5 biggest All-NBA questions remaining this season
We’re two-thirds of the way through the season and there are several All-NBA questions still unanswered, including one big one we’re unaccustomed to asking.
To say that the Designated Player Exception — arguably viewed as the crowning achievement of the last collective bargaining agreement at the time it was agreed to — has been an abject failure is an understatement.
What was conceived of as a tool to keep homegrown stars with the organizations that drafted them has instead become an afterthought for the league’s very best players. Anthony Davis is only the latest example, but Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler all qualify as top of the line performers who forced their way off teams in spite of the fact that they could have gotten more money by staying.
In the case of the three men before Davis, there was some question as to whether the organization even wanted to pay the extra money, and really, who could blame them. John Wall — one of the few to sign a DPE, or “supermax” — has now saddled Washington with the worst contract in the league. Russell Westbrook’s pact doesn’t figure to age gracefully either. Any way you slice it, the point remains: the league and the players union need to go back to the drawing board on this one.
The irony, of course, is that the whole supermax conundrum has sullied, if ever so slightly, what is supposed to be a crowning achievement for an NBA player: making one of the All-NBA teams. Earning that distinction either in the season before your second contract is up or in two of the previous three years is the most conventional way to qualify for the DPE (the others being to win an MVP or Defensive Player of the Year).
Even with the added complication, the All-NBA teams are still a huge deal. They’re the easiest starting point for any historical discussion of a player’s place in NBA lore, and unlike All-Star games, no one sneaks into one of these coveted 15 spots.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the top five races involving the All-NBA teams that will be decided over the final third of the season.