 What's the word y'all? Let's talk about this NBA All-Star Reserves. Here's a player pool, team Yanis versus team LeBron. LeBron went against the Clippers, you know, fueled a 20-point comeback and they asked him about draft to drew holiday. He said he's not gonna give up his plans for the draft. Yanis' draft is terribly every single year. So I hope he got a new strategy because Bron been kicking a butt on that side. Anyway, the Western Conference Reserves, Paul, George, Shay, Jaren, or is it shy? We're gonna keep saying Shay until he stops playing around. Jaren, Dame, Larry, Jot and DeMonte Savonis out east, we got Bam, Jalen Brown, Demarda Rose and Joel and Bede, Terry Taliber and Juhadeh and Julius Randall. Now I'm watching this at the NBA and of course I have my own balances like everybody else in the world. And there were four names that were mentioned you could probably guess the four that I was surprised that actually made it. And this is gonna lead to the conversation of snubs, this person deserved it over this person. Out east, Demarda Rose's name was, I think the second name announced and I was genuinely surprised. And I do wanna say, I'm not taking anything away from the people that we mentioned as surprises because everybody that was named are having all-star calibracies in my personal opinion. I just thought that there might be people out in their conferences that might deserve it a little bit more. But that doesn't mean that that person was having a bad season or they're undeserving. I just think maybe a person just deserves a little bit more. And Demarda Rose is one of the guys for the Eastern Conference. Now, I've been getting a lot of criticism amongst Bulls fans of saying I'm too hard, I'm all favorite team but that's what fans of me is for me. And Demarda Rose has been having a good season. Look at the stats from last season to this season. He's having a relatively similar season. The differences are he's not the clutch player in the NBA this season, like last year he would have taken home that clutch player of the year award unanimously. And the Bulls are bad. Simple as that. You know, he still has the 26 points per game. He still can close out a game here and there. He still got two potential game winners that he got fouled on the refs, but on my own personal ballot, I didn't have him. I had Pascal Siakam. Now it's gonna get all wonky because you can talk about positions. Demarda Rosen on the NBA official site was listed as a guard, but he might've got in as a 40, might get in in a wildcard spot. I don't actually know, but I'm looking at the reserves and I'm assuming that Jalen Brown and Tarris Halliburton were the two guards. Front court ended up being Joelle and Bede, Bayamadabayo and Julius Randall. And that would have meant that the wildcard spots for Eastern Conference ended up being Demarda Rosen and Jaleh. That's my assumption. I can't say for sure because they never released the ballots for when the coaches are voting because let's be real, the coaches, all 30 of the NBA head coaches did not put out a ballot. They gave it to their assistant, who gave it to an assistant, who gave it to a ball boy and they put out an official ballot. When you compare Demarda Rosen and Pascal Siakam, the one thing that Demarda Rosen has over Pascal is his efficiency and that the Bulls are better. I mean, it's by two games. You know, it's not like the Bulls are the five seed and Pascal and them are the 15 seed. It's not by a ton, but everything else, the playmaking, the creation, the defense. Pascal has that pretty handily on Demarda Rosen this season. And when it comes to counting stats, Pascal's on the average and one less point. So it was a bit weird to see him over Pascal Siakam. And if we want to get into some super nerdy stuff, which is not a place for that on this channel necessarily, every single one of the advanced stats are in the favor of Pascal Siakam, offensively and offensively. Again, Demarda Rosen does have the efficiency, but advanced statistics as far as how much he's impacted the game offensively and defensively Pascal has that. And the second aim out East. I love me some Druha there early in the season. I had him on my All-Star ballot but out the course of the season, he fell out. This man Druha there was announced as an All-Star and inside the NBA, a show that has like a hundred producers, editors and everything, people that prepped this stuff. Druha, they got announced and they didn't even have a highlight package for him. They didn't even have a highlight package ready. He came out with the money in the bank briefcase out of nowhere to take this All-Star spot. But again, I'm not saying he's unworthy of this spot, but when I look out East and I'm looking at wild card, I'm looking at Gar's spot, undoubtedly in my mind, James Harden deserved it more. You can even make an argument that Jalen Brunson deserved it more, but I understand that some of the coaches might be looking at the standings. Okay, the Knicks are this and the Bucks are this and Druha there's been consistent with Chris Middleton being out and yadda yadda yadda. We're gonna favor the team with the more wins and give them to All-Stars versus the team. That's less amount of wins and give them to All-Stars. And it's always weird to see what the coach has prioritized on the season. It seems like with a pick like Druha Holiday and a pick like Jaren Jackson Jr., this season they prioritize the defensive side of the ball which I can't be mad at because you saw it yesterday against the Clippers. Druha Holiday is still a premier level defender. He still might be the best perimeter defender in all the basketball and Jaren Jackson Jr. has been the best rep protector in basketball this season. So I understand if that's what they were going for, but outside of that Jaren got Druha Holiday beat on damn everything, like everything. Again, the gap between Druha Holiday's defense and James Harden's defense is gargantuan. But again, I do believe that James Harden might have deserved it a little bit more with Druha Holiday. It's a cool story though. I think it's been 10 years since Druha Holiday has made an all-star appearance and I think that is the largest gap in the history of basketball. So that's kind of a cool story. But again, I can't be too, too upset because in my mind Druha Holiday is having an all-star caliber season. This is not a season that's any more ridiculous than any Druha Holiday season. I mean, he's putting a very similar stats over the last three seasons, but this is the year they gave him a nod. I do want to give a lot of love to Bamon Abayo. I do want to give a lot of love to Tarris Halliburne, Julius Randall for being back. Bamon Abayo and Julius Randall's similar stories as far as like making an all-star appearance a few years ago, then falling out and then making it back, you'd love to see that. And I guess Jaylen Brown did that too, huh? Wow, that's kind of insane. But to see Reece be the only first time an all-star in Easter Conference is really cool. And then he came back yesterday and almost won a game against the Lakers, but Anthony Davis showed up and that is going to lead us to the Western Conference because the Western Conference a little bit more confusing as far as what their priority is. Again, I do believe that defense played a part in this because Jaren Jackson-June's average was 17 to seven. It's not like he's having some crazy accountants that season, but the impact on defense is ridiculous. Like it's plus minus when he's on the court is like plus 11 and a half. They were the worst defense in the league when he was injured, came back now to the number one defense. He's leading the league in blocks. He beat the allegations. Hit the allegations were so crazy that the NBA had to come out and say, no, no, no, no, no. Don't blame the scorekeeper in Memphis. We got somebody even above him that goes through all the rebounds and blocks and steals to confirm it. And some people are a conspiracy. Can you spiralizing? Cause some people have the conspiracy that somebody in Memphis put that together to get more people to watch Jaren Jackson-June highlight so they can realize how good of a defender he is. But on my own personal ballot, Jaren Jackson wasn't there. And I did the research. The way I'd be doing my own stars is I look at players that I think should be in the pool and then I narrowed down, okay, this person deserves a display and Jaren Jackson was in my pool of players, but he didn't ultimately make it. The absolute locks out West for me were Shay, Dane, Larry, Josh, the bonus. They got all of those. As once we start talking about the last two spots, NW and Paul George and Jaren Jackson-June where I could see the conversations for a DN Fox. I could see a conversation for an Anthony Edwards. I could see a conversation for a Anthony Davis. Now, now Anthony Davis is in a peculiar spot because he missed a ton of time. If you've been looking at his games played as one of the reasons why he wasn't on the ballot. I mean, I don't know, it's more important games played or minutes played. Anthony Davis has played more minutes than Jaren Jackson-June on the season. He just has, now Jaren has played more games, but you know, Jaren has the one major flaw in his game is his inability to stay out of foul trouble. He's better this season than any year of his career, so he's getting better every single year, but because of his only 27 minutes per game and Anthony Davis averaging 33 minutes per game, Anthony Davis at the time of this recording has played more minutes than Jaren Jackson-June. Jaren has all of the advanced stats over AD, all of them. But if you asked me straight up, who's having a more deserving All-Star season to sit on both of these guys missed a ton of time and all of that, I am going to say Anthony Davis. And there's no disrespect to JJJ or Block Panther, which is officially on his basketball reference now, because if you've been around the channel for some time, you know, I've always valued the defense on this channel. Rudy Gobert has been an All-Star for over the past like half a decade for me, even though he's not a fun All-Star caliber player, I do believe that we need to reward the guys that have been extra impactful on that side of the ball because that is the hardest place to be impactful. But even that said, it's not like the gap between Jaren Jackson-June's defense and Anthony Davis' defense is the same as the gap between James Hardy's defense and Drew Holiday's defense. Jaren has been better defensively this season, but we're not about to act like that before he got injured, Anthony Davis was in top three and defensive player of the year. You know, he was also having an amazing defensive season. But again, we can go back to the same conversation between the Knicks and the Bucks that we just had. Should we give the Lakers to All-Stars considering they're not, are they in the playing yet? Considering they're not even in the playing. Do they deserve to All-Stars being three games below 500? Or should we give it to the team that has been consistently at the one or two seed in the Western Conference? And that's exactly what the coaches did. The coaches have been a team that have prioritized winning a ton throughout history. And I think that's where they went with this one. Is the right mindset? I don't know. I can't say that. Again, I can't say that wrong because Jaren is having an All-Star caliber season even if I think that Anthony Davis deserves it more. The Paul George versus Dian Fox or the Paul George versus Anthony Edwards is another debate. I believe that Paul George is having a somewhat underrated season. 23 points per game, five assists, six rebounds. I think his assist to turnover ratio is like two. So it's not, it's not, it's not even, it's not even two, less than two. But he's shooting 46% for the field, 38% for three, and 86% for Frito. Like he missed two big ones last night and then air ball like two shots as well. It's not the perfect post-announcing of an All-Star appearance performance I've ever seen. But two weeks ago, when we did our official All-Star Ballad on our podcast, I did have Paul George as my last wildcard spot. But since that time, I switched it to Anthony Edwards. Thing that sucks the most though, is before the season started, I had Dian Fox as like an All-Star. This is gonna be the year where he did his thing. And I wanted to see it so very bad, man. What a great season for Dian. I think what hurt Dian Fox is that he had that what four week stretch where he lost his jump shot and now he's got it back again. But maybe the coaches just thought about that four week stress is like, ah, he wasn't hitting shots. He was somewhat struggling. So that's why he didn't deserve it. I'm a little sad for him if I'm being honest because I do think this is one of his best chances to get in, but they already has a bonus. And again, I mean, that's one of the most winning teams in the Western Conference for sure. But I don't know if they wanted to give two to the Sacramento Kings. I don't know. When was the last time the Kings did have two All-Stars? That's a good question. We're gonna go back to Paul George versus Anthony Edwards. And maybe I am prioritizing the availability and consistency from Anthony Edwards over the past. Oh, I don't know if he's missed the game this season. I don't think he has. But over the past month and a half, two months Anthony Edwards has been amazing. And maybe that's my recency bias compared to Paul George. I don't really know, but it felt better to give it to Anthony Edwards versus PG in that case. Paul George's advanced stats are amazing, you know? He's still great on both sides of the ball whether you like it or not. So again, he's another guy having an All-Star caliber season. Who else? Devin Booker was a guy that got snubbed because I know he's missed a bunch of time recently. He's got about the same amount of minutes as a guy like Anthony Davis or a guy like Jared Jackson Jr. It just so happens that he's currently injured. But I mean, when it comes to overall impact, you can see how bad they can be without him on the court. So I know some people are upset about that. I think those were the biggest snubs and everything. Now, we don't know for sure when Kevin is coming back. We don't know for sure when Zee is coming back. So let's start talking about the injury replacements. Cause the way it works is that they'll pull a reserve to be in the starting lineup for those two dudes because they're both starters. And then Adam Silver becomes the guy that selects the two new injury reserves. So it's not based on media. It's not based on fans. It's not even based on coaches. It's based on the head honcho, which I guess he's not the head honcho because he works for the owners. It's for the guy that looks like he's the head honcho. And throughout the history, I'm looking at it right now for injury replacements. He's of course went to the same conference, which again in this world, the conversation shouldn't matter anymore, but he's also has a reputation of going to the same position. So we're talking about losing Kevin Durant. We're gonna move somebody from the reserve into the starting lineup. I'm assuming it's going to be Joel and B. He deserves it anyway. And now we're starting to look at the reserves that can take the spot. And this is where things get interesting. Was DeMarta Rosen the guard? Was he a four? Because if DeMarta Rosen was a guard, move him over to four and then bring in the guard. Go get James. It's already a guard, heavy conference anywhere. Guard, heavy, all serving. Go get James. I think James is the number one guy for the Eastern Conference when it comes to injury replacements. If we're strictly sticking on, he's gonna replace that four with a four. It's probably gonna be Jimmy Butler. We need to really talk about Jimmy Butler in this video. I had to make a executive decision between Bam and Jimmy. Who do I prioritize more for my own personal balance? And I used availability as the big thing and I gave it to Bam Adebayo. But Jimmy Butler's having as good of a season as anybody when it comes to that front court spot. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was him also. What about Perzingis? Does Perzingis get a little bit of love? A name that I ain't seen on Twitter one time in the last 24 hours. Does Perzingis get a little bit of love? Six-game win streak actively for the Washington Wizards. He's been really consistent. He's been relatively healthy for the first time in a long time. I doubt it, but I'm just saying he's another guy. Or do we give it to Pascal Siat who probably should have been there in the first place? Out West, I would assume that they're bringing Larry or Demontissa bonus to the starting lineup to take Zion Williams' spot, which is dope. I'm excited for the draft because I believe that whether it's Larry or Demontissa bonus, whoever gets moved up to that starting spot, if Zee isn't healthy, it's gonna be the last pick of the starters. I hate to say it, but I think that's how it's gonna go. And I do believe that the injury replacement will be Anthony Davis because he's Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers are the biggest market in basketball. And again, he was deserving to be an All-Star. But I think he missed it last year as well, right? This will be back to back seasons where AD didn't make the All-Star game. And again, he's having an amazing year if it wasn't for his injuries. So again, this Adam Silver care about the three games under 500 for the Lakers. I doubt it, he's Adam Silver. He's gonna do what he thinks is best for his league's growth. And Anthony Davis in the Jersey sales is probably up there on the list, his priorities. I don't know, there's two months to really talk about and I feel like I'm forgetting some names. I'm feeling like I'm forgetting some storylines. Regardless, at the end of the day, there's gonna be fan bases and people that are upset. It's just the nature of things. I've actually been seeing JJ Redick push the idea of expanding the All-Star pool because, well, the league is more deep for one, but there are more teams now than it was when this rule was incorporated. I mean, he made a video on Old Man and the Three that I watched bits and pieces of. It was a long ass video, Sidewass, the whole thing. Basically making the argument that the amount of people that we have right now is the same as when there was like 20 teams in basketball. So I might be exaggerated, but something similar to that. And now that we have 30 teams and we have so much talent across the league, he don't want to add 12 more roster spots, but one or two would probably go a long way. But then again, we still play in the game of basketball. So if we add another player or two, that means minutes are gonna get cut. Jimmy Butler not gonna play again. Then Fred Van Vleet only played three minutes the year. He was in All-Star, so I don't know. There's pros and cons to every single thing, but I'm always open because, again, there are so many people that are deserving that they're gonna miss that All-Star 2023 on their resume. Let me know what you think. I'll be in the comment section like I always am.