Stephen Curry is Unanimous First-Team Selection
The NBA released its All-NBA teams Thursday, so it’s time for everyone to argue about the roster of a team that won’t actually play a game. In reality, there were no real surprises on the list, but quite a few interesting snubs.
The All-NBA First Team for the 2015-2016 consists of LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, DeAndre Jordan, Stephen Curry, and Russell Westbrook.
The All-NBA Second Team is Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, DeMarcus Cousins, Chris Paul, and Damian Lillard.
The All-NBA Third Team is Paul George, LaMarcus Aldridge, Andre Drummond, Klay Thompson, and Kyle Lowry.
No big surprise that the top two vote-getters were LeBron and Steph, with the latter earning the honor unanimously. Only appropriate for the league’s first unanimous MVP.
The more intriguing discussion lies in the players who didn’t make the list, including Pau Gasol, Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan, Marc Gasol, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, and Anthony Davis, all of which were on one of the three teams last season.
Marc Gasol missed a good number of games and Duncan and Griffin simply didn’t play at the same level this season, so I wouldn’t call those huge surprises. Irving didn’t necessarily deserve to make a team; however, you may be surprised to know that he didn’t receive a single vote for any of the three. Harden was the first player out followed by Paul Millsap of the Atlanta Hawks and then Davis.
Davis, who received only one First-Team vote, is arguably the biggest story of the night, as the failure to make one of the teams slashes the value of his new massive contract by about $24 million.
The “Derrick Rose Rule” of the collective bargaining agreement allows a player who is voted to any of the three All-NBA teams twice, wins regular-season MVP, or is voted an All-Star starter twice to earn 30 percent of the league cap instead of the 25 percent maximum. Davis’s snub reduces the max value of his five-year deal to around $120 million.
Quite the costly miss. I blame the voters for forgetting about Davis’s dominance due the injury which caused him to miss the last month or so of action. His numbers scream All-NBA.