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What’s good, family. It’s Sykes, once again, here to usher you into tonight’s NBA action. But first, a word on All-NBA voting.
The All-NBA teams are officially out and, honestly, it feels like they got a lot right this year. The league’s All-NBA teams are made to capture who the best 15 players in the NBA are that given year. This year’s voting did that well and a lot of players are going to get paid because of that.
But one thing that did feel ridiculous? Joel Embiid being placed on the second team. There’s no question that Embiid was one of the best three players in the NBA this season. He deserved a first-team nod. But he didn’t make it, obviously, because Nikola Jokic is a center, too. And, as the league’s MVP, it was always likely he’d end up with a first-team spot.
That doesn’t mean Embiid didn’t deserve one, though. This is a clear flaw in the voting process that needs to be fixed. Jayson Tatum — who was snubbed because of position last year — has a solution.
It’s time to make the voting positionless. Tatum explained this to reporters during the Celtics’ shootaround on Wednesday.
“I think it should just be like the 15 best players. Obviously with some guys in a contract year, supermax deals involved, that’s tough. I’m sure that’s tough on the voters as well. So I think there’s a lot that could be changed in that area, in that regard.”
He’s right. If this is about the league’s 15 best players, there’s no way position should be involved in those discussions. Especially when potential max deals are involved.
With the money involved in the scenario, the league should focus more on getting it completely right rather than fitting into the tradition of position. It makes no sense to make players pay for being one of the best at their position when that position might be filled with good players.
Things can get complicated with this. Removing positions could completely pull a position out of the voting entirely — for example, what if no point guards make the list one year?
But if that happens, it’s fine. So long as it accurately tells the story of who the best 15 players in the NBA were in that given moment. It adds some useful historical context that tells us exactly where the game is in that moment. And, ultimately, that’s a good thing.
So, please, NBA. No more positions when it comes to All-NBA voting. Let’s make this as right as possible.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
It’s truly been hard for me to be productive today after the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas where 19 children and two adults were senselessly killed by an 18-year-old gunman.
So I’ll direct you to my colleague Andy Nesbitt, who wrote some incredibly powerful, yet simple, words for The Morning Win today following Steve Kerr’s passionate plea for action on Tuesday night.
It’s a sad day for those parents in Texas who lost their children yesterday. I can’t imagine what they’re going through and all of our hearts go out to them.
It’s a sad day for our country, which just continues to have days like these with people offering their thoughts and prayers and doing little else to prevent tragedies like yesterday’s from happening again.
It’s sad that so many of our elected officials are cowards and don’t want to do what needs to be done to protect our children and make our country a safer place with, at the very least, some common-sense gun regulations.
Get something done, man. Enough of this.
One to Watch
(All odds via Tipico.)
Heat (+122) vs. Celtics (-2.5, -150), O/U 203.5, 9 PM ET
This Heat and Celtics series has been incredibly hard to read the entire way mostly due to injuries. The Celtics may get Marcus Smart back for tonight’s action and Rob Williams will likely be in the lineup, too. With them back at full strength and Jimmy Butler’s knee still ailing, I’m going Celtics -2.5 tonight.
Who’s in and out?
—Marcus Smart (ankle) is questionable with an ankle injury for tonight’s game against the Heat
—Robert Williams (knee) is also questionable with a sore left knee.
—Tyler Herro (groin) is questionable for tonight’s game against the Celtics.
— Kyle Lowry, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent (hamstring) are all listed as questionable behind hamstring injuries
—PJ Tucker (knee) is also listed as questionable for Miami tonight.
Shootaround
—Speaking of all these injuries, Mark Cuban made a great point about the play-in tournament potentially being responsible for them here.
— The All-NBA Second Team isn’t really a snub for Joel Embiid, but it definitely feels like it.
—Speaking of Embiid, Sixers Twitter did not take it kindly when he didn’t make the first team.
—The playoffs are here but the offseason is already in full swing as far as the rumor mill is concerned. Here are all the rumors, ranked, from Hoopshype.
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