Russell Westbrook won a well-deserved NBA most valuable player award last season. He carried a team that had lost Kevin Durant, a top-three player, to the playoffs with an unproven, oddly fitting supporting cast. The Thunder didn’t do any damage once there, but by averaging a triple-double for the season and proving his individual excellence, Westbrook was recognized.
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The cast turned over almost completely in the summer. There’s no new Durant to be found, but Paul George (who has been a top-10 player some years and is in his age-expected prime) arrived to be a new co-star and Carmelo Anthony figured to add some veteran savvy. The fit has been a disaster. While George has helped carry the Thunder’s defense into the top tier, the offense is wholly mediocre.
Russell Westbrook will not be the NBA MVP in 2017-18. He might not appear on a single five-slot ballot if things don’t change dramatically over the last 50 or so games of the season. His three-year All-NBA streak is in peril, as well. There have even been questions as to whether Westbrook — again, the reigning MVP who averaged a triple-double last season — will be an all-star this year.
The short answer, as of now: yes, probably. The long answer is more complicated.
James Harden and Stephen Curry will almost assuredly be the starters. Remember that fans, players, and the media vote for the starters: two guards and three frontcourt players. The twist this year is that the top vote-getter in each conference will be captains who pick the actual all-star teams from the selected player pool. The big group vote will push Harden and Curry onto the team, even if Curry misses too many games to be considered worthy by the media consensus. He’ll probably be No. 2 in votes in the West behind only Durant.
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Given Kawhi Leonard’s long injury absence and Anthony Davis’ start-stop season, there’s no telling what happens to those other two starting frontcourt slots in the West. If Davis plays most of the next month, he should earn a spot. (He was fourth in fan voting in the West frontcourt last season.) Leonard isn’t going to get much media support due to the injury, but the fan and player vote could carry him on.
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The other obvious options at this point are DeMarcus Cousins, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, LaMarcus Aldridge, and, uh, George. If Leonard gets the starting nod, that reduces the available spots out of the West by one.
Coaches elect the reserves, of course. They put Westbrook in easily last season after Curry and Harden took the starter spots. Will they do the same this year? There are seven spots to fill. Let’s imagine Leonard does not get a starting spot. He won’t get a reserve spot in that case.
But Aldridge would, and he’d deserve it. Butler and Towns are likely in, and Cousins is certainly in. (Coaches have consistently valued Cousins’ contributions in all-star voting. Players actually showered him with votes last year, too, which makes me think he has a puncher’s chance of being a starter over Towns.) Let’s say that it is, however, Towns who sneaks in as the starter from among that group with Durant and Davis. So your likely frontcourt reserves are Aldridge, Butler, and Cousins. We’re down to four spots.
Damian Lillard is an all-star. There will be no snubbing him this season, barring an injury. We’re down to three spots. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were both elected by coaches in each of the last two seasons. Thompson is a likely repeat. Green is a harder case. We’ll get back to him in a moment. But Thompson should be in over Westbrook. That gives us two more spots.
Neither of them need to go to guards: with Curry, Harden, Lillard, and Thompson, we’re covered. Last season, the West All-Stars only had four guards (with Westbrook in place of Lillard). So we have two spots without any positional restrictions. The top candidates would be Westbrook, Green, Nikola Jokic, Andrew Wiggins, and George.
An X-factor candidate is Chris Paul, who should have about 35 or so games played by the time coaches vote. If Houston is still blowing the doors off, there could be a (deserved) push for him despite his November absence. A few dark horse candidates could include Devin Booker, C.J. McCollum, Eric Gordon, and (why not?) Donovan Mitchell.
All of the candidates at this level have holes. Green has been fairly invisible this season, a rarity for him. Jokic missed a little time and is untested as an all-star candidate: we don’t really know how voters (coaches, in this case) feel about him. Wiggins is the third-best player on a good but not great team, which is usually not a winning strategy to become an all-star. George is seen as part of Oklahoma City’s problem, and Indiana’s shockingly strong campaign is unhelpful to his case.
Because of all that, and because Westbrook is still nearly averaging a triple-double (despite shooting below 40 percent from the field with a True Shooting percentage under 50 percent and almost five turnovers a game for a team with a losing record), he’ll likely get one of those spots. Heck, because he is the reigning MVP and a perennial all-star, he might finish higher than Lillard and Thompson in the coaches’ voting for reserves. Reputations do tend to matter (though that didn’t help Paul last year).
But if Minnesota climbs a little higher in the standings, or Green has a loud and powerful month, or the Rockets run this win streak up to 20, or McCollum or Booker go on rampages, or the Nuggets prove they are in the West’s second tier for real, and if the Thunder continue to putter, there is a universe in which Westbrook misses out on the NBA All-Star Game.
That universe gets more real if Leonard is granted a starting spot by voters despite missing almost 30 games, or if a joke candidate/Laker (like Zaza Pachulia in each of the past two years and Kobe Bryant before him) steals a starting spot. This is likely the least of Westbrook’s concerns. But it’s weird and interesting all the same.
Here’s one more twist: Victor Oladipo is a lock for an East All-Star nod. If he makes it and neither Westbrook or George do ... well, wouldn’t that be something?
