ALL-STAR TEAMS

I can't believe the NBA All-Star Game--one of the 5 best sporting events of the year--is in Las Vegas and I won't be there because of goddamn work commitments. I gotta find another job.

Seriously, even if you didn't have a ticket for the game or any of the events, it'd be worth it just to check out all the characters in town for the weekend. I can picture a vast rainbow of suits--orange, purple, red--and all the real hookers fighting for floor space in the clubs with the amateur sluts just up from LA for the weekend. I guarantee that if you were there, you'd see at least 30 things you've never before seen in your life and never will again. And Zach Randolph would be prominently involved in 20 of them.

OK, on to the teams.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Starters
G Dwyane Wade
G Gilbert Arenas
F Lebron James
F Chris Bosh
C Jermaine O'Neal

The top three guys are pretty obvious--even if Lebron's game is falling off a cliff lately--and Bosh is far and away the best big man in the east, but the center position was tough. It looked early on like Dwight Howard was ready to join the ranks of the superstar elite, but he and Orlando have taken a nosedive over the last month or so. Indiana has a better record (despite playing a higher percentage of their games on the road) and O'Neal is just a better player than Howard on both ends.

(Just another word about Bosh: Since coming back from injury, he's averaging 26 & 9 in 18 games, and the Raptors are 13-5 over that span. This guy's coming on in a big way.)

Reserves
Chauncey Billups
Joe Johnson
Vince Carter
Caron Butler
Dwight Howard
Michael Redd
Ben Gordon

Injury replacement for Redd: Emeka Okafor

I know, I know, where's Rip Hamilton? Well, in the mighty mouse conference, they have lots of good guards and very few big forwards and centers--so an Emeka Okafor gets on the roster over Hamilton. You can't have Caron Butler trying to d-up Amare, that's not going to work. It's an all-star *team*, not just a ranking of the best players in the conference.

So why Ben Gordon over Hamilton? Look, I love Rip Hamilton, he's one of my favorite players in the league. And it's really, really close, they're both fantastic offensive players. But ask around the league which guy a team would less rather face, it's Ben Gordon. Hamilton has made the most out of his game you could possibly ask for, but he's still essentially a jump shooter who can't hit the three. He's done a great job being more aggressive in putting the ball on the floor, and his FTAs are way up as a result--but Gordon's a creator, a one-man offense, a guy who can absolutely take over a game on his own. Rip can do that too, sometimes, but Gordon does it like every other night.

A couple other notes--

This is entirely based on merit. If I were voting with the goal of having the best game possible, I'd absolutely have Jason Kidd on the team--great passing PGs are what makes the all-star game fun to watch, like the 80s glory days of Isiah vs. Magic, some of the most enjoyable-to-watch basketball ever played. But look, the Nets, with Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson (who played in 2/3rds of the team's games), are 23-27. In the East. Even without Krstic, that's pathetic. I'm not giving this team 2 all-stars. Vince should be on there because, well, it's hard to leave off a 25/6/4 guy--but if Kidd is the leader of this crew, he's gotta be accountable for their awful start.

I actually considered putting Eddy Curry on here instead of Okafor, he's been just a fantastic offensive player since a few weeks into the season. You can pretty much count on him for 22 a night on .600+ shooting. But he still doesn't rebound, and he's still a dreadful defensive player on a team that should be better than it is. Okafor's a 15 & 11 guy and a total defensive force on a suddenly resurgent Bobcats team (wait--can you be 'resurgent' if you were never 'surgent' in the first place? Make it "on the suddenly not-horrific Bobcats team"). I also considered Rasheed, who's more valuable than his stats would suggest.

My (rather arbitrary) injury policy is that a guy has to play in like 60% of his team's games--so yes on Redd, Billups & Bosh, no on Shaq & Pierce.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Starters
G: Steve Nash
G: Kobe Bryant
F: Dirk Nowitzki
F: Amare Stoudemire
C: Tim Duncan

(Note: Yao fails the "60% test")

The only question mark here is Amare, but I put him on over Boozer, Garnett, Randolph and Brand because he makes Phoenix so much better on both ends. Amare's coming off a 4-game stretch against Utah, San Antonio, at Denver and at Portland where he averaged 31 & 14 on 62% shooting.

I also thought about throwing Tracy McGrady in there at the other forward spot--what he's been doing with Houston since Yao went down is incredible. The team was 16-11 when Yao got hurt and 40-year-old Dikembe Mutombo took over at center; since then, they're 15-6 and are just a half game behind Utah and 1.5 games behind San Antonio for the #3 spot in the West. McGrady is averaging just under 30 & 7 during those 21 games.

Reserves
Tracy McGrady
Carlos Boozer
Kevin Garnett
Allen Iverson
Shawn Marion
Carmelo Anthony
Chris Paul

Boozer injury replacement: Elton Brand

Man, there are some tough omissions here: Tony Parker, Ray Allen, Zach Randolph, Josh Howard, Deron Williams, Baron Davis, etc.

I think the toughest decision is Chris Paul over Tony Parker. Paul missed 1/3rd of the season with injury and Parker's the second best player on one of the best teams in the league. But it comes down to this--New Orleans has almost no supporting talent, but they're a plus-.500 team when Paul plays; that would make them a playoff team in an absolutely *stacked* conference. Plus Paul is just better. Parker's a great scorer, one of the all time small-man finishers in NBA history. He's putting up 19 a game on ridiculous .529 shooting. But Paul is scoring almost as much and is also one of the 2-3 best ballhandling/passing point guards in the league on top of it--for the season he's averaging 8.6 assists per game against only 2.8 turnovers, a better than 3:1 ratio. And Paul is also a better defensive guard--although Parker's underrated in that area. Tough call, but I'm going with the guy who's the leader of his team and the main focus of the opponent's defensive gameplan.

All of this goes for Deron Williams too--he's a damn good player, but Paul is just a little bit better, and doesn't have the advantage of playing with other great players the way Parker and Williams do.

Leaving Ray Allen off was tough too, he's having a monster year. But if you're going to go with the scoring guard, it has to be Iverson. Things have been rocky in Denver, but Seattle's one of the worst teams in the league (admittely injuries have played a part there). Iverson is scoring just as much as Allen since he got to Denver, and he's even put up a better shooting percentage--add in his 8 assists per game and superior (if overrated) defense, and he gets the nod.

I gave Garnett, Boozer and Brand the PF slots over Zach Randolph because as good as he's been this year, Randolph is still a one-dimensional player. But Portland has been surprisingly not-atrocious this year, and especially lately they've played some good teams pretty tough. Randolph is having a fantastic season, he just barely misses the cut at a position where the Western Conference is completely loaded.

And lastly, we come to Josh Howard. I love Josh Howard, I think he's an incredibly valuable player on both ends. He slashes to the basket, he shoots the three, he rebounds, he gets steals and blocks--he's like the poor man's Shawn Marion. But who are you going to put him on over?McGrady? Garnett? The average-wealth-man's Shawn Marion--Shawn Marion? I don't see it. Josh Howard has turned into a great player but he's not on these guys' level quite yet.