Zach Lowe has Dame 1st team all nba All-NBA First team G: James Harden G: Damian Lillard F: LeBron James F: Giannis Antetokounmpo C: Anthony Davis Second team G: Russell Westbrook G: Victor Oladipo F: Kevin Durant F: LaMarcus Aldridge C: Joel Embiid Third team G: Stephen Curry G: Chris Paul F: Ben Simmons F: Jimmy Butler C: Nikola Jokic • I was more aggressive than ever with positions to come as close as possible to getting the 15 best players -- and as many of the very best onto the first team. Those decisions centered (no pun intended!) around Davis, who split his minutes almost 50/50 between forward and center -- and obviously played more center after the DeMarcus Cousins injury. Center is deeper than forward (hi, Kawhi). Slotting Davis at forward would have mitigated that problem, and shoved Simmons or Butler off the ballot -- or Draymond Green, Paul George, Al Horford, or whatever forward candidate you might prefer for those third-team spots. But it also would have shoved Antetokounmpo onto the second team. With this structure, I have my five-man MVP ballot on the first team -- and the four best individual players from this season in Harden, LeBron, Antetokounmpo and Davis. • The only debate from there came between Lillard and Westbrook for the final first-team guard spot. Statistically, they are very close. Lillard has a tiny lead in scoring, Westbrook bigger edges in assists and rebounds. Both have been indispensable; their teams fall apart when they hit the bench. The advanced numbers flip both ways; their player efficiency ratings are dead even. Portland edged Oklahoma City in the final standings, and Lillard's far, far, far superior outside shooting and willingness to give up the ball (and get it back sometimes!) makes him a more amenable teammate. If you prefer Westbrook, I wouldn't really argue. Lillard wins here. • By sliding Paul and Curry onto the third team, I tried to strike a balance between rewarding both availability and outstanding play. I am sympathetic to the idea that the All-NBA teams, perhaps more than the "of the year" awards, should just include the flat-out best guys -- the superstars who define each season, regardless of games played. But there are lines. They are different for different voters, and for different awards. No one knows quite where they are. I didn't put Andre Roberson on my All-Defensive teams, for instance. For me, 39 games played is not enough for any season-long honor. Other voters will disagree, and that's fine. But 51 games (Curry) and 58 (Paul) is enough for something here, given how superlative they were for two of the league's best teams. In the era of rest and injury caution, 70 games basically constitutes a full season. Fifty-plus is enough for All-NBA consideration at Curry's and Paul's level, though not for a spot on an MVP ballot. Putting both on the third team is the best compromise I could find. Others will slot them higher; that's justifiable, too. Kyrie Irving got to 60 games, but he's just not as good as Curry or Paul. * That left one guard spot, and Oladipo's two-way play for the league's most surprising team shines brightest. It feels yucky to leave off both Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan among a bunch of very good guards (Bradley Beal, Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, Lou Williams, C.J. McCollum, Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday, Simmons, and maybe a few others merited at least cursory looks). Lowry has been quietly outstanding -- overshadowed by DeRozan's evolution, and Toronto's peppy, ruthless bench. Lowry hit 39 percent from deep, and smashed his career high in made 3-pointers. He spaces the floor for DeRozan, cuts and rebounds, and plays some of the league's stoutest point guard defense. Even with DeRozan broadening his game, Lowry may still be Toronto's best and most important player. But it's hard to reserve one of six precious spots for a guy averaging 16 points and seven dimes per game. Some of the decline in Lowry's raw numbers is the result of playing fewer minutes -- not his choice. But his 2-point shooting and free throw rate are down, and at this level, you just have to split hairs. DeRozan is a wonderful player, but I'm just not sure what the evidence is -- beyond Toronto's win total -- that he was better than Oladipo this season. Their scoring and assists numbers are almost identical. Oladipo shot better on 2-pointers and 3-pointers. He has a big edge in advanced numbers, mostly because there is no comparison on defense. As for Toronto's advantage in the standings: Indiana cannot win a game without Oladipo, but the deep and veteran Raptors hum along when DeRozan rests. If Toronto fans have a gripe, it's not with Oladipo making it over Lowry and DeRozan. It's with Curry and Paul likely doing so despite a big gap in games played. That's a fair gripe. These are agonizing choices. On this ballot, they just miss out. (They could also yell at the league, who would not make DeRozan eligible at forward.) • I feel a little funny slotting Aldridge in at forward, but he's on the ballot at both forward and center, and going this route strengthens the overall team. He has played more center, and San Antonio has been better with him there. He would have merited one of the three center slots, knocking off Jokic. He has been gritty on both ends, gobbling up possessions for a team without many good options, and turning the ball over basically never. Aldridge can be a little hoggy. He prefers the offense run a certain way. He is a little like a post-up Russ in that regard. But this season more than ever, he has been a willing ball-mover and screen-setter -- and a very talkative defender. • The last two forward spots were brutal. Some will quibble with classifying Simmons a forward, even though he is eligible at both guard and forward. He is functionally a point guard on offense. So is LeBron, and the league has never listed him as anything but a forward. Simmons is 6-10, and spent 50 percent of his possessions on defense guarding forwards. Yes, LeBron has almost always played with nominal point guards. So what? LeBron is always the primary ball-handler, and spends most of his time defending forwards. Most of that applies to Simmons, too. The presence of Mario Chalmers or Mo Williams -- as opposed to J.J. Redick and Robert Covington -- did not make LeBron in those seasons "more" of a forward than Simmons. Simmons is eligible, and he gets one of these last two spots. Paul George's shooting receded. Draymond Green's defense didn't reach the usual fevered pitch, and he shot barely 30 percent from deep. (He compensated to some degree by nailing 2-pointers at a career-best rate, and remains Golden State's best passer and defender.) Horford tapered off. That rounds out the main candidates. They are all worthy, but Simmons, running roughshod over the league for much of 2018, gets the nod. • Butler has been the best two-way player of this group, and gets the Curry/Paul third-team treatment due to games missed. • That left two center spots for Embiid, Jokic, Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns. (There is a bundle of other really good centers, but those were the last four.) Embiid was a lock. Among the rest, Towns is the best shooter and scorer, though Jokic isn't far behind; he finished with 49.9/39.6/85 shooting after a glorious, triple-double-infused last six weeks. As I wrote here, he just wrapped what was probably the greatest passing season ever for a big man -- six-plus assists per game, almost triple Towns' average. Add in everything else -- all the handoffs, hockey assists, cuts only made because Jokic had the ball at the elbow -- and he probably has more overall offensive impact than Towns. Some assists connect dots everyone can see. A lot of Jokic's assists create shots that wouldn't exist otherwise. Towns ranks fourth on his own team in shot attempts per 36 minutes. That's not his fault, but it is a thing. Both are minuses on defense, though as Ben Falk wrote here -- and I've argued before -- Jokic is a little better than his Keystone Kops reputation. You can't read the game that well on offense without carrying over some of the same anticipatory instincts to the other end. Jokic inhales rebounds, and some advanced stats paint him as a massive plus defender. I don't buy that. Jokic isn't good. The Nuggets hide him, and remove him on key late-game defensive possessions. But I do buy that those numbers may be hinting Jokic is perhaps a normal below-average defender, not some laughable sieve. Gobert, of course, is on a different planet -- my Defensive Player of the Year. But he logged about 700 fewer minutes than Jokic, and he needs a little help -- and some friendly environmental factors -- to thrive as a screen-and-dive guy on offense. Jokic needs a ball and four ambulatory humans. Gobert does not quite rise to the level of Paul or Curry -- superstars who make this ballot despite missing lots of games. It's close, but Jokic edges him out.
I really like this guy's first and second team all defense. Nice to see some of the young guys like Dejounte Murray and Victor Oladipo getting the props they deserve. I also like the complete absence of Paul George from any of these all anything teams - especially with Oladipo, playing for his former team, in the running for both all NBA and all defense. He's out of OKC as soon as they are eliminated. The sooner the better. Wish there was some way we could get him. He'd be the perfect fit for this team. BNM
Every article I've read and podcast I've listened to has Dame in first team All-NBA and 4th in MVP voting.
I seem to recall that he is eligible to be voted in as a Center. And since Cousins was hurt he has risen his percentage on the season to 51% of his minutes at the Center position vs 49% at PF.
Aldridge is the one who should be left off as he has played 62% of his minutes this year as the Center. And we know he won't be voted on the team in that position so he should be left off all 3 teams (but he probably won't be. They will just fudge it to PF).
Aldridge carried a broken Spurs team to the playoffs. Has a top 10 PER in the league, and is playing some of the best defense in his career. He should absolutely make the team as either a forward or a center.
It's only for 18'-19'. And that will be a very tradeable expiring deal. He may not be on the team that long if he opts in.
I'd replace "very" with "mayyyyybe". He'll be making $29 mil next year - that's a LOT of DEADWOOD contracts a team would need to match. Of course, if a team is already $29 mil under the cap, they could do it, but why would such a team want an expiring Carmelo?
