Was Pascal Siakam snubbed from NBA All-Star Game?
Amit Mann and The Ringer's Seerat Sohi discuss whether or not Pascal Siakam not receiving an All-Star nod was justified.
Video Transcript
AMIT MANN: So what the hell? Pascal Siakam is not named an NBA All-Star this year. I had a feeling it would happen because he's having his best season of his career. Some of his numbers are absolutely ridiculous.
But he has been snubbed, along with a few other people who probably could be All-Star. But yeah, what do you think? Snubbed, right? Like, this is bad.
SEERAT SOHI: Snub, but I think the rule with-- when you're coming up with a snub--
AMIT MANN: Oh, there's a but, yeah.
SEERAT SOHI: Oh, I know, already, there's a but. Snub, but I think when you are coming up with who is a snub or not, like, you also have to mention who shouldn't be an All-Star this season. And I think that's kind of where it gets tough.
AMIT MANN: Yeah, yeah.
SEERAT SOHI: My actual-- I mean, I don't know if Raptors fans are going to love this very much, but the guy that I would honestly take off the team to make Pascal an All-Star is probably DeMar DeRozan because he's missed a chunk of time with injuries, and the Bulls are not a very good team.
Julius Randle is obviously the one that sticks out. I think that was probably what got the most reaction last night, when we all found out. But I dug into it a little bit. Honestly, Julius Randle is kind of back to being All-NBA Julius Randle. His numbers are not that far off from Siakam's.
To be clear, I think Siakam is a much better player than Randle. He gives you a lot more versatility. He's better on defense. He's much better on defense, actually. We cannot overstate how much better on defense he is. And he's a better playmaker.
But at the same time, the Knicks, they're better than the Raptors, at 28 and 25. The Raptors are, I think, six games under .500 right now. So that probably is the biggest reason he didn't make the All-Star Team.
The Raptors aren't winning right now. It's not like there's anything against Pascal. The numbers he's putting up are incredible. He's having, like you said, a career year.
But them's the breaks sometimes. I mean, obviously, you never hope that somebody gets hurt. But maybe he'll sneak in somehow because I have to imagine if there is an injury, he'll probably be the number one candidate to make it.
AMIT MANN: Number one person. You're right, I mean, Julius, 25, 11, and four, comparable to Pascal Siakam. Just so we know the numbers on Pascal Siakam--
Forwards to average 25, eight, and six in NBA history-- LeBron, six times, Bird, four times, John Havlicek, one, Pascal Siakam. That's it. Those are the people that have averaged those kind of stats. And also this season, 1,000 points, 250-plus rebounds, 250-plus assists this season-- Luka, LeBron, Jokic, Pascal. The numbers--
SEERAT SOHI: Yeah, Fred VanVleet also matched-- sorry, go ahead.
AMIT MANN: I'm just-- you mentioned DeMar, and there's Julius. Tyrese Haliburton is another one, but he's having a really good season. He's, like, been very, very good.
SEERAT SOHI: I wouldn't take Ty out, yeah.
AMIT MANN: No, it's--
SEERAT SOHI: All due respect to Pascal, I would not take Ty Haliburton out of the All-Star Game.
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
SEERAT SOHI: Like, the Pacers without him basically lost 7 out of 8 games. He's back, they're going to start winning again. He might not have, like, the flashy numbers or anything like that, other than the assist counts. But he is what makes that team go.
He's an incredible player. He's having an incredible season. And the Pacers, again, they're just winning more than the Raptors.
But Fred VanVleet, also to your point, he posted something about how nobody has missed the All-Star Game with numbers like Pascal, although I will say we do see this every once in a while, right? Like, when Devin Booker or Damian Lillard, every time they didn't make the All-Star Game--
AMIT MANN: Brad Beal.
SEERAT SOHI: --the stat about how, like, no one's ever averaged 26, five, and five without making it, up until those guys, so it's unfortunate.
I will say, one of the silver linings about this, though, is that usually when you're on the cusp and you don't make it, you get a lot more positive press than the guy who makes it and was on the cusp. Like, we're going to be hearing a lot more nice things about Pascal Siakam than Julius Randle in the coming days, is what I'm saying.
AMIT MANN: I think that's the case in most cases, anyways. But yes, you're absolutely right.
SEERAT SOHI: Yeah, that's fair.
AMIT MANN: He's a whipping boy in New York. But he is having a great season, so salute to him for that. Moe Dekel, he had mentioned that people, just so you know, a lot of coaches do not care about picking the All-Star reserves. And I guess he has some information that obviously, I don't.
But that is a factor in this conversation-- if a person is just, like, speeding through saying, uh, I got to get this pregame report going, that is influencing money-- I don't think for Pascal Siakam, because his is more tied to All-NBA as opposed to All-Star. But it still has to be said that the process probably needs to be tweaked a little bit.
And even just, like, looking at team records and not best performers, I think this is kind of counterintuitive to the All-Star Game, when it's about star power. Like, why are we taking multiple players from a good team or one of the best teams, even though that player may not be All-Star-caliber?
And I know, while I'm saying this about the Raptors, when Kyle Lowry was an All-Star for a few seasons, and probably shouldn't have been based off of his stats. But the Raptors were second or third or something like that. I understand.
And if we're calling everything even, I still would say that players like Devin Booker and Bradley Beal in those seasons, where they are incredible, and they're putting on, like, these unbelievable individual performances, that is what the All-Star Game is about--
SEERAT SOHI: Mm-hmm.
AMIT MANN: --kind of.
SEERAT SOHI: Yeah, no, absolutely, that's what it should be about. It's literally All-Star, right? It's right in the title. So I'm with you there.
And I think you kind of see that with-- maybe a guy like Jrue Holiday, he gets into the All-Star Game because of the Bucks.
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
SEERAT SOHI: And actually, he's had probably his best season on the Bucks. His efficiency numbers aren't quite as good. He's had to carry the load quite a bit.
But it's not like the Bucks actually did a great job when he was on the floor without Giannis, you know? Like, yes, he was carrying the load. But it wasn't like he was doing it successfully. That's another guy that I think maybe Pascal should have been in there ahead of.
But again, you get it, right? Like, he's Jrue Holiday.
AMIT MANN: Yeah.
SEERAT SOHI: He's not the type of player that I'm going to look at and say, he doesn't deserve to be an All-Star. Because there's so many things like Pascal that he does that don't really get counted in, like, the counting stats, that-- he deserves some credit, too. But that's another guy to look at. Maybe Pascal should have snuck in there ahead of him.
AMIT MANN: Jrue Holiday and Fred VanVleet now have very similar numbers. [LAUGHS] The numbers aren't that different. They were, but Fred's gone on a bit of a heater here. And his numbers are pretty close to-- maybe not exactly there, but pretty close to his season last year, where he was an All-Star, so that's funny. But--
SEERAT SOHI: He's so good. [INAUDIBLE] Fred.
AMIT MANN: Yeah, but I mean, they're all so much better. And I understand that point, like, team record and all that kind of stuff. I just-- I think they have to tweak this a little bit to make it make more sense.
SEERAT SOHI: I wonder if there's a way to make the players and the coaches actually care more, though. Like, we can talk all we want about tweaks. But at the end of the day, it's the middle of the season. Coaches are incredibly busy. The players clearly don't care. Like, look at how many votes Chet Holmgren got as a starter from the players, right?
Like, I don't know that there's a way to actually get the players or the coaches to be incentivized to care. Like, you can't put some sort of thing in there like, oh, if you make bad All-Star picks, that there's going to be some sort of consequence for you. That's just not going to work.
AMIT MANN: Right.
SEERAT SOHI: Also, that would be so subjective, too. So I don't know, like, what do you think they could actually do to fix this?
AMIT MANN: Do you think players would care more if they knew that they had higher percentage of the final vote? Like, if you moved it back to fans decide the starters, and then the reserves are determined by just players, do you think that would change something?
SEERAT SOHI: Maybe.
AMIT MANN: They joke around with it, right? They don't take it as seriously because they know that it's only a fraction of the percentage. Like, what is it, 25% or something like that, 25% they decide?
SEERAT SOHI: I think so, yeah. Maybe, yeah.
AMIT MANN: That's with the starters, though, right? They decide that part. But if they're the ones deciding who the reserves are--
SEERAT SOHI: Yeah.
AMIT MANN: --I wonder if that would change something.
SEERAT SOHI: Yeah, and the media also only gets to vote on the starters, too. And that is split with the fan vote. So maybe it's a matter of that it should all be split. Like, maybe everybody should be voting on everything.
Because you can look at it from the perspective of the fan voting is flawed, too. Like, Kyrie Irving is an All-Star starter this year. And he basically almost torpedoed the season, then started playing incredibly well. And--
AMIT MANN: And now?
SEERAT SOHI: --after not getting a contract extension, he is now demanding a trade. And--
AMIT MANN: That just happened. That just happened, yes.
SEERAT SOHI: Yeah, just now, like, he just asked for a trade. And yeah, I don't know, he could potentially torpedo the season once again. And he's a starter in the All-Star Game.
