Rudy Gobert is 26 years old and just now hitting his stride. He’s already established himself as one of the elite rim protectors in the league, but after the Jazz were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs last year, he took a hard look at how his own deficiencies contributed to the postseason loss. And he addressed those deficiencies.
Gobert came back this year a vastly improved player. He has become a much smarter and more patient post player, averaging 2.2 assists, nearly doubling his previous career average (1.2). He is scoring a career-high 15.0 points and leading the league with 65.0 percent shooting. He’s tweaked the way he defends, too, getting more comfortable stepping out to the perimeter to guard 3-point shooting big men.
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Utah’s offensive rating when he is on the floor is 115.0 and drops to 111.4 when he is off. Defensively, the Jazz’s rating is 107.4 when he is on and 113.2 when he is off. His plus-9.6 is the best on the team.
Yet Gobert is not a member of the Western Conference All-Star team. His teammate, Donovan Mitchell, had an argument, too, but Gobert is the most obvious snub.
There are plenty of deserving players who were given the cold shoulder from the West roster on Thursday night, but no one has a bigger gripe than Gobert, who should have been among the top three big men chosen for the reserves. Instead, the coaches went with Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic (who deserved spots ahead of Gobert) as well as LaMarcus Aldridge and Karl-Anthony Towns (who did not).
Both Aldridge and Towns are deserving All-Stars, but the head-scratcher among West reserves is guard Klay Thompson, who got credit for his team’s status as the No. 1 seed in the West. Thompson is averaging 21.7 points, but he has not been the shooter he has been in the past, making 46.2 percent from the field (down from 48.8 last season) and 37.9 percent from the 3-point line (down from a career-high 44.0).
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Thompson is an excellent defensive guard, too, and surely got credit for that. Still, a case could be made for a second Nugget behind Jokic (Denver is just a game behind Golden State in the West, and 1.5 games from the league’s best record) like Jamal Murray.
The Clippers, 28-23 and holding onto a playoff spot in the West, had two candidates, Tobias Harris (21.2 points on 50.3 percent shooting, 43.3 percent from the 3-point line) and Danilo Gallinari (19.0 points, 44.6 percent from the 3-point line). Aldridge’s teammate, DeMar DeRozan, deserved consideration, too.
Gobert, however, deserved a spot. The coaches mostly got things right in the West. But they stiffed Gobert.
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On the flip side, it’s easy to see the dilemma that Eastern Conference coaches were facing. The Bucks and Raptors have the first two seeds, by a comfortable margin — Philadelphia is third, and the Sixers are four games back of first place.
The East's elite deserve two All-Stars. But neither team has a clear No. 2 All-Star on the roster. The coaches shook that off, however, and selected Kyle Lowry of Toronto and Khris Middleton of Milwaukee.
Middleton has been wildly inconsistent, but his inclusion can be justified. He’s averaging 17.3 points and making 37.6 percent from the 3-point line. When he’s around the happy side of his scoring average, the Bucks are offensively imposing — they’re 18-5 when he scores 17 or more points, and 14-8 when he doesn’t.
Lowry’s case is pure reputation. He is the second-best player on the Raptors, and he was voted to the team accordingly. He runs the Raptors' offense, and his 9.4 assists are second in the NBA. But he’s averaging just 14.2 points and has had some wretched shooting numbers since injuring his back in late November. Lowry is shooting 35.2 percent from the field and 28.1 percent from the 3-point line in the 18 games since his injury.
Still, Lowry is vital to the Raptors. He’s a plus-15.4 in on/off rating, in part a reflection of the lack of playmaking on the roster behind him. He got the East nod for that.
But if the coaches wanted to reward the guy having the second-best season on the Raptors, and not just the team’s second-best player, they would have picked third-year forward Pascal Siakam, whose on/off numbers (plus-15.9) are even better than those of Lowry. Siakam has been a breakout player on both ends of the floor, averaging 15.2 points, 7.0 rebounds and shooting 55.9 percent from the field.
More generally, the player with the biggest gripe about missing a spot on the team is Brooklyn’s D’Angelo Russell, who is averaging career bests across the board — 19.5 points, 6.4 assists, 44.0 percent shooting and 37.6 percent 3-point shooting.
Russell has been the offensive stalwart of a Brooklyn team that has battled through injuries to slip into the No. 6 slot in the East, four games over .500.
The good news for him is that commissioner Adam Silver can make up for the coaches’ omission. Indiana guard Victor Oladipo was given a spot on the team, but is out for the year with a quad injury. Silver could — and should — pick Russell to replace him.