Community Shootaround: All-Star Selection Format

Monday is the last day to submit your votes for 2019’s NBA All-Star starters. Once the fan vote has been closed, the league will also take into account the picks made by players and media members in order to determine this year’s starters.

While the All-Star Game itself no longer pits the Western Conference against the Eastern Conference, the selection format still dictates that five starters must come from each conference. Given a somewhat underwhelming crop of star guards in the East this season, that format ensures that Kyrie Irving will likely be joined by one of Ben Simmons, Bradley Beal, or Kemba Walker in the Eastern backcourt.

Those players are having strong seasons, but there will be reserves in the Western Conference more deserving of a starting nod. Due to the conference and position restrictions, two players out of the five-man Western frontcourt group of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Nikola Jokic, and Anthony Davis won’t crack the starting lineup.

The two frontcourt stars in that group who miss out on starting spots will still end up on the All-Star roster. However, there may be other deserving players who don’t make the cut — even though the rules on positions are less restrictive for the reserves, coaches are still limited to picking seven players in each conference, rather than simply choosing the next 14 best players, regardless of position or conference.

As Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer details in a column on his All-Star picks, he spoke to a number of people around the league – including executives, coaches, and reporters – about their own All-Star selections, and all of them admitted that if they were just asked to pick the NBA’s 24 best players, they wouldn’t get to 12 in the East. According to O’Connor, everyone he polled chose between eight and 11 Eastern players in that hypothetical scenario — the most common response was nine, with the other 15 coming from the West.

Given how many players around the NBA have All-Star bonuses and incentives in their contracts, the league won’t be able to unilaterally alter the selection format without some pushback from the players. Still, it’s an idea worth considering.

If the actual All-Star Game no longer features Eastern Conference players vs. Western Conference players, does it make sense to still require an even number of representatives from each side? And now that we’re in an era of so-called “positionless” basketball, would it make sense to further loosen the restrictions on positions in the selection process?

What do you think? Should the All-Star selection format be changed and modernized to better identify the NBA’s 24 best players, or is it fine as is?

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