When the NBA All-Star reserves were announced on Sunday, one name was conspicuously left out.
Kawhi Leonard of the L.A. Clippers is averaging 27.6 points per game, seventh in the NBA, along with 6.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.0 steals.
Yet he was not one of the seven reserves named to the West All-Star team, a group that also included LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Anthony Edwards. The league’s 30 head coaches pick the reserves.
One NBA analyst believes the Leonard snub is similar to the one Bill Belichick received last week in the football world.
“It is actually embarrassing that he is not an All-Star,” David Dennis Jr. of AndScape said on SportsCenter. “Twenty-eight points on the season, leading the league in steals. We’ve never had somebody with his accumulation of stats not be an All-Star. He’s seventh in scoring in the league. The other top eight, they’re all All-Stars.
“This feels like something other than basketball. It feels punitive for what happened in the offseason for what happened with the scandal and everything like that. This feels similar, on a small scale, to what the NFL did with [Bill] Belichick and that we’re going to punish you for something that’s not related to how you play, and maybe you get in with an injury to somebody else, but you’re not going to get voted in. It feels silly that Kawhi Leonard is not an All-Star, and then you add in the fact that James Harden’s averaging 25 points and you don’t have a Clipper on their home All-Star court. It’s going to be the second time in NBA history that two players are averaging 25 points on the same team, and neither of them make the All-Star Game. If I’m Kawhi Leonard, I have gotta be furious...over this whole situation.”
In September, a scandal broke when the NBA investigated allegations that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap by arranging a $28 million “no-show” endorsement deal for Leonard with Aspiration, a company tied to owner Steve Ballmer. The deal allegedly included $20 million in stock, with accusations that it was hidden compensation for signing with the team.
Leonard said at the time he didn’t “think it’s accurate.”
“I understand the full contract and the services that I had to do,” he said. “I don’t deal with the conspiracies or the clickbait analysts or journalism that’s going on.”
Belichick, the former New England Patriots and current North Carolina coach, was not admitted last week on the first ballot to the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite winning six Super Bowls as a head coach, reportedly because of his involvement in the “spy-gate” and deflate-gate" scandals.