From Shams and Zach Harper via The Athletic:
Biggest questions with his West picks:
Was Devin Booker better in his playing time than Kawhi Leonard? Who should get penalized more for missing time?
Should De’Aaron Fox get in over both? Do the Kings deserve two All-Stars? Did you know Sacramento hasn’t had two All-Stars since 2004, the year “Frasier” aired its series finale?
Some really tough decisions have to be made here. I don’t know whether I could leave Booker off the West reserves, even with all those missed games. The Suns completely fell apart when Booker got hurt, enjoying an 11.3-point swing in offensive efficiency over his 1,002 minutes on the court this season. He was playing legitimate MVP ballot-level basketball. Booker has still played more games than Kawhi.
Fox has been really good and played way more than both guys. He’s also a catalyst for potentially snapping the longest playoff drought in league history (16 seasons).
From Hollinger via The Athletic:
Too often, it seems like early injuries end up overvalued in the selection process; we’ll see if that happens this year. Particularly in the West, this is a crucial debate. Players such as Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard and Zion Williamson have only played a bit more than half their team’s games; however, each will still likely end the season having played in the 50 to 60 range. Is that enough to put them in ahead of players who are tracking closer to 80-game campaigns such as Domantas Sabonis, Anthony Edwards and Lauri Markkanen?
With Williamson somewhat unexpectedly being voted a starter ahead of Davis — he’d only played 92 more minutes when the voting was announced, is still out of the lineup and, while great, has not had the statistical season Davis has had — that debate shifts to the reserve choices, particularly the two frontcourt reserves in the West.
To wit, do we take Markkanen over Leonard when we know Leonard is a better player? On the other hand, Leonard has played barely half as many minutes, and we can reasonably expect him to miss more time (the Clippers predictably sat him in the back-to-back in Cleveland on Sunday, for instance, and still have four more left.) A similar debate involves Davis, who has only played 52 minutes more than Leonard as of Monday afternoon.
At the very least, three backcourt reserve spots in the West are obvious: Ja Morant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Damian Lillard. After that, we get into a gray area. For me, the combination of durability and production from Sabonis and Markkanen is too impressive to ignore, so they’re my next two picks.
That leaves two spots open. From the durability club, the next-best candidates are De’Aaron Fox and Edwards; I don’t think a reasonable person would choose either over the best of the half-season club (Leonard, Davis or Booker) to start a playoff series. Unlike Sabonis and Markkanen, Fox’s and Edwards’ 2022-23 half-season performances haven’t been quite so overwhelming for me to overlook that. Paul George is somewhere between the two poles; he’s missed games and hasn’t quite been his elite self when he’s played.
You can make a case I should have taken Booker here over Markkanen too, but he ends up as my last cut.
My West reserves: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder; Ja Morant, Grizzlies; Damian Lillard, Blazers; Domantas Sabonis, Kings; Lauri Markkanen, Jazz; Anthony Davis, Lakers; Kawhi Leonard, Clippers
If you think Booker should get in despite all the games missed, who would you take out of the above? Seems like Book should get in over Kawhi. The only thing with that is that the 3 reserves he thinks should definitely get in are Ja, Shai and Lillard, all guards, so it might make coaches voting put their other 3 picks as forwards/centers wtih the latter 3 above.
