NO LOVE FOR LEBRON

It’s a week after the starting lineup for the 2009 All-Star game has been announced and now the reserves have been chosen. I agree with some and not with others but, as always, am fascinated with some of the conversation that comes with it.

In the West, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Shaqulle O’Neal, Chauncey Billups, David West, Brandon Roy and Tony Parker will come off the bench.

I think Dirk and Gasol probably should have been among the starters but I don’t think I could swap out any of the other bigs for them. When it comes down to it though, everyone gets their minutes so it doesn’t really matter who gets the honor of starting.

Brandon Roy and David West have certainly made their names known this season but I don’t know that they’ve done enough to be all-stars.

We talked about Shaq before and although I think he is and always will be an all-star, he is definitely on the downside of his career physically and surely won’t play very many minutes. So why even bother? Give someone else a shot.

Billups has gotten off to a quick start with Denver and has been a big part of keeping them in the hunt so I have no problems there. Some may think that Carmelo Anthony also should have made the reserves. He was close in the fan voting but the fact that he’s been hurt and doesn’t have much to offer definitely held him back. And the fact that the fans voted him in regardless of that tells the story about fan voting.

And Tony Parker is Tony Parker so I think you have to have him there no matter what kind of numbers he’s putting up.

In the East, Chris Bosh, Rashard Lewis, Danny Granger, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson, Jameer Nelson and Devin Harris will make up the reserves.

I heard a quote from Doc Rivers, coach of the Celtics, saying that he would like to see 4 Celtics on the team and would be surprised if he didn’t have at least three. Come on Doc, get your head out of Stuart Scott’s ass and think about what you just said. If the 5 guys from either conference who work best together made up the teams then we would just have a rematch of the 2008 Finals, plus some members of the Magic and Spurs. Not to mention, your Celtics don’t even have the best record in the conference anymore. However, the Celtics do have 2 representatives in Garnett and Pierce. One of which being undeserving. We all know what Paul Pierce was able to get done in Boston before Ray Allen and the other guy showed up. With that said, I would have liked to see someone like Mo Williams make the reserves over him. I really don’t like Boston. Is it obvious?

I like the rest of the East reserves though. I think some of them, like Granger, aren’t really to the all star level yet but had a good amount of hype around them so they made the team. It’s really easy to look like an all-star on a second to last place team. And while I hate Boston, I don’t understand how Orlando’s “big 3″ makes it over Boston’s. Surely there are better options than Nelson and Lewis in the East.

If this whole thing is for the fans then why would we put guys on the team just for the novelty of it? Let’s put guys on the floor who are going to give us exciting basketball for 48 minutes. Let’s not put guys on the team who have done enough in year’s past to make the team this year. Or guys whose lights are shining bright while their team’s chances are dark and dismal.