Not everyone can be an NBA All-Star. There are just 12 slots per conference each year, and competition for those places can be pretty fierce. Picking All-Stars in some years can sometimes devolve into nit-picking among equally qualified candidates. Nevertheless, there are still some selections that are just plain wrong, which leaves a more deserving star out in the cold on All-Star weekend.
Below, we look back at the five most spectacular All-Star snubs in history and see just how bad those non-selections were in hindsight. Note that these “snubs” were the players that didn’t make the team through the fans’ or coaches’ vote. So even if they made the team as replacements, they were still technically snubbed.
While these five players most definitely deserved to get in, click here to check out our list of the top five players who least deserved the title of “All-Star”.
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Five Biggest Snubs in NBA All-Star Game History
5. John Stockton (1988)
John Stockton, one half of the most famous pick-and-roll combination in NBA history, was a 10-time All-Star during his illustrious Hall of Fame career, including a stretch of nine-straight appearances from 1989-1997. However, he should have been an All-Star a little sooner than that.
[sc:NBA240banner ]Stockton broke out in the 1987-88 season – his fourth year in the league and his first as a full-time starter. Stockton averaged nearly 15 points and 14 assists (tops in the league) for the Utah Jazz. He was also fourth in field goal percentage (57 percent!), third in steals (3.0 per game) and was one of the best defensive guards in the game.
Xavier McDaniels (21 PPG) and Alvin Robertson (20 PPG, 6 RPG, 7 APG) – two of the West’s All-Stars that year – were good, but Stockton was better, statistically and in terms of his game-in, game-out impact.
4. Horace Grant (1992)
Everyone remembers Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Phil Jackson as the main cogs in the Bulls’ dynasty during the 90’s, but Horace Grant was just as important to the first three-peat team in 1991-94. He never quite got the personal acclaim he deserved and made just one All-Star team in his title-laden career.
He should’ve made at least one more team, particularly during the 1991-1992 season. Grant averaged 14 points and 10 rebounds, while shooting an uncanny 58 percent from the field (third in the league). Grant had a 20.6 PER that year and a win share (an estimated number of wins contributed by a player) of 14.1. Both were easily career bests.
What’s worse was that Wilkins was snubbed two more times, with Kevin Willis and Michael Adams taking the places of injured stars Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins over Grant.
3. Carmelo Anthony (2007)
30-point scorers on projected playoff teams are usually a lock to get into any All-Star team. Sadly for Carmelo Anthony, who was then with the Denver Nuggets, that wasn’t the case as he missed out on the initial 12 Western Conference stars bound for Las Vegas in 2007.
Anthony had been averaging 31.6 points through the first 22 games of that season for the Nuggets until he got involved in a brawl that took place in his future home – Madison Square Garden. Melo threw a punch at the Knicks’ Mardy Collins (see the 0:38 mark of the video above) and the heavy 15-game suspension he received from the league became a big black mark on his candidacy.
Melo eventually got in as one of the commissioner-appointed replacements for the injured Yao Ming and Carlos Boozer. But really, Melo couldn’t take Memo Okur’s place in that team?
2. Dirk Nowitzki (2001)
After struggling to find his feet in his first couple of seasons in the States, Dirk Nowitzki’s breakout year came during the 2000-2001 campaign. However, the German sadly wasn’t rewarded with an All-Star berth. This despite Dirk averaging 21 points and nine rebounds to lead the then-laughing stock Dallas Mavericks to a 31-19 record through the first 50 games of that season.
Nowitzki was passed over for the likes of Antonio McDyess and Rasheed Wallace, who were making only their first and second All-Star appearances, respectively. Nowitzki got the last laugh, though, as his Mavs finished above both the Nuggets and Blazers that season, not to mention his 11-straight All-Star nods after that.
1. Brook Lopez (2013)
Brook Lopez’s career has been blighted by injuries in the last couple of years, which has probably made people forget how good a basketball player he really is. During the first half of the 2012-2013 season, he was very good – so good that he may be the greatest All-Star snub to date.
In the first 46 games of that season, Lopez had averaged 19 points and seven rebounds and shooting 52 percent from the field for the Brooklyn Nets. Those numbers may not quite jump out of the page, but his advanced statistics told a different story.
Lopez was ranked in the top four in the league in Player Efficiency Rating. The last player not to make an All-Star team with a PER in the top four was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1978, and he missed 20 games that year.
Lopez eventually earned a spot in the team as a replacement for the injured Rajon Rondo, but it’s still baffling that in a season which saw six first-time All-Star selections in the East alone, one of them didn’t originally include Lopez.
Honorable Mention – DeMarcus Cousins (2014-2015)
If only the Sacramento Kings played in the much weaker Eastern Conference instead of the soul-crushingly tough West, DeMarcus Cousins would’ve been an All-Star in 2014. The mercurial big man averaged 22.5 points and 12 rebounds through the first 46 games en route to a terrific 26.1 PER on the season.
Just how good was Boogie? Only three men have ever had a PER above 25 and didn’t make an All-Star team: the aforementioned Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Cousins. Kareem and Magic both suffered injuries; Cousins was just stuck in a very bad team on a very good conference. Boogie cracked 25 PER again in 2015, but he was once again snubbed. He only made the team as a replacement to the injured Kobe Bryant.
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