Atlanta guard Trae Young doesn't view not getting picked for the All-Star Game as getting snubbed.
He has a new word.
“It's getting ‘Traed’ at this point,” he wrote on social media.
Young, the NBA's assist leader this season and a three-time All-Star selection, obviously wasn't pleased about not getting picked for the Feb. 16 All-Star event in San Francisco. The league's coaches pick the reserves for the game, their selections getting revealed on Thursday.
And a few notables didn't make the cut, including Young and Phoenix's Devin Booker — a two-time Olympic gold medalist and four-time All-Star.
It is not the first time Booker has been left out when many felt he had All-Star numbers. Booker said in 2021, after not getting picked, that “the NBA is different from the game that I fell in love with at the beginning, when all the best players get in the All-Star Game." And in recent days, Suns coach Mike Budenholzer also offered a strong pitch for Booker to get an All-Star nod this year.
When arguments are made that someone who wasn't selected should have made an All-Star Game, the inevitable question then becomes asking who made the list and wasn't worthy of the spot.
Young hasn't been voted into the game since 2022; he was an injury replacement selected by Commissioner Adam Silver for the All-Star Game last year. Hawks coach Quin Snyder made clear that he believes the players who made the All-Star roster are deserving.
“That also doesn't preclude me from feeling the way I do about Trae,” Snyder said. “I haven't coached him for that long, but I feel like he's had the best year of his career. ... No disrespect to anyone that has made it, but as Trae's coach, I am allowed to feel disappointment for him not making it. And that's unfortunate.”
Fan voting accounts for 50% of the formula for deciding which players start the game, and Charlotte's LaMelo Ball was the backcourt player who got the most votes from fans in the Eastern Conference by a wide margin. But he narrowly missed being a starter after finishing third in the East backcourt voting by current players and seventh in the media balloting — then missed out on being a reserve because he didn't get listed on enough coaches' ballots.
Ball is the first player under the current voting format to win the fan vote at his position, but not get picked for the All-Star Game.
Booker — in the interview four years ago under similar circumstances — said there's a simple change he would make to the process.
“Put the best players in the game,” Booker said then.
And it’s likely his stance hasn’t changed since.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
