KG, Paul Pierce named to All-NBA team

[Who]

third team stinks without Point guard. 

Manu can play the point better than 85% of the point guard's in the league. He's done a great job for the Spurs whenever asked to fill that role.

Very intelligent. Great ballhandler. Very good passer. Playmaker. Great creativity. He's actually a solid floor general who gets people the ball at the right time in the right spot to the right person. He keeps the offense organized. He can defend the point also.

Very capable player

Tracy McGrady is almost as good at the point also for similar reasons. Last couple of years in Houston under JVG he's handled the ball and ran more of their offense than the point guard and done a quality job.

[dark_lord]

congrats to both.  both of them deserved it.

[celticmaestro]

kg paul and kobe should have been unanimous selections. i see no one in their respective positions that were on or near their level this season.

and pierce should have made the second team in my opinion.

[crownsy]

kg paul and kobe should have been unanimous selections. i see no one in their respective positions that were on or near their level this season.

and pierce should have made the second team in my opinion.

tough to argue he deserves Duncan or dirk's spot though.

[BJF860]

I have no complaints for who made 1st team.

I know sometimes it can be debatable in terms of who should/should not make it, but it was pretty clear cut this year.

But I wish there was some explanation by the voters who left KG/LeBron/CP3 off of their 1st place vote.

Was the catalyst for a 42 game turnaround not good enough?
Was 30/7.9/7.2 not good enough?
Was making the Hornets the number two seed in the toughest conference race ever not good enough?

Sometimes I wonder who does the voting.

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying...

[paintitgreen]

To me, it's not that alarming that people chose to take Lebron or KG off their ballot. Both had flaws - both missed some time, KG's numbers weren't that great - under 20 points, under 10 rebounds per game - and for all Lebron did, his team didn't win 50 games. I'm sure 2 people thought Pierce and KG deserved to be the First Team forwards or maybe they just thought Pierce deserved it more than KG because he didn't miss games, had an outstanding defensive season and was the best offensive weapon on the best team in the league. That's a pretty good resume. So I can deal with that.

Three things bug me about the votes though.

1. Yao Ming has no place on the All-NBA team. He missed 27 games and is not a good defender, to the point Houston may have been a better team without him than with him.

2. It is absolutely absurd Paul was not unanimous first team. There is absolutely no argument for anybody putting Nash ahead of him - they play the same position and Paul was better in every category, except percentages, and even then the only big difference is 3P% - .470 for Nash and .369 for Paul. Nash shot .504 and Paul .488 from the field and Nash shot .906 while Paul shot .851 from the line. Paul averaged 4.2 more points, 0.5 more rebounds, 0.5 more assists, 2.06 more steals and 1.1 fewer turnovers per game. And as good as T-Mac played down the stretch for the Rockets, he missed 16 games and wasn't even good enough for the first half of the season to make the All Star game. There's no way Paul should have been on any Second Team ballots - the First Team backcourt was about as much of a no-brainer as I've seen.

3. While I have no problem with the fact that KG and LBJ were kept off a couple of First Teams, there's something far worse that happened. If you add up the points, one voter left KG off his All-NBA ballot entirely, and another voter left Lebron off his All-NBA ballot entirely (I don't think it was the same voter, but hey, if you don't believe one of them is an All-NBA player, you probably just don't know basketball and might leave the other best forward in the NBA off your ballot as well).

Math:
KG received 612 points on a 5-3-1 point system. His 118 First Team votes give him 590 points. That means KG got 22 points on the 9 remaining ballots (there were 127 total ballots). He had to receive fewer than 8 Second Team votes (8 x 3 is 24, 2 more points than he got on those ballots). However, he had to have more than 6 because if 6 put him on the 2nd team and the other 3 put him on the 3rd, he'd only have 21 points (6 x 3 + 3 x 1). That means 7 of the remaining 9 voters put him on the Second Team (21 points) and 1 put him on the Third Team (the other point, giving him 22). That leaves one voter who apparently did not believe Kevin Garnett was one of the 6 best forwards in the NBA this year.

As for James, he was on 117 First Teams (585 points) and received 610 points. That means he earned 25 points on the remaining 10 ballots. That equates to 8 Second Teams (24 points) and 1 Third Team (the last point) and one voter who felt Lebron wasn't an All-NBA player this year at all. Dwight Howard had the same thing - 86 First Teams, 38 Second Teams, 2 Third Teams, and left off one ballot. What a joke. I bet the same guy who thought Howard wasn't one of the three best centers in the NBA also thought Yao was the best. How can those people even be allowed to vote on an NBA award?

[RockinRyA]

i think i would agree with whoever covered game 2 on espn.. they said pp shouldve been on 2nd team.. theyd drop dirk to third team this year

[fairweatherfan]

i think i would agree with whoever covered game 2 on espn.. they said pp shouldve been on 2nd team.. theyd drop dirk to third team this year

That was Van Gundy...he also contradicted his jab from earlier in the year that the Celtics retire too many numbers - they showed a graphic on franchise history and he marveled that we had 10 Hall of Famers who didn't have their numbers retired...not sure if he did this on purpose or not, but it was nice to hear it.  I think JVG's starting to appreciate the team a little more as he is exposed to them further.

[Big Ticket]

2. It is absolutely absurd Paul was not unanimous first team.

Quoted for truth, amen!

3. While I have no problem with the fact that KG and LBJ were kept off a couple of First Teams, there's something far worse that happened. If you add up the points, one voter left KG off his All-NBA ballot entirely...

I have a sneaking suspicion it may have been Sid Hartman or Steve Aschburner (sp?), both current/former Minnesota beat writers that were less than enamored with KG.  That, along with his stats, I could absolutely see someone voting LeBron, Duncan, Dirk, Pierce, and Bosh/Melo/etc ahead of him.  It's not right, but I can see why it could happen.

[MMacOH]

Dream Team vs 2008 all-nba team...

I don't know where Chris Paul is as an all-time player just yet. More importantly, I have watched lebron get taken out of his element in international competition where he goes one on one and expects to get bailed out by the refs and some greek guy steals the ball from him. Plus come on, MJ, Larry, and Magic?  I would go Dream Team.

Okay, I give you MJ, Bird and Magic but Kobe, Lebron and Paul could run them to death.  Who guards KG and Dwight Howard from the dream team?