The All-Star selections are a tradition for NBA fans to get excited about. You get to see one of your favorite players get recognition for the work they put in. It could go both ways however, fans could ridicule the process of how players are picked. Generally players who are apart of winning organizations get in. Example being Kyle Korver got in being apart of an Atlanta Hawks team that was very good. All-Star selections have standards that players should be winning in part of putting up stats.

Then Trae Young got in as a starter. By all means, I’m for him getting in he has been having an exceptional year. The All-Star game is about excitement, special dunks and hitting three’s. The game has changed, I’m fine with Young getting the role, but that means the same should apply to everyone as well. That means guys like Bradley Beal, Devin Booker and even Zach LaVine should see an appearance. And yet, they didn’t.

So what were the biggest mistakes in my opinion? The hypocrisy of the All-Star selection. It tried to please all forms of fans, and it didn’t work. You can’t reward players who have losing records, while also disregard players for the same thing. Once Young gets in, that means Beal and Booker should easily be selected. Instead guys like Chris Paul, Rudy Gobert and Bam Adebayo got in. Gobert essentially cried his way into an All-Star selection instead of Karl-Anthony Towns who is, by all means, having an incredible season. The media hyped up Gobert into something he is not.

Do we solely blame Beal, Booker and LaVine for the organizations being a mess? Or is this a popularity contest? Kamiah Adams, Bradley Beal’s fiancee, said it after the Wizards game.

“It’s a popularity contest. It’s about who has the most followers on Instagram, who has the most likes, and it’s a joke to me because my thing is you can’t name five or six players that were selected for reserves on either the East or the West who are outplaying Bradley right now.” She goes on to saying the NBA has become laughable.

It’s hard to argue that against Beal, averaging 28.6 points on 45 percent shooting doesn’t deserve to be in there. Especially when you look at players in the East like Khris Middleton, Domantas Sabonis and Adebayo that were all selected solely because their team wins. By no means am I trying to discredit these players, but it’s hard to argue outside of Jimmy Butler who deserved a spot more than Beal.

That goes the same with Booker, who is averaging 27 points a game on 51 percent shooting. For the first time since Booker has been there, the team isn’t an absolute joke and he has been the sole reason. Yet we put a guy like Gobert in who isn’t even asked to do nearly as much. There is no reason for this, and there are so many more guys you can argue for that got snubbed.

What about Jaylen Brown? He could be having one of the best turn-around seasons I have seen. Kyrie Irving’s team isn’t “winning” yet he didn’t even get a reserve spot? Paul George even shocked me a bit. What even is the format anymore? How did they come to these conclusions?

There is an easy solution to this problem though, get rid of position requirements for the reserves. For the starters I understand, but do we really need more than two centers on each team? Do we need to limit the amount of wings and guards? It should just be the best players that get in. Some guys that have been great for their teams dont need to be in there. By almost everyone’s standards, Ben Simmons has been disappointing besides on defense.

So yeah, I was definitely disappointed by some of the selections. It was simply hypocrisy-riddled and inexcusable. I understand some guys get snubbed, but this was a mess across the board.