Just earlier today, the NBA officially unveiled the two captains of this season's All-Star Game and their respective starting lineups. Eastern Conference starting lineup: Durant (captain), Alphabet Brother, Embiid, DeRozan and Trae Young; Western starting lineup: James (captain), Curry, Jokic, Wiggins and Morant. The Suns' veteran point guard Chris Paul was only seventh in the Western Conference backcourt in terms of votes.
The Suns' record this season is at the top of the league, with 38 wins and 9 losses that are enough to dominate the entire league. But it's unbelievable that there isn't an All-Star starter on a team like this.
In this regard, NBA celebrity Stephen A-Smith talked about his views on this result on the show. He said Paul deserves an All-Star starter spot, giving reasons: "I love what Morant is doing, but the Suns are as old-school as they look, playing against the league's current competitive environment. When you understand what Paul is doing on and off the pitch to unleash the potential of his team, you know he's the model point guard. ”
This season, Paul averaged 14.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game, ranking first in the league in assists, shooting 48.7% from the field and 41.7% assists, ranking third in the league. Compared to the Western Conference's All-Star starters, Paul's stats may not be as gorgeous as theirs; Paul's playing style may not be as ornamental as their playing style. But Paul's organizational skills and excellent big picture view must be unmatched in the West, and even the entire league can't find a better point guard than Paul.
To be fair, Paul's data record this season is indeed worthy of the All-Star starter, to know that the Suns' regular season record is now ranked No. 1 in the league, and now the team is also maintaining the NBA's 6 consecutive wins in the regular season, and according to the Suns' current record ranking, it is actually reasonable to finally appear an All-Star starter. But helplessly in the all-star fan vote process, Paul did not get much fan vote support in the end.
In fact, not only Paul, the Suns team has always received no higher attention than other strong teams. As a rising star, the rise of the Suns is also a matter of the past two seasons, in the previous seasons, the Suns are a proper fish belly team. Everything changed after Paul arrived, with excellent organizational skills, the Suns quickly rose, they were more cooperative than other teams, there was no kind of single-player, and it was not a one-man explosion performance, so they naturally did not receive as much attention as other teams.
Moreover, Paul himself is not a popular traffic star in the league, and the Suns are not a big city giant such as the Lakers and Celtics, so it is quite normal for the Suns to rank low in the number of fan votes of the overall players.
However, according to the current NBA All-Star starting rules, fan votes account for only 50% of the selection, in addition to 25% of the players vote and 25% of the media votes. Even if he can't be selected as an All-Star starter, it is estimated that with the Suns' strength this season, it is no accident that Paul and Booker will be selected as All-Star benches hand in hand.