The NBA is going to announce all of their All-Stars on Feb. 1, and there are a few names who have never made an All-Star Game who are hoping to see themselves get picked. From the All-Star starters, there are three two-time nominees: Cade Cunningham, Victor Wembanyama, and Tyrese Maxey. There will be new All-Stars in the reserves, but for now, we want to look at all the All-Stars who never made the team before, both past and present.
Over the history of the NBA, more than 450 players have made at least one All-Star team. More than 300 have made multiple teams. So, we had to dig really deep to find players who made exactly zero teams. Most of these players either had injuries cut their careers short, or they didn’t spend enough time as a high-profile star. Either way, let’s start with the one we don’t think will be on this list very long.
Jamal Murray
2016-2026
Jamal Murray has been a star who has trouble staying healthy throughout his career. He’s only played 82 games once in his career, and he hasn’t played 70+ games since 2018-19. It’s the modern NBA, so playing 80 games is a rarity for any star. Murray is often available for the playoffs, and he is an NBA champion.
Murray has averaged more than 20 points in four seasons, but he wasn’t good enough according to the All-Star voters. In three of those seasons, he averaged 20 points and six assists. That’s not even including this season, when he has career highs. He’s on a great team, tag-teaming with Nikola Jokic, considered by many to be the best player in the world. One might think those extra eyes would help him make the All-Star team, but they actually hurt his candidacy.
This season, Murray is scoring a career-high 25.9 points per game. He’s also averaging 7.4 assists per game and 4.4 rebounds per game. He’s going to make the All-Star team this year thanks to a career year in what’s been a really good career. If he continued to be left off All-Star teams, he'd be the top name on this list, but luckily, that's all going to end in just a few days.
Richard Jefferson
2001-2018
Richard Jefferson is a name everyone seems to know, and he was a part of those really good New Jersey Nets teams from the early 2000s, so it would make sense to think he made at least one All-Star Game. He did finish his career with just under 15,000 points after playing for 17 seasons. Yet, in all of those seasons, he couldn’t make the midseason exhibition.
Jefferson’s best season came in 2004-05. He finished the season with more than 22 points per game, seven rebounds, and four assists. He was impacting all levels of the game, and that led to huge statistics. The Nets actually fell off in the playoffs that season, but let’s not go there. Jefferson had many great years with the Nets, and he was still a big contributor on the other teams he played for.
The issue for Jefferson was timing. His career overlapped with some great All-Star teams. When Lebron James entered the league, that took away any chance Jefferson would start a game. With players like Vince Carter, Paul Pierce, Dwyane Wade, and others parolling the Eastern Conference, Jefferson didn’t have a route to make an All-Star Game, even in his best seasons. It also didn't help that Jefferson was never the number one option on his team, and it really didn't help that he played for seven teams over the final nine seasons of his career.
Damon Stoudamire
1995-2008
For those of us who are 1990s kids, we all remember the name Damon Stoudamire. We remember him as the small guy with a big impact. There were a few guys like that, including the superstar of this group, Muggsy Bogues. However, Stoudamire always had a special place in our hearts.
It’s not like Stoudamire didn’t have a great pedigree coming into the league. He was the seventh-overall pick of the 1995 NBA Draft. Even if the fans in the arena wanted the Raptors to take Ed O’Bannon. Instead, the Raptors first draft pick ever was a 5’10 guy nicknamed Mighty Mouse. He was a revelation for that franchise, and he won Rookie of the Year that first season.
Everyone thought we were watching a budding superstar. He averaged 20 points in his second season, and this was a guy who had his whole career ahead of him. Unfortunately, something changed when he was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in the middle of his third season. He demanded the trade, and his career in Portland was a weird one. He was benched for an old Scottie Pippen one season. He wasn’t consistent, and his numbers tanked.
CJ McCollum
2013-2026
CJ McCollum is another name that makes you ask whether he ever made an All-Star team, but he never did. Guys like D’Angelo Russell and Andrew Wiggins have made the All-Star team, but McCollum has not. He’s won a Most Improved Player Award, but he still wasn’t improved enough to make the All-Star team.
Outside of his first two seasons in the league, McCollum has never scored fewer than 20 points per game over a season. He’s just under this season, but he has plenty of time to get his statistics back up. The issue with McCollum, like many others on this list, is that he’s perceived as not a first option. He’s always the second banana in the eyes of the media.
It started early in his career when he was combined with Damian Lillard. Then he joined the New Orleans Hornets as a veteran presence alongside Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. Now, he’s a veteran again, this time on the Atlanta Hawks. His statistics say he should be an All-Star, but the narrative around him didn’t allow an appearance. As his career gets to his late 30s, it’s probably best to give up on any pipe dreams that include an All-Star Game.
Cedric Maxwell
1977–1988
Two-time NBA Champion Cedric Maxwell has never made an All-Star Game. Former NBA Finals MVP Cedric Maxwell has never made an All-Star Game. Maxwell had his number retired for the Boston Celtics, but he never made an All-Star Game. It’s crazy to see some of the players who didn’t make it in the early days of the game. Maxwell was a Celtics star that was always the sidekick, and his All-Star status proves that.
Maxwell was the glue that became the Celtics dynasty. He dominated the glass and had a beautiful sky hook. His play underneath allowed Larry Bird to thrive on the outside. He did the dirty work, grabbing rebounds and taking on double teams, which opened space in the mid range and beyond the arc. The Celtics were built to dominate this era, and it was because they had an unselfish forced playing forward.
Maxwell even led the league twice in shooting percentage. This wasn’t an era where that was considered as important, but we could all see how efficient he was. He finished 1978-79 with a 58.4% shooting percentage and 79-80 with a ridiculous 60.9 shooting percentage. Despite this efficiency and playing for an all-time franchise, Maxwell never got the recognition he needed to make the All-Star team.
K.C. Jones
1958–1967
We have a feeling K.C. Jones wouldn’t particularly care that he didn’t get to be an All-Star. He was an eight-time NBA Champion with the Boston Celtics. His number is hanging from the rafters at the TD Garden. He got to spend his entire 10-year career in Boston, and he never lost a Final, going 8-0 in his career. He had a phenomenal career.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t statistically phenomenal. It was mostly great for a team looking to win. And listen, that’s the point of the game! It’s to win, and few players did that as well as K.C. Jones. He might be one of the best defensive players of all time, cutting down opponents before they got going.
Jones actually did make the All-Star Game. That happened in 1986. Which was almost 20 years after he retired. That’s because he was coaching the All-Star Game. Jones added four more championships as a coach, including two as a head coach. He made the Hall of Fame despite never making an All-Star Game, one of 14 players with that distinction.
Marcus Camby
1996–2013
Another dominant defensive player, Marcus Camby was a complimentary piece on a ton of teams during the 90s and 2000s. He had a long and impactful career, winning Defensive Player of the Year in 2007. He’s actually the only player to win DPOY and never make an All-Star Game in the history of the award. Camby was always taking pride in keeping opponents off the board over putting up big statistics.
Camby had an interesting start to his career. As a rookie with the Toronto Rapters, Camby averaged 14 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. He would never match that mark in terms of points. In his second season, he led the league in blocks per game with 3.7. He would lead the league in blocks four times in his career.
Camby had 10 or more rebounds per game in eight straight seasons from 2003-04 to 2010-11. He did it 10 times overall in his career. Camby was a monster in the paint, and teams paid dividends from his unselfishness. It’s actually really surprising he never made the All-Star Game, but people don’t watch those games for the savvy defense. We believe that has a lot to do with it.
Ron Harper
1986–2001
Ron Harper finished his rookie season in second place in Rookie of the Year voting, and then never sniffed another award or honor the rest of his career. That is, unless you count championship rings, because Ron Harper has five of them. He actually won those five championship rings in the final six seasons of his career.
It’s not bad to go from the Chicago Bulls dynasty right to the Los Angeles Lakers dynasty back to back. Harper played with some of the best players in the history of basketball. He knew his role, and he played it well. Harper made the All-Defensive Team four times in his career, so it’s not like he got zero accolades for his play.
It is surprising Harper never got love for the All-Star Game earlier in his career. He averaged 22 points twice for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He also averaged 20 points for the Los Angeles Clippers before signing with the Bulls. Then, he immediately sacrificed points for the greater good. Playing next to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, Harper would never average even 10 points per game. That probably sealed his fate as an All-Star, but he was perfectly okay with the ultimate outcome.
Al Jefferson
2004–2018
Al Jefferson has something that nobody on this list has… he made an All-NBA team but did not make an All-Star team (although, Andrew Bogut shares that “honor”). In 2013-14, Jefferson made the third team alongside Damian Lillard, Goran Dragic, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Paul George. To be fair to the voters, Jefferson turned up the heat in the second half of the season, but it is wild that he made arguably a harder team to make.
Ironically, Jefferson’s biggest issue was defense. He was considered one of the worst defensive centers of this era. He wasn’t doing much of anything underneath the basket. That might be why he didn’t make an All-Star team, but it seems like we’re in a league where offense matters more than defense, anyway. Nobody is keeping Luka Doncic off an All-Star team anytime soon.
So, why didn’t Jefferson, who averaged 20+ points three times? He even finished eighth in MVP voting one time. It probably comes down to who he played for. Jefferson ended up on a lot of bad teams, and he moved around. That probably is why he retired without an All-Star appearance. If he played for the Lakers or stuck to the team that drafted him (Celtics), he definitely would have made an All-Star team.
Keith Van Horn
1997–2006
Keith Van Horn is another player where you try to convince yourself that he was good enough to make an All-Star Game, but his peak was not long enough for him to get the consideration. He had the makings of a star, finishing second to in Rookie of the Year voting. He was the reason why Tim Duncan wasn’t a unanimous Rookie of the Year. It’s a claim to fame!
Van Horn finished his second season with more than 20 points, showing growth for a player on an up-and-coming Nets team. Unlike many of the other names on the list, Van Horn was the star player on the team. That is, until the Nets traded for Jason Kidd. Ironically, the former star didn’t mesh well with Kidd, and he was traded away while the Nets went on those NBA Finals runs.
He did stay there for that first run, when the Nets got destroyed by the Los Angeles Lakers. He averaged 13 points and 7 rebounds in those playoffs. Then, he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. After that, he had a pretty mediocre career that was marred by injuries. It’s an interesting what-if to talk about if the Nets never traded for Jason Kidd. If that’s the case, we do see Van Horn making at least one All-Star team.