This via True Hoop: Gilbert Arenas really doesn’t think Jose Calderon deserved to be an all-star anyway. And there’s some other good stuff too.
Arenas writes:
What Makes an All-Star?
It’s good to have All-Stars make the All-Star game. Looking at the West and the East, it’s kind of weird not seeing Shaq in the All-Star game. That’s kind of weird. And not seeing Tracy McGrady, wow. But, it gave everybody an opportunity. Like, David West, I actually have not seen him play at all this year – but, I know what he did last year, he was hitting a lot of game winners. I don’t know what his numbers are, if they’re enough to be an All-Star, but, if the coaches picked him, then he’s an All-Star. I give it up for him as a first-time All-Star, same with Chris Paul.
That’s going to be the coolest jersey ever though … that David West jersey for being a Western Conference All-Star … West on the front, West on the back. That’s going to be the bomb jersey.
Look at Baron Davis, his team is 10 games over .500, he’s averaging 22, five and eight … BD is my man, hundred-grand strong. He worked so hard on his body this year, coming in in shape and what he did for the city of Golden State last year, bringing a team that was down under and beating the No. 1 team in the Western Conference and he’s basically doing the same thing he did last year. If All-Star was at the end of the year last year, he would have been an All-Star, so, this year he should have been an All-Star too. He’s playing great basketball and has that team moving in the right direction.
Sometimes people get overlooked when they start looking at, “OK, this team is No. 1. Why are they No. 1? Oh, because of this guy and this guy and this guy …”
No. Sometimes teams are No. 1 because they have a great team. They don’t have a whole bunch of All-Stars, they just have a great team. Sometimes when coaches are voting they’re like, “OK, that’s the No. 1 team and he’s playing well, so let’s put him in.”
No. That’s not necessarily the case.
For sure, Chris Paul makes that team tick. If you take Chris Paul off, would David West still be an All-Star? Now, I’m not trying to take anything away from West, he deserved it this year, but you have to ask stuff like that.
That year when Detroit had four All-Stars, since then Chauncey Billups and Hamilton have become three-time All-Stars, but at the time they were just a great team. Same thing with the Mavericks last year and Boston this year, they’re great teams. Boston has two All-Stars, one got voted in and then Paul Pierce, is putting up 21, five and five. OK, 21, five and five on the No. 1 team is an All-Star. Then, this year, Ray Allen wasn’t an All-Star, but I don’t know how close he came to being voted one. In past years he would have been voted on because of this whole thing where the winning teams were awarded more players.
I don’t think the answer is to expand to a 14 or 15 man roster. I think it should be just like it is at 12 players. Every year somebody is going to get snubbed, that’s how it is. Every year, somebody is going to feel like they should have been there. This year, Baron Davis got snubbed.
