We now know the 24 players that will be headed to San Francisco in two weeks for the 2025 NBA All-Star Game (in its new format) after reserves were announced on Thursday night, and as is always the case, there were more than 24 players that had legitimate cases for a roster spot.
This year felt particularly difficult to narrow down the field, as some of the long-time standbys for the All-Star Game slid back and a bunch of young players emerged as legit All-Star talent. Add in a dominant team in each conference (which usually leads to multiple selections) and some surprise teams (headlined by the Houston Rockets), and you create quite the conundrum for the coaches as they pick the seven reserve players in each conference. We saw that play out on Thursday night when reserves were announced, as there were a number of players that will feel they got snubbed from an All-Star spot.
As is always the case, it’s easy to yell about snubs but anyone you add to the roster means someone has to be taken off. To be honest, I don’t think there are a ton of clearly egregious selections — if anything, this year is a reminder that it’s past time for the All-Star rosters to expand as the league has expanded — but these are the players I feel had the best resumes that got left off and have an argument to be in over someone else that made it.
EAST
Trae Young
The East backcourt was the biggest logjam in terms of players with similar resumes going up against each other. It’s an incredibly difficult group to separate and it was always going to be where the most players felt legitimately snubbed, because so much of the selection process would come down to what someone values personally in a guard. Young is the NBA’s assist leader (by a lot, 78 more than Nikola Jokic in second) on a Hawks team that was overachieving largely because of his play (and Jalen Johnson, who is now done for the season with a shoulder injury but had an All-Star case in the frontcourt as well). Young’s shooting efficiency (40.2/34.2/85.6 splits) and more pedestrian scoring average of 22.7 points per game played a role in him being left off, but the biggest problem for Young is that the Hawks have dropped from the battle for sixth all the way to ninth in the East. Despite the entire season being factored in, recency bias does tend to come into play and the Hawks have fallen off a cliff of late with injuries, losing their last six coming into Thursday.
Tyrese Maxey
Maxey, similarly to Young, has had efficiency issues this season (43.8/33.7/87.1 shooting splits) on a banged up team that leans heavily on him for scoring. That said, he’s still averaging 27.1 points and 6.0 assists per game, and has had to carry the load on a Sixers team that has spent most of the season without Joel Embiid and Paul George. Team record always plays a role in reserve selections, as coaches tend to reward winning, and more than anything else, Maxey’s candidacy takes a hit with the Sixers at 19-27, good for just 11th in the East. He did make a very strong closing argument for an All-Star selection, scoring 28 or more in each of his last 12 games, with Philly winning their four most recent games going into selection night.
Zach LaVine
The Bulls struggles meant LaVine faced an extreme uphill battle to make the All-Star Game, but he’s had a similarly fantastic season to Herro, just on a worse team. He’s averaging 24.0 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game for Chicago on some truly staggering shooting splits (51.1/44.6/79.7). The Bulls being 20-28 made it very difficult for him to earn a third All-Star nod without having crazier averages, but if nothing else he has rebuilt his value around the league after being unmovable for the Bulls this summer.
LaMelo Ball
The leader in fan voting among East guards will not be in San Francisco, a scenario that was not hard to see coming once you started doing the math on the starter vote. Once Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Brunson were voted as starters, with the media and player vote being enough to override Ball’s lead in fan voting, it was hard to see him getting a spot via the coaches. Ball is putting up some big averages at 28.2 points, 7.3 assists, and 5.3 rebounds per game, but his shooting splits are fairly pedestrian (41.9/33.7/82.0) and the Hornets have been truly dreadful this season with or without him. Making an All-Star team on a 12-32 team requires some truly outrageous stats, and I think Ball needed to be leading the NBA in scoring to make the team on the coaches vote, rather than being fourth (and missing 11 games and counting).
Franz Wagner
The frontcourt picks in the East were much more straightforward than the guards. Jalen Johnson had a pretty strong case pre-injury, and Jarrett Allen’s been key for the Cavs but just doesn’t really have the statistical profile for a selection. However, the guy that was likely closest to making it that didn’t was Wagner, who was trending as an All-Star lock before his injury, but playing in just 28 games made it tough for the coaches to put him on the roster. Wagner is averaging 24.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game on 46.2/31.7/87.2 shooting splits, but the Magic took a big tumble down the standings without both he and Paolo Banchero, and even with both back they have not been able to do much other than tread water at .500. With other teams like Indiana surging (which pushed Pascal Siakam into an All-Star spot), Wagner got pinched by his lengthy absence and Orlando’s slide.
WEST
Kyrie Irving
Most All-Star lists that got written by various members of the media over the past few weeks had Kyrie Irving alongside Anthony Edwards for the second West guard slot, but with James Harden getting that nod, the Mavs got shut out. Luka Doncic’s injury took him off of the ballot and for awhile it looked like Irving would be a near-lock for a spot. But the Mavs struggles over the last few weeks have them down in eighth in the West at 26-22 and Kyrie’s averages of 24.2 points, 4.9 assists, and 4.2 rebounds per game on 48.2/41.9/89.7 shooting splits were apparently not enough to get a spot. With both Wild Card spots going to frontcourt players as coaches looked to reward the Rockets strong season with a spot for Alperen Sengun and the Thunder getting a second selection with Jalen Williams, the 8-time All-Star guard ended up missing out.
Domantas Sabonis
West frontcourt was the next toughest group to narrow down behind the East guards, and Sabonis, like Sengun, was among those left on the outside looking in. Sabonis’ numbers this year in Sacramento are staggering — 20.9 points, 14.5 rebounds, and 6.6 assists per game on 60.1/48.1/77.1 splits. The problem he ran into is, Victor Wembanyama and Anthony Davis were always going to be locks with LeBron and KD getting starting spots, the Thunder were always getting two guys in which elevated Jalen Williams over him, and the Grizzlies best player this year has been Jaren Jackson Jr., and he is more than deserving of a spot. That made things particularly tight and it came down to a Wild Card battle with some of the West guards.
De’Aaron Fox
Like his Sacramento teammate, Fox finds himself just on the outside despite strong averages (25.1 points, 6.2 assists, 5.0 rebounds per game). Anthony Edwards and Kyrie Irving picked up the two West guard spots and with the stacked frontcourt battle, there were limited opportunities for a Wild Card selection for Fox. The Kings have been better of late and that surge certainly gave him a chance, but he’ll have to wait until next year, when he’s possibly playing somewhere else, to make another push for a second All-Star selection.
Devin Booker
Booker’s production this season is very similar to Fox (25.5 points, 6.7 assists, 4.4 rebounds per game) and he will miss out on an All-Star trip for the first time in five years. Booker’s biggest issue is that the Suns have just not lived up to expectations and he’s taken a slight step back both in overall productivity and efficiency this season. Durant’s spectacular season earned him a starting nod, but putting two players from the current 9-seed was a tough ask for Phoenix.
Norman Powell
Snub might be a strong word, but Powell’s season deserves a mention here. His averages aren’t so eye-popping that you feel he was robbed of a spot (24.0 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.2 assists per game) but he’s been lights out shooting the ball (49.4/43.5/84.6 splits) and is a major reason why the Clippers are in a playoff position in the West past the midway point of the season despite the departure of Paul George this summer. James Harden getting a selection was a bit of a surprise, and there