From the confines of my office Thursday night, I received two notifications from the NBA Game Time app (have you pledged appllegiance?) that 14 players had been selected as reserves in the 2015 NBA All-Star game. We’re supposed to scream and shout about which players were snubbed every year, for tradition’s sake, but I mostly agree with the seven chosen reserves in both conferences. More or less, the final 12-man rosters work fine, and specifically the West, which simply has more All-Star worthy players than spots, is as star-studded as we knew it would be.
That isn’t to say I wouldn’t have done things a bit differently. (I’m sort of obligated as someone who writes about the NBA to hold grievances against the All-Star selections and/or process, right?) I believe that Kyle Korver is an All-Star. Why? His true-shooting percentage is 74.4 percent, a figure so outstanding I’d believe any conspiracy you told me about Korver breaking into NBA Stats database and hacking their code, except I’ve witnessed his magic with my own eyeballs. The next four players behind him are Brandan Wright, Tyson Chandler, DeAndre Jordan and Rudy Golbert — the kinds of fee-fi-fo-fums that live atop the FG% categories because their shot of choice occurs roughly 23 feet closer to the basket than Korver’s does. With his jumpers going in the majority of the time, it’s no wonder why professional defenses are handing Atlanta open lay-ups (shots that are worth 2 points) in an effort to swarm Korver whenever he’s so much as standing behind the arc (shots that are worth 3 points).
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