5 biggest snubs from 2024 NBA All-Star Game

The NBA All-Star reserves were announced on Thursday night. Some of the omissions were... curious, to say the least. Coaches decide the reserves. It's hard to argue with their qualifications. But, in the end, a few of the players left off the initial roster are flat-out egregious.

There will be amends made in the form of injury replacements. This is not the set-in-stone final roster. That said, a lot of fans are rightfully upset.

Here is the official list.

Nikola Jokic, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Luka Doncic, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will start in the West. Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, Damian Lillard, and Tyrese Haliburton will start in the East (we can already scratch Embiid's name off the list, so that's one injury replacement on the horizon).

Now that we have the full rosters, here are the most unfortunate and unforgivable omissions.

5. Scottie Barnes, Toronto Raptors

Lost in the Toronto Raptors' teardown has been Scottie Barnes' All-Star (worthy) ascent. The third-year forward has made several leaps as a scorer, boosting his 3-point volume and molding into a mid-range assassin. All that, and he is Toronto's bedrock on defense, generating stops all across the perimeter and operating effectively as a weak-side rim protector.

Barnes is averaging a well-rounded 20.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 5.8 assists on .476/.359/.766 splits in 35.2 minutes. He's also netting 1.3 steals and 1.5 blocks — we are talking All-Defense level contributions from the Raptors' primary offensive hub. Barnes is equal parts jumbo-point guard, Giannis-lite defender, and go-to scorer. The totality of his contributions has been vastly underrated due to Toronto's lackluster win-loss splits.

It's understandable to penalize Barnes for Toronto's lack of team success, but he has been the one constant for a franchise in flux. Fred VanVleet left in the offseason. The Raptors just traded OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam. Barnes is Toronto's stabilizing force. His chameleonic traits on offense are hyper-valuable. He can work two-man actions with Immanuel Quickley, mismatch hunt in the post, or space out to the 3-point line while Dennis Schroder slices down the lane. Barnes is whatever the Raptors need of him.

There simply isn't a more balanced Eastern Conference player not presently in the All-Star game. Barnes still has room to grow as a scorer, but he's getting better by the week. This snub will look quite poor in hindsight. Thankfully, Barnes has several All-Star nods in his future.