The NBA All-Star game is reserved for the league’s best performers for the first half of the season. Yet, every year some of these talents are left off All-Star rosters.
This year is no exception, as numerous players might be feeling a little left out.
The Western Conference is the mecca of the NBA, and with so much talent in the conference picking a select few players for one team can be a daunting task. However, Kevin Durant is not one of those select few.
Yes, it’s the reigning MVP, but Durant has missed more games than he has played. It’s not like the Western Conference is hurting for talent either, and one notable All-Star snub stuck out, DeMarcus Cousins. Cousins is having his best year statistically this season.
His 23.8 points per game rank him sixth amongst all NBA players.
Cousins is the only player sitting in the top ten in points per game to not make the All-Star team. Blake Griffin and Marc Gasol were voted in by the fans, and as a result, earned the right to start for the Western Conference, but Durant is a different story.
While Durant is averaging 25.6 points and 6.7 rebounds per contest, only doing so in 21 games played. Cousins is averaging 23.8 points and 12.3 rebounds per contest, playing in 32 games.The argument can be made that Cousins doesn’t play on a playoff, or big-market team such as Sacramento.
However, neither does Kevin Durant in Oklahoma City.
Whether or not Cousins is Kobe’s replacement, the fact is that the NBA coaches thinking that Cousins was good enough to make the team and overlooking him entirely, and that NBA commissioner Adam Silver was the one to correct such an egregious injustice in the case of the glaring omission that was Cousins, speaks to the glaring red flag–and flawed–All-Star Game selection process as a whole.
While the coaches chose Tim Duncan and Durant. Whatever your thoughts are on Cousins, you can’t deny him the chance to play with NBA’s best.