Some possibilities for the injury replacement:
Bam- Hasn't played enough at only 27 games.
Jaylen- Not giving a second to a 9th place team
Siakam- Not giving a second to an 8th place team
Holiday- Not giving a third to the fourth place team. Although he should have made it over Middleton.
Sabonis- His team is truly awful this year at 19-34. There are no other all star's from teams out of the play in.
Beal- Hasn't been good enough this year, team out of play-in.
I think that leaves it between Jarret Allen and Lamelo Ball for the final spot. It will probably be Lamelo since if Atl, Bos and Tor all in the play in get one Cha probably should too. Although Allen is a frontcourt guy and the guy they are replacing is a front court guy.
Notice how I just made an all star argument many people agree with despite never mentioning the players actual level of play. Thats kind of dumb in my opinion (it leads to stuff like Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague making the 2015 team happen). But that is usually how it works at least to some extent. They should just expand the all-star game to 15 guys, the league has grown in size since the 12 man limit was last set.
I think Jaylen will make it if a second guy drops out.
No love for Miles Bridges?
After Allen, Lamelo, Bridges, I can see JB maybe making the cut.
Thing is, Jaylen is having a better year than all those guys.
Brown is going to be penalized because of Boston's mediocre record and because of Tatum's larger notoriety.
Brown is having arguably as good a year as Tatum and in many ways better year and is just as important to the team. But if only one guy from Boston is getting in, it's going to be Tatum who gets the better press.
Its nothing to do with Tatum's notoriety and everything to do with Tatum simply being a better, more skilled and more talented player.
Tatum's numbers (26, 8 and 4) are significantly better then Brown's (24, 6 and 3), he's missed less games, his +/- impact stats last I checked were better (implying he has more impact on team wins) and he's had a 60 point game for the second season in a row (Brown has never had one in his career).
Granted, Tatum's shooting percentages have gone downhill bad this year (3 percentage points from the field and 2% percentage from three) - no idea why. But Jaylens' numbers have dropped by the same amount (48% vs 45% FG and 40$ vs 36% 3PT).
Tatum is just straigth up better. The gap is not huge by any means, but it's there.
Being more skilled or being a better overall player means nothing when deciding which player is having a better year or is more important to the team in a given year, which should decide All-Star status in any given year.
Since both play over 34 minutes comparing the two by per 36 minutes is fair:
Stat: Jaylen/Jayson
Points: 25.2/25.6
Rebounds: 6.9/8.4
Assists: 3.2/4.1
Steals: 1.1/0.9
Blocks: 0.4/0.7
Turnovers: 3.1/2.9
FGA: 19.9/20.7
FG%: 45.9/43
3PT%: 35.7/32.7
TS%: 56.9/54.9
Team winning % when they play: 53.8/53
The stats are ridiculously similar with the only key differences being Tatum has a decent rebounding edge whereas Jaylen has a much more than decent shooting edge(2-3 percentage point different in shooting is the difference between above average to below average).
Defensively, Tatum 99% of the time is initially assigned the much easier player to guard and Brown the much better all while Brown playing better overall defense. This is significant.
And if you want to bring up insignificant one game performances, Tatum had a 60 point game, but Brown had a 50 point game and a triple double, which Tatum has not had.
I stand by my statement:
Brown is having arguably as good a year as Tatum and in many ways better year(shooting and defense) and is just as important to the team(team winning percent). But if only one guy from Boston is getting in, it's going to be Tatum who gets the better press. Tatum has the better notoriety.