Gobert will lose favor of NBA coaches
After the starting five is picked for the All-Star team, the NBA coaches are left to select five players off the bench (three frontcourt, two backcourt) and two reserves (any position). They choose players from their respective conference that aren’t on their own team.
For the past two seasons, the coaches of the Western Conference have completely botched a deserving star from entering the game. See the video below where Locke calls the emission of Gobert in the All-Star game “a complete travesty”.
Locke has some excellent points that make a convincing case for Rudy Gobert to not only make the game, but to start. But unfortunately even the 14 other coaches in the Western Conference seem to fall in love with scoring and perimeter players over the Stifle Tower.
In 2019, the coaches picked LaMarcus Aldridge, Anthony Davis, and Nikola Jokic for their three frontcourt choices. I can see the reasoning behind choosing Davis over Gobert, and picking between Jokic and Rudy was a toss up at that point.
What I can’t agree with is the reasoning (or lack of) behind putting Aldridge in over Gobert. Yes, the Spurs did have a better record (31-22) at the time the coaches voted than the Jazz (29-23), and yes, Aldridge was and still is the better scorer of the two.
What the coaches neglected was the fact that Rudy Gobert changes the way teams play offense, eliminating what would otherwise be a ton of easy layup and dunk attempts. That kind of presence allows his four other teammates to play more aggressively and put pressure on their opponents.
As David Locke said in the video, only five or so players in the league have such a presence that change the way teams play against them. Gobert is one of those players and instantly makes the Jazz a top team defensively.
On top of that, the coaches put Klay Thompson and Karl-Anthony Towns in as the position-less reserves, and the league selected Dirk Notwitzki as a “special roster addition”, basically giving him one more All-Star game before his retirement.
This year, my feeling is that Gobert will be left out once again from both the three frontcourt spots and the two reserve spots on the All-Star roster. Donovan Mitchell and Chris Paul should be shoo-ins for the backcourt spots off the bench, and the three frontcourt spots will be taken by Nikola Jokic, Paul George, and either Brandon Ingram or Karl-Anthony Towns.
As for the remaining two spots, there remains the fact that the point guard position is so talented in today’s NBA. We haven’t even put Russell Westbrook or Damian Lillard in there yet, and I can see those two and even Devin Booker skipping ahead of Gobert in that line. Traditionally the defensive-first guys tend to get left out, and I think it will sadly happen again this year.
As for Mitchell, he’s had some help this season from his counterparts. Both Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are out for the foreseeable future, and on top of that Donovan has clearly shown he is a rung above CJ McCollum, Jamal Murray, and even Devin Booker.