Why Lou Williams should have made the 2018 NBA All-Star team

I know, I know: it’s crazy that we’re here talking about this right now. Stick with me for a moment. Lou Williams deserves to have been an All-Star. He is Exhibit A in the case of current season vs. reputation as far as All-Star selections go, and he knows it. Damian Lillard was formerly this talisman, for reference, but the powers that be got that one correct this time.

Seriously, though, Williams has enjoyed not only the best season of his journeyman career thus far, but one of the best of anyone in the NBA this year. What follows is an incomprehensive selection of the categories in which he is experiencing career-highs: points per game; assists per game; free throw percentage; 3-point field goal percentage (on a near-career-best number of attempts, no less!); effective field goal percentage; offensive rating; and PER.

A man with a history of streaky shooting has made good for a Los Angeles Clippers team that desperately needed him to do so in the wake of Chris Paul’s exit and the perpetual uncertainty surrounding Blake Griffin’s health. DeAndre Jordan is an efficient offensive tool, but he plays a very distinct and limited role on that end.

Lou Williams has provided a spark few, if any, of us could have predicted at the start of the season, despite his perennial push for Sixth Man of the Year. Over his last sixteen games in particular, he has been mesmerizing, averaging nearly 30 points and six assists on 47/43/91 shooting from the field, 3-point and free-throw lines respectively. He’s also putting in almost 35 minutes per game, a huge ask for a guy accustomed to being the spark off the bench rather than the crackling fire.

Perhaps more than simply in his stats, however, what Williams would have brought to the All-Star Game was a sense of competitive balance, for lack of a better term. Not in the sense that the teams would be even, because that certainly does not matter at this point; the All-Star Game is a defense-free farce, an exhibition which lives up to its billing when you see scores inching ever toward 200 per team. Even Williams becoming the first player to record 30 points, 10 steals and seven assists since steals have been tracked as a stat cannot change that.

Rather, what Williams could have provided was a sense that deserving players belonged. Name recognition gets a player many miles on the fan vote ballot — just ask Steph Curry, top vote-getter who should not be, despite his exceptional credentials and multiple MVPs, because his season has not been as otherworldly as those of several of his rivals (and one of his teammates). And yes, the player vote gets muddled when the players refuse to take the process seriously and cast votes for the likes of Tyler Lydon.

But Lou Williams has had the type of season that provokes shedding light on the All-Star voting process yet again. Especially when Griffin did not play for almost all of December, Williams propped up the Clippers with phenomenal skill that toed the line between streetball savvy and the stylish efficiency of the advanced analytics hounds who have chastised the likes of him and his contemporaries, among them Jamal Crawford and J.R. Smith, for doing too much of what they want to do the most: just absolutely balling on unsuspecting defenders.

Williams’ game is also tailor-made for the All-Star showcase, as his open floor wizardry would make for mind-numbing displays of the types of isolation excellence which routinely draw oohs and ahhs from company both present and at home watching on television. When he needs to, he can pull tricks out of his cap with the best of them, whether it be a raucous Shammgod-into-step back or a dizzying twist at the rim to finish a tough layup over a much larger defender. Practicing against DeAndre Jordan has its perks, after all.

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Of course, the league means for the All-Star Game to be a stage. Williams fits that bill, too. Two of his best games this season came in wins against the two best teams in the NBA: a 50-point, 7-assist affair versus the Warriors, and a 31-point, 9-assist effort in the revenge game against his former team, the Houston Rockets.

All that glitters is not gold, nor is every All-Star necessarily deserving of being deemed as such. Lou Williams, formerly clad in gold, is a sorcerer stripped of an honorary cloak, a guest who brought a crowd-pleasing dish without actually having a place at the table. Lou Williams, against the odds, should be an All-Star in 2018.