The NBA announced the United States and World rosters on Wednesday for the Rising Stars Challenge during this year’s all-star weekend. The general consensus this side of the border was that an egregious oversight was made.
The Toronto Raptors youth movement has been a major part of their success this 2017-18 season, in large part due to the play of eligible candidates for this game such as Fred VanVleet, Jakob Poeltl, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby. While VanVleet has had been vital to Toronto’s closing lineups as well, his absence from the Team USA is justifiable.
Does he have an argument to be made against John Collins whose Atlanta Hawks are 14-33 and tied for the worst record in the league? Perhaps, but Collins is also the only big man on the roster.
A rational perspective can also help explain why VanVleet wouldn’t make it ahead of guards like Lonzo Ball, Kris Dunn, Malcolm Brogdon, and Dennis Smith Jr., so let bygones be bygones for the former Wichita State guard’s case. He, too, gets it.
“I wasn’t expecting to be in it just because I don’t really get those type of accolades,” VanVleet said to the media after thumping Collins and the Hawks.
“For OG to be a starter for one of the best teams in the NBA, Pascal and Jakob to not be on the world team, and then I look at the list and see some of the guys that are on there, it’s just disappointing that none of our guys, you know, got that nod of respect.”
Let’s take a good look at that list.
The three 76ers players are no brainers, as are Lauri Markkanen a.k.a. Lauri Bird a.k.a. The Finnisher, Kitchener’s Jamal Murray, and Domantas Sabonis. Mississauga’s Dillon Brooks is a worthy rookie selection and has really come on over the last couple of weeks.
Among the other three guys, two are putting up mediocre numbers on a Sacramento Kings team tied for the worst record in the league, and the other is averaging 5.3 points, 3.4 assists, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals for a New York Knicks squad that’s 21-28. Oh, he’s also got a splash line of .372/.310/.711. (Yes, I figure if baseball has a slash line, why not refer to 2ptFG%, 3ptFG% and FT% as a splash line. Shouts to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.)
With 6.2 points, 2.5 rebounds, 0.8 assists and 0.8 steals, OG Anunoby’s core stats aren’t great either, but he’s put up far superior percentages of .581/.368/.718 despite a prolonged slump from beyond the arc.
The separation between the two, however, goes much deeper than that. Both players were arriving into situations where they offered potential solutions at a position of significant weakness for their respective teams.
But for a brief stretch of Linsanity, the Knicks haven’t had a good point guard at The Garden since… Stephon Marbury? The Raptors have had their revolving door of small forwards documented for over a decade as well.
One of the rookies in question needed 12 games to make the position his — on a team that is currently 32-14 no less — while the other is still playing behind a 34-year-old Jarrett Jack who played all of two games last season.
The standards Anunoby has set for himself along with his overall composure are what have got him to this point. He has guarded both James Harden and LeBron James capably, and has gladly taken on other assignments from Bradley Beal to Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Put him in an environment where he can have some fun and get out on the runway, and he’s as capable as anyone on the world roster of throwing down some nasty dunks.
Speaking of getting out on the open floor, no one is more suited to do so than Siakam.
His second-to-none motor would have him out ahead of the pack so often he may even be able to put up MVP numbers. As he showed in the G League Finals last year, those are three letters he knows quite well. While we’re on the subject, I even wonder how that Raptors 905 squad would fare against this year’s Sacramento Kings.
Siakam has played an integral role for the Raptors behind Serge Ibaka, and has closed games for the team on several occasions as well. Many from Cameroon will be tuning in to watch their hero Joel Embiid, and I’m sure they would have loved to watch their fellow countryman Siakam as well.
Buddy Hield was the sixth pick in the draft and has received far more hype than Siakam ever has. His ability to heat up like a microwave very likely contributed to his invitation, but to reward another player in Bogdan Bogdanovic who does a lot of the same things is disappointing to say the least.
For a ninth overall pick, Jakob Poeltl receives hardly any love. As the first ever man from Austria to play in the NBA, he is what this game is supposed to be about and the league has done a disservice to a player who has earned the right through his body of work.
Poeltl has had a 12 point, 12 rebound, three block performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers (on national television) and a 12 point, 14 rebound game versus the Golden State Warriors on their home floor which included 11(!) offensive rebounds. The game before that, he had 10 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks against the San Antonio Spurs.
In addition to his terrific on-court results, wouldn’t the invite be worth it just to have him in L.A. with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Jak, Pascal, and Arnold is a movie waiting to happen.
What makes their absences all the more conspicuous is the fact that this isn’t a popularity contest. There are no fan votes. The NBA’s assistant coaches chose the rosters, with each of the league’s 30 teams submitting one ballot per coaching staff. The requirements were four guards, four frontcourt players, and two players at either position, and this is where I have another bone to pick.
If this is truly a showcase event promoting how global the game of basketball has become and providing a worldwide platform for the “rising stars” of the league to shine, why not make the rosters 12-strong like the game the big boys play in?
In a game where the pace of play allows everyone to get theirs and no egos are at stake, there’s no harm in adding two players to each roster and having even more young talent have their moment in the bright sunshine of California.
Regardless, the Raptors shouldn’t need four extra spots to have at least one representative. Masai Ujiri has to feel slighted by this. He is arguably the president of basketball growth on a global scale and no franchise has done more in terms of promoting equality and inclusivity since his arrival.
As the director of the Basketball Without Borders Africa program and with the work he and his team have done in bringing in quality contributors from the draft to a winning program, the Raptors deserved better.
It’s another shot of disrespect that will undoubtedly motivate the players further for the second half of the season. As VanVleet said after the Hawks game, that can only be a good thing.
“I guess it’s almost better that way. It gives us a little bit more motivation. I take anything I can get, so I put that right on there with the rest of the chips on my shoulder and I hope the rest of the guys do as well.”
