Loser: Domantas Sabonis
Going back to the whole “let’s add a 13th player to the roster for the All-Star game” idea; Domantas Sabonis is another reason why we need more players participating and being honored in this event. There is no argument you can make for leaving Sabonis off the All-Star roster this year other than the fact that there is “not enough room.”
Not only does Domantas Sabonis miss out on being an All-Star for the second-consecutive year, but he will lose a $1.3M bonus he had in his contract as a result of getting selected to an All-Star game. This bonus is now unlikely since no players selected in the East will likely get replaced due to injury.
This season, Domantas Sabonis is averaging 21.5 points, 11.6 rebounds, 5.7 assists and is shooting 35.8% from three-point range. He is literally a mini-Jokic for the Indiana Pacers and does basically everything Nikola Jokic does for the Denver Nuggets. Jokic is an MVP front-runner and a starter in the All-Star game, so why isn’t Sabonis also participating in this spectacle?
His stats are some of the best in the league for a frontcourt player and both he and Malcolm Brogdon have carried the Pacers to the fourth best record in the Eastern Conference.
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Without him, Indiana would be near the bottom of the standings in the entire league, which is why Domantas Sabonis is the biggest loser in the Eastern Conference from the NBA All-Star game rosters.
Julius Randle has had a fantastic season and has been one of the main reasons the Knicks are in the playoff picture, but Sabonis’ numbers are better than Randle’s and his team has a better record than the Knicks. For those two reasons alone, Sabonis should have been an All-Star, but now we will just have to wait and see if anybody from the Eastern Conference backs out.
