Ranking the Most Underrated 2017 NBA All-Star Game Candidates
Some NBA All-Star candidates don't receive enough love.
This is a bizarre concept to ponder: Merely being considered for February's showcase implies a player is near the top of his game. How could the league's household names want for more recognition?
Fan voting is a part of it. This yearly popularity contest allows deserving talents to bend to stronger individual brands. Should-be starters barely reach the top 10 of total ballots; worthy reserves don't have the name recognition to even get that far.
Adding player and media votes to the equation should help dilute the number of truly unjustifiable snubs. But underrated All-Star hopefuls are talented dudes whose half-season performances warrant more consideration and fame than they're currently getting—both inside and outside the All-Star discussion.
Honorable Mentions
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Mike Conley, Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies offense becomes watchable whenever Mike Conley is in the game. And the point guard is once again scoring and passing like a No. 1 option with the turnover rate of a low-usage third-stringer.
In a vacuum, this should be enough to get Conley more All-Star adulation. But he plays a loaded point guard position and has missed almost one-third of Memphis' square dances. His case, while strong, lacks a certain oomph.
Al Horford, Boston Celtics
Al Horford, like Conley, has availability working against him. He has missed 25 percent of the Boston Celtics' schedule, and it's genuinely difficult to bestow All-Star honors upon players who (will) barely crack the 1,000-minute mark at the halfway point.
Any argument against Horford ends there.
Boston's defense and rebounding situations are wonky with him in the middle, but he's been a boon for the offense's spacing and is notching career-best assist and block percentages. Much like Dirk Nowitzki is one of the original stretch 4s, Horford is among the NBA's initial unicorns. He flashed outside range, playmaking and shot-blocking chops long before Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Kristaps Porzingis and Karl-Anthony Towns were making opposing defenses faint.
Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers
Can Chris Paul be underrated?
This is one of the great questions we've needed to ask over the past few years. Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook have seized control of the "best point guard" debate, while the rises of Damian Lillard, Kyle Lowry, Isaiah Thomas, John Wall, Kemba Walker et al. have bilked Paul's predictable greatness of its shine.
This is the eighth time Paul has cleared 16 points, nine assists and two steals per game. No one else in NBA history has done the same more than three times. Paul remains absurd, in the best possible way, and doesn't get enough fanfare for his feats.
Classifying him as categorically underrated, though, is a problem. He is fifth in voting among Western Conference guards, and it's tough to argue anyone in front him—James Harden, Klay Thompson, Curry and Westbrook—isn't worth his current spot.
7. Hassan Whiteside, Miami Heat
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Roundball buffs aren't talking enough about Hassan Whiteside's season. He has assumed a larger role for the Miami Heat with fewer security blankets around him and is still posting r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s lines on a regular basis.
Here's the list of players who have ever matched Whiteside's rebounding (22.9) and block (5.0) percentages while averaging 15 or more points per game: no one.
Miami's defense is allowing fewer points per 100 possessions without Whiteside in the game, but there's a deafening amount of statistical babble in here. Injuries have forced the Heat to trot out 17 different starting fives, and the general rotation is fluid. The most used lineup that includes Whiteside has logged less than 100 minutes and features three distinct defensive liabilities in Goran Dragic, Wayne Ellington and Josh McRoberts.
Whiteside deserves a medal for upping his value on the offensive side in the wake of these defensive warts. He is averaging 1.17 points per possession as the roll man, tying him for the second-best mark among divers with at least 98 such possessions—no small feat when factoring in Miami's crummy spacing.
Bigs who won't launch threes on a regular basis don't get tons of All-Star recognition anymore, but Whiteside is one of the East's three best towers. It's officially acceptable to wonder whether he's a better building block than Andre Drummond and not feel bad about yourself.
6. Paul Millsap, Atlanta Hawks
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Paul Millsap is everything the NBA values most in a contemporary forward.
He plays defense, even at center. He puts the ball on the floor. He chucks threes. He makes post-ups easy to watch. He passes. You can use him as a nominal small forward without torpedoing floor balance.
Think of Millsap as the Eastern Conference's Draymond Green: completely malleable on both ends in ways that are impossible to miss. Green is, in fact, the only other player matching Millsap's rebound (13.1), assist (18.5), steal (2.3) and block (2.3) percentages while burying as many triples.
So, naturally, Millsap doesn't even rank in the top 10 of Eastern Conference frontcourt voting. What?
Though there are real arguments for choosing Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jimmy Butler over him, conventional wisdom implodes when he doesn't sniff Carmelo Anthony, Paul George and Kevin Love—not to mention Jabari Parker, Kristaps Porzingis and Tristan Thompson.
Luckily for Millsap, he doesn't need the fan vote. And he doesn't need the media members or his fellow players to show him love. The coaches will make sure he gets in.
5. Gordon Hayward, Utah Jazz
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Gordon Hayward's All-Star candidacy would be far more underrated if he hadn't missed seven games—six of which were the result of a broken finger. It seems like a trivial number of absences, but it equates to almost 17 percent of the season.
That's the only knock on this rising star. Well that, and the fact Hayward plays in a Western Conference teeming with dominant forwards. It's easy to lose track of him in discussions that include Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Green.
But that doesn't make overlooking him OK. He belongs in the same breath as those other dudes—especially this season.
Hayward's pumping in a career-high 22.1 points per game on the second-highest effective field-goal percentage of his career. He is averaging two three-point makes for the first time ever and sinking a personal-best 69.4 percent of his looks around the rim.
Melt in above-average defense at both the 3 and 4 spots, plus a top-10 assist rate among forwards, and you have a surefire All-Star reserve—or an inexcusable snub.
"It'll be a disgrace if he's not an All-Star this year," Utah Jazz teammate George Hill said, per ESPN.com's Tim MacMahon. "I feel like he deserves it with the numbers he's put up this year and winning a little bit. That should be a no-brainer for him."
4. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies
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Marc Gasol is delivering the best version of himself at 31-going-on-32, because of course he is.
Head coach David Fizdale has Big Spain jacking three-pointers, and that's not even his biggest accomplishment. He has unlocked a more aggressive version of the eight-year veteran at a time when the league is moving away from using plodding bigs as featured weapons.
As Grizzly Bear Blues' Kevin Yeung wrote ahead of Memphis' Jan. 6 tango with the Golden State Warriors:
"We should thank David Fizdale for the threes, and probably also for Gasol's career high in a different stat: field goals attempted, at 15.9 per game. An established fact of history is that Gasol should've taken more shots, because he's so good at making so many different kinds of them (case in point, the threes). Now, at the same time as his range expands, he's also being more assertive about taking the open shot — so suddenly, he's quick-firing on transition threes.
It's kind of funny timing too, since Fizdale said straight from the start that his offense would be less about emphasizing the bigs. It used to be that Mike Conley was the initiator or the bail-out guy, with Gasol and the high-low game eating up the juicy middle part of the shot clock. That relationship has sort of inverted now — Gasol usually gets the ball early in the clock, but the Grizzlies have more options for Conley and their cutters instead of running straight post-ups.
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The Grizzlies offense is 24th in points scored per 100 possessions—the rain to Gasol's parade. But the team scores like an almost-average outfit when he's on the floor, which is fairly incredible given the protracted stretch he spent without Conley.
Fittingly, and perhaps predictably, Gasol's offensive makeover is buoying a historic campaign. Five players before this season posted assist rates of at least 20 percent and block percentages of four or better: DeMarcus Cousins, Pau Gasol, Kevin Garnett, Andrei Kirilenko and David Robinson. Gasol and Horford are now on pace to hit those benchmarks while becoming the first stars to also average one made three-pointer per game.
3. Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz
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We know Rudy Gobert's defensive story.
He has challenged 69 more shots at the rim than anyone else in the league, while opponents fail to shoot 43 percent on point-blank looks when he's guarding them. Teams cannot score against Gobert in the pick-and-roll, and Utah's defense goes from great to even better whenever he's in the middle.
We know his offensive story, too.
Gobert doesn't hoist threes, have much of a jumper or record eye-popping stat lines. Perceived limitations work against Gobert in an All-Star forum that rewards offensive output.
Look closer, though, and you'll find he's a legit offensive contributor. As Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal wrote:
"He's incredibly efficient when he does choose to provide offense, thriving as a finisher around the hoop and leading the league in true shooting percentage. It may be easy to knock down interior looks and complete alley-oop slams when you can almost dunk without jumping, but hitting 72.3 percent of your shots from within three feet is nearly unheard of.
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Gobert has emerged as a devastating pick-and-roll finisher and viable post-up threat. He needs to hone his passing on the move and with his back-to-the-basket, but he still profiles as one of the Jazz's most valuable offensive contributors.
Only five players have thus far added at least 10 points to the offensive end while saving 75 or more on the defensive side, according to NBA Math: Anthony Davis, Antetokounmpo, Green, Westbrook and...Gobert.
Defense pads Gobert's standing, but he's done enough to be considered a high-end, two-way talent—and the absence of measurable All-Star pizzazz doesn't change that.
2. Kemba Walker, Charlotte Hornets
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Someone from the Kyrie Irving-Kyle Lowry-Isaiah Thomas-Kemba Walker-John Wall cluster is going to get spurned from the East's All-Star docket. This is the problem with speaking on behalf of the ignored: Their slight is rarely the result of unfit alternatives.
That is a damn shame.
You can't help but think that snub is going to be Walker—another damn shame.
Forced to choose, you can adequately build a case for Walker over Irving, Thomas and Wall. The Charlotte Hornets star is setting new career highs in scoring and efficiency for the second consecutive season, and his own offense isn't coming at the expense of his playmaking.
LeBron James and Lowry are the only players posting Walker's effective field-goal (54) and assist percentages (30) while clearing 20 points per game.
Walker's 6'1" frame is always going to betray him on defense, but he's less of a liability than Irving and Thomas. The Hornets record a top-10 defensive rating when he's in the lineup, and he holds pick-and-roll ball-handlers to sub-40 percent shooting.
Whether Walker sneaks into the All-Star festivities as a reserve is irrelevant to the larger conversation. He is playing like the East's second-best point guard, and it's about time everyone took (more) notice.
1. Kyle Lowry, Toronto Raptors
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Who is the best guard, bar none, in the Eastern Conference? The answer depends on a number of other questions.
Do you consider Antetokounmpo a guard, forward or ineffable thingamabob? Are you fine overrating DeMar DeRozan? Does Wall's on-again, off-again relationship with defense bother you?
Has Irving's crunch-time appeal left you love-drunk? Are you stuck in the year 2011, completely unaware Thomas and Walker exist and prepared to make an unironic stand for Derrick Rose?
Most importantly: Do you realize how freaking amazing Kyle Lowry is at basketball?
Lowry is the best non-thingamabob guard in the East. That much becomes clear when looking at his statistical ranks against players who have cleared 1,000 minutes:
No other guard falls inside the top 10 of every category. Walker comes pretty close but falls short in the rebounding department. And he, like pretty much every other All-Star candidate in the backcourt, enjoys a higher usage rate than the Toronto Raptors' point man.
Lowry creates the most separation from everyone else on the less glamorous end. He is a bulldog for someone generously listed at 6'1" and the main reason why Toronto's topsy-turvy defense sports top-five prevention at the point guard position, according to HoopsStats.com.
All of this tends to go unrecognized: Lowry barely places fifth in backcourt voting.
Worse, he isn't yet the popular pick for hypothetical "Best Guard in the East" honors—even though that's exactly what he is. And, frankly, it's not really close.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com or NBA.com and accurate leading into games on Monday, Jan. 16.
