or Dragic. Or Draymond Green, Deandre Jordan, and Wes Matthews! How is this gonna shake down? Westbrook has a great PER but his team is 9th or 10th. And if you pick Westbrook, that means reigning MVP Durant doesn't make it. I do slightly worry that our little slip up against Phoenix and Boston that dropped us to third in West, could slip Conley in instead of Lillard but that is ridiculous. Lillard's numbers are better, he's a past All Star, and he leads the league in 4th quarter scoring. This is crazy. Dallas is gonna be pissed when none of them make the All Star team. Sucks because BLAKE Griffin doesn't deserve it. I guess, if Kobe is out, that opens up a spot for Westbrook or Conley. Crazy....
Not sold on Thompson and Cousins as locks. Cousins because its the coaches vote and they tend not to vote all stars on bad teams and Thompson has had some flash but he seems like he might be the "year to early guy " like Lowry and Lance were last year. Id replace them with Durant, Duncan and for the last spot Westbrook and Kobes injury replacement will be between Cousins/Thompson.
Griffin is absolutely deserving. 23/7 on 23 PER. 3-7 in the west is so close anyways record is less important when deciding all-stars between the teams. Cousins is not a lock imo, his team sucks and he has less hype than Love who was putting up similar stats on a losing team. Thompson is a lock, he's playing at a superstar level for the best team in the league. If the best team in the league doesn't get two all-stars it would be pretty BS. It's good that Kobe's injury opens up another spot though. And even though Aldridge is playing I could see him sitting out the all-star game as well. I've got: Thompson, Aldridge, Lillard, Harden, Paul, Dirk, Duncan, Westbrook (Injury replacement) If Aldridge doesn't play, then Cousins gets the nod.
Supposedly he leads the league in "defensive box plus-minus" or something like that. I don't know what that means, but the stat geeks say that he deserves to be an all star because of it.
You guys, do you really think Durant deserves it? He hasn't played much and his team is 10th in the West. I know he was MVP last year but usually an injured star like him gets voted in by the fans.
