My All Time All-Star Snubs

February 5, 2004
By: Dave Zirin

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Sam Cassell appears a mortal lock to make his first NBA all-star team as a Western Conference Reserve. This selection is more overdue than the copy of 'Our Bodies Ourselves' I took out of the Brooklyn Public Library in 1986. 'Sam I-Am' averaged 19.1 points per game during his previous four seasons in Milwaukee but never made the squad. This year, Cassell has been lights out, maybe the most valuable player on the T-Wolves, averaging 21 points and 7.4 assists. He might have the best right-handed shot going left in the game. I relish Cassell's selection because perpetual all-star game snubbing for top-flight players is the ultimate slap in the face. Everyone else, it seems, gets a turn. Lest we forget, Christian Laettner was an all-star. Ricky Green also was an all star. Hersey Hawkins was an all star. Heck, even the two immortal Boston College chuckers Dana Barros and Michael Adams were all-stars. When Jeff Hornacek opens his car dealership, he can call it Hornacek's All Star Cars.

But, as Cassell demonstrates, there have been great players who have gone entire careers forced to eat a 'snub sandwich'.. Here is my starting All-Star Snub Squad, made up of four retired and one barely active player. These guys might never get to be called All Stars, but they could open a can of whup ass on any five you can bring to the playground:

G - Rod Strickland - The only active player on this list, Hot Rod led the Washington Bullets into the playoffs in 1997. For that alone he should be frozen in a cryogenics lab for future generations to study. Strickland was good enough in his thirties to be traded for Rasheed Wallace. He was good enough to lead the NBA in assists in 1998. He was good enough to have gotten 20 assists in a game three times. But not good enough to make the all-star team. Rod's time is gone. He should have an all star next to his resume.

G - Derek Harper - Harper, the player who would have been finals MVP for the 1994 Knicks if John Starks had bothered to go 4-19 instead of 2-19, was a stalwart player for the Dallas Mavericks for eons. His unselfish play made all stars out of Rolando Blackman and Mark Aguirre. Yet Harper, despite being only the second player in NBA history (along with Isiah Thomas) to register 15,000 career points, 6,000 assists and 1,800 steals,never made the team. Harper averaged between 16 and 19 points seven straight years for the Mavs, and better than seven assists in five of them. He also made the all-NBA defensive second team for two years. We can only assume David Stern has a distant cousin named Jo Jo English (see 'beat-downs, playoffs, 1994.).

C - Arvydas Sabonis - What was the worst result of the Cold War? Was it a nuclear arms race that threatened humanity? The proxy wars in South East Asia and Central America that claimed millions of lives? The slave camps of Josef Stalin? The Rambo movies? Perhaps. But not far down the list has to be that the iron curtain shielded us from the USSR's Arvydas Sabonis until he was past his prime. In youth, Sabonis strode the court like a Bond villain complete with wispy mustache, no look passes, three point shooting, and thunderous dunks. He dribbled circles around players like David Robinson in international competition. By the time Sabonis came to the NBA, saddled with a Portland franchise containing players who probably could have used a month or two in the gulag, he was cashed - playing on knees made of balsa wood and setting records for number of times dunked on by Shaq.

F - Chuck Connors Person - The Rifleman ended his career fourth all time in three pointers made and attempted. He was a rookie of the year and an underrated rebounder as well. Person is most remembered for matching Larry Bird shot for shot in a Pacers playoff loss against the Celtics. Unfortunately he lost a couple of years in the Frigidaire of pre-KG Minnesota. But Person had star appeal for many a-season... at least more than Laettner.

F - Drazen Petrovic - 'Brazen Drazen' was at least a decade ahead of his time. He was the first Euro import (and some would argue the last) who played with an asphalt attitude, no fear and as comfortable stroking a trey as knocking out your front teeth. His importance to the early 1990s Chuck Daly led resurgent Nets was seen when his tragic death led to the spiraling of the overhyped squad built around Derek Coleman and Sam Bowie. Ironically he was a third team All NBA his last year after averaging 22.4 ppg. Yet was not an all star.
So tip your glass to the great Drazen and all the players who never got to climb the mountain ascended by luminaries like Tyrone Hill and Kenny Anderson. And tip your glass to Sam Cassell. The snubbed shall inherit the earth.