Hollinger's East All-Star team

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Starters/bench:

PG: Billups / Calderon ( makes an interesting argument for him )

G: Wade / Hamilton

F: LeBron / Butler

F: Garnett / Pierce

C: Howard / Bosh

Final 2 spots: Jamison & Josh Smith ( interesting argument for him as well )

[capstone21]

Smith is having a good season but he is no where close to be more deserving then JJ.

[DrReality]

What is the link for this?

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I think this might be an espn insider article, but people who have espn on their mobile phone, can view this. I'll post the mobile link in here.

http://mobileapp.espn.go.com/nba/mp/redesi...6191&series=nba

[TheNorthCydeRises]

On espn mobile, you'll have to go to the Hawks homepage there, and the article should be there.

[exodus]

East All-Stars: Slim pickings when selecting subs

By John Hollinger

ESPN Insider

(Archive)

Updated: January 8, 2008

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"Who belongs in the All-Star Game?"

It sounds so simple, but it's a more complex question than you think. Is it the 12 most valuable players so far this season? The 12 players who played the best when they were available? The 12 who contributed the most to winning teams?

That's what makes choosing a team so difficult -- the criteria is far from ironclad. But alas, it's time to make my picks, so I need something to fall back on. Here's what I always go back to: It's a game played for the fans so they can see the best players in the game.

"Best" in this case is hazily defined. I look at it in the big-picture kind of way -- not necessarily who is having the best season, although that's certainly important, but who are the best players, period. That, in turn produces a series of criteria for being on the team:

ROCKING THE VOTE

HOLLINGER

• East All-Stars: Slim pickings

• West All-Stars: Who gets snubbed?

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SPORTSNATION

• Vote: Select your 2008 NBA All-Stars

1. Small injuries don't matter. If Player A is better than Player B but missed 12 games in December with an ankle sprain, I don't care -- he's still better, he's still the one that belongs in a game designed to showcase the best players, and he's still the All-Star. With this rule comes two exceptions: (1) If it's part of a larger pattern of injuries for a given player, and (2) if the player missed such an insanely large chunk of the season that he can't possibly be chosen -- like Elton Brand, for an obvious example.

2. History matters. If Player A and Player B are having comparable seasons, but Player A is playing way better than he ever has before while Player B has played at this level the past three seasons, I'm taking Player B every time.

3. .500 is not a magical All-Star maker. Unlike the coaches, I'm not automatically rejecting players from teams with losing records. Check out the marginal All-Star players from the past few seasons and you'll find a big chunk of them were on teams that were just a game or two over .500 when the teams were named … but almost none of them were on teams that were a couple games under that threshold. Of course, there is essentially no difference between 15-17 and 17-15 at this point in the season, but tell that to the people doing the voting.

4. Seriously, is this one of the 12 best players in the conference? You'd be amazed at how often people bypass this little crosscheck, which is how people like Dale Davis and Wally Szczerbiak have made the team in years past. Always a good rule of thumb to have in your back pocket.

Additionally, let me tell you about the one rule I definitely won't be using. Known as either The Parliament Argument or The Electoral College Argument, fans and columnists the world over reflexively use this one every year, and it drives me crazy.

What I mean is people will say, "Since Boston has the best record they have to have three All-Stars" or "Portland has to have representation on the All-Star team," like we're talking about an important block of voters or something. But we should be talking about the actual players instead of how many All-Stars their constituencies deserve or how a certain team needs representation.

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, it's time to name an actual team. I'll start in the East, where despite what you see on the news there are actually 15 franchises and not two.

To start, let's begin by filling out the five-man All-Star ballot as if I had the only vote. Or as if I were a nation of 1.2 billion people that could collectively outvote everyone else. Whichever one works for you:

The Starters

Point Guard: Chauncey Billups, Detroit

This is pretty much a slam dunk. Billups is the only point guard in the East to average at least 30 minutes a game and rank in the top 50 in player efficiency rating (PER); he's ninth overall at 24.18.

He's the best player on the second-best team in basketball, his third straight season with a PER of at least 21, and his defense is nearly as valuable as his offense. Of course, in the real balloting he's nowhere close, so he'll have to be named as a sub.

Shooting Guard: Dwyane Wade, Miami

I have some misgivings about this one, because Wade clearly hasn't been himself at the offensive end this season, and because he's pretty much been a sieve on D.

But when I look at my criteria, Wade is a shoo-in. Is he one of the 12 best players in the East? Of course he is. Has he played at this level before? Duh.

Besides, who else is worthy of starting here? The next best shooting guard in the East is who? Maybe Richard Hamilton or Michael Redd? Nobody in their right mind would take either over Wade. Even in his diminished state, Wade is 12th in PER, easily the best among the East's shooting guards.

Center: Dwight Howard, Orlando

There is only one center in the East averaging at least 30 minutes a game and ranking in the top 50 in PER. That's Howard, who ranks seventh, is shooting 60.2 percent from the floor, and is the unquestioned centerpiece of the conference's third-best team.

He's as strong on D as on offense, too, making him a double no-brainer.

Small Forward: LeBron James, Cavaliers

He leads the league in PER, just as he did two years earlier. And in the season in between he carried a team on his back to the conference title.

James is on his way to a historic season with his averages of 29.2/7.7/7.3; needless to say, no other small forward in the East comes close to him.

Power Forward: Kevin Garnett, Celtics

I just want to point out how inane all the things written about him in Minnesota the past several years now seem. Yes, clearly it was Garnett's fault that the team couldn't get over the hump; a better man could have turned Marko Jaric and Mark Blount into champions.

Anyway, all Garnett has done in Boston is put his new team on pace for a record win total after they won 24 games the previous season. He ranks fourth in PER and if you took a vote for Defensive Player of the Year and MVP today, he'd probably win both.

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The Subs

According to All-Star rules, coaches must select two guards, two forwards and a center as the first five reserves. Then the final two spots can be filled in whatever way they deem necessary.

An important caveat to that rule is that coaches may put a player at a different position than he plays regularly for his own team, if it makes sense and is most advantageous to the conference's All-Star squad.

In other words, just because there's only one good center in the East doesn't mean I have to vote in another center who sucks.

Thank goodness.

Backup center: Chris Bosh, Raptors

Of course, Bosh should be an All-Star based on his hilarious YouTube video alone; better yet, he has the stats to back it up.

According to 82games.com, Bosh has played more than three-quarters of his minutes in the middle this season. While you can debate who is Toronto's "centre" when Bosh and Kris Humphries are paired, the 82games.com data shows it's not really much of a stretch to list him here -- even if you consider Humphries the 5 in that alignment, nearly half Bosh's minutes have come in the pivot.

As far as his All-Star bona fides go, Bosh is an easy call. He ranks seventh among Eastern Conference players in PER despite a series of nagging injuries, and this is the third straight year he's played at this level.

Backup forward No. 1: Paul Pierce, Celtics

Pierce's offensive numbers are plenty good, but they don't really separate him from a few other forwards under consideration here (Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Josh Smith, Richard Jefferson, etc.).

What puts him several notches above is his defense. He's embraced the role of being the No. 1 perimeter defender for big stretches on the league's top defensive team, making him one of the game's top two-way players this season. He passes all the other tests with flying colors, of course, as he's long been regarded as one of the East's best players, so Pierce zooms in.

Backup forward No. 2: Caron Butler, Wizards

Butler made the team a year ago, but this is easily the best he's ever played. Averaging career highs of 22.2 points, 4.6 assists, 50.4-percent shooting, and 41.4 percent on 3-pointers, he's kept the Wizards north of .500 despite the absence of high-scoring guard Gilbert Arenas.

While he might be over his head at the moment, it's not like it's a close call between him and the next guy on the list. Butler ranks sixth among Eastern Conference players in PER, and is doing it while averaging over 40 minutes a game. He'd have to cool off considerably just to make the comparison between he and the other forwards interesting.

Backup guard No. 1: Jose Calderon, Raptors

This is probably going to shock some people, so I'll just go ahead and say it: Calderon, right now, is the third-best guard in the East.

Go ahead and laugh. Get it out of your system.

Done? Good. Now let's look at the numbers. Calderon ranks fourth among Eastern Conference guards in PER; he's a millimeter behind T.J. Ford, who is out indefinitely, and of course trails Wade and Billups.

But he's way ahead of the others. Vince Carter, Richard Hamilton and Michael Redd are eating his dust, and no other point guard in the East rates in the top 50 in PER. (If you're looking for Jason Kidd, by the way, there's more on him below.)

You might think Calderon's numbers are so good because he's been beating up on second-teamers for half the season. Actually, no: His PER has gone up since Ford went out and now is as high as it's been all season. In his 20 games as a starter, he's averaging 13.5 points, 9.9 assists, and shooting 50.0 percent from the field. The other overlooked part is that he's making only 1.5 turnovers per game.

Let me repeat that for emphasis: 9.9 assists. 1.5 turnovers.

That's amazing. To show you how amazing, let's look at a stat I keep called "pure point rating." I created it to replace assist-turnover ratio, which tends to reward point guards who never penetrate. Pure point rating produces more valid ratings of a player's ability as a distributor by rewarding production instead of just making a ratio. (If you're curious, the formula is: Pure Point = (100* ((Assists * 2/3) - Turnovers))/Minutes.)

So … care to guess who's first in pure point ratio this season? Hint: it's not Steve Nash or Chris Paul. It's Calderon, by a fair amount.

Pure Point Rating leaders

Player Ast/40 min TO/40 min Pure Point Rating

Jose Calderon 11.2 1.8 14.11

Steve Nash 14.3 4.2 13.25

Chris Paul 11.0 2.7 11.47

Brevin Knight 7.9 1.7 8.96

Jason Kidd 11.3 4.0 8.94

*Through Sunday's games

No, he's not the scoring threat that Nash or Paul are, but Calderon is insanely efficient at running the offense and makes his shots, and that makes him a far more valuable player than people realize.

As for my arguments about preferring players who have established this level of performance, Calderon has a far better case than you might think. He played fantastic last season too and had the biggest PER jump in the league, though the voters chose to pretend he didn't exist in the Most Improved Player voting.

In fact, Calderon's 2006-07 PER ranked eighth among NBA point guards, and sixth among all guards in the East. To use one All-Star competitor as an example, his mark last season was not only better than Richard Hamilton's, it would have been the best mark of Hamilton's career.

So Calderon has been better than anyone else at his position except Billups, and his performance history suggests it's either not a fluke or a very small one. He's on a team with only one other viable scorer and, thanks to his skillful playmaking, has them in the top half of the league in offensive efficiency.

So if, after all this, you think he isn't an All-Star, I have only one question. Other than saying, "He's just not what I think of when I think of an All-Star," what case is there for Jose Calderon not to be an All-Star this year?

Backup guard No. 2: Richard Hamilton, Pistons

I've run out of players who actually deserve to be on the team, but because this is the East we still have three spots left to fill. If life were fair we'd take the three players that are going to get screwed out West, tack them on to the end of the East roster, and call it good.

Instead, we'll spend the next several minutes sorting out questions like "Who's played worse defense, Michael Redd or Antawn Jamison?" and "Who is more likely to spend the night inexplicably settling for jump shots, Vince Carter or Josh Smith?"

Since Detroit has played so well, Electoral College proponents will make the case for Hamilton right here, but I can get there with more solid reasoning. Redd and Carter have slightly stronger statistical resumes -- both have better numbers in previous seasons and Redd has a superior PER this season. But I'll go with Hamilton by a whisker because he's been more durable than Carter and defended better than both (especially Redd), and the PER differences between the three are fairly small.

Extra Reserve No. 1: Josh Smith, Hawks

This one is a little hairy. For one, Smith isn't generally perceived as the best player on the Hawks; Joe Johnson is. That's not just from opponents, that's from coaches and teammates too. So part of me wonders if I'm violating my own rule here.

But Johnson is mired in a horrible shooting slump and is at just 40.8 percent from the field, while Smith has taken another step forward in his fourth pro season. So the other part of me wonders if this situation will look a lot different in hindsight, and if Smith is taking over as Atlanta's top weapon. What's undeniable is that Smith has been Atlanta's most effective player in the first half of the season, and his improvement is a major reason the Hawks are no longer a laughingstock.

As far as Smith's own merits, let's weigh him against the competition. Besides Smith, there are only four players in the top 50 in PER who average at least 30 minutes that I haven't already nominated: Antawn Jamison, Michael Redd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson.

All but Redd take a back seat to Smith in PER, and Smith has more defensive value than all of them. Admittedly, PER already takes much of that into account since his East-leading 3.2 blocks per game are part of the equation, but he's also making fewer mistakes. And the emergence of a better supporting cast has allowed us to see what a factor he can be as a weak-side specialist, similar to the way Denver uses Marcus Camby. The Hawks are in the top half of the league in defensive efficiency for the first time in eons, and Smith's blocks have been a huge part.

Additionally, while Smith has never played this well before, it doesn't seem out of line to say that this is his current ability level. He's 22 and has improved his numbers every year, and his output this season isn't much different from what he did the final two months of last season. And while I joked above about his settling for jumpers, the truth is he's doing it a lot less than he used to, and averaging seven free throw attempts a game as a result -- that's one of the big reasons he's playing better. So it's Smith by a nose here.

Extra Reserve No. 2 -- Also Known as "Sorry, Jason Kidd took your spot": Antawn Jamison, Wizards

Right now Jason Kidd leads the fan voting at guard along with Wade, and the only guy close enough to have a reasonable chance of surpassing him is Ray Allen. While both are generally perceived as big-time stars, each has seen his numbers take a big hit this season.

Kidd has produced so many triple-doubles that a lot of people mistakenly think he's playing as well as ever, but this just isn't true. The dude won't shoot the ball anymore and rarely makes the ones he takes. He's at 36.5 percent from the floor and has lost more than two points off his 40-minute scoring average.

At the same time, he's seen a massive spike in his turnover ratio, forking it over on 14.3 percent of his possessions. Folks, that's plain terrible. Among point guards who have played at least 500 minutes, only two have a worse turnover ratio than Kidd. Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see what I mean -- it's a bunch of bad point guards and Jason Kidd. Weird, huh?

That's why despite his brilliance in the rebound and assist categories his PER is 16.91, well down from his standard of each of the past four seasons and well short of what's typically expected from an All-Star. Look at the player instead of The Legend, people -- he's still good, but he's not one of the 12 best players in the East anymore.

As for Allen, spare me the Electoral College argument. He's having his worst season as a pro and has no business being in New Orleans, 29-3 or not. His PER is behind Kidd's, and unlike Kidd he's basically a DH who has almost no defensive value.

So that leaves Jamison, Redd, Carter and Jefferson -- the four remaining East players with a PER in the top 50 who average at least 30 minutes per game. Of the four, Jefferson can't quite hang with this crowd -- even with a PER that's just a whisker short of his career best, he's more than a point shy of the others.

Thus, we're down to Jamison, Redd and Carter. Redd has the best statistical track record and the best PER, but his defense is deficient even by the standards of this list. Jamison has played the most minutes and been the most stabilizing influence, while Carter has a strong track record and has played very well after a slow start.

Really, you can't go wrong with either player (or, should I say, you can't go right -- we're talking about spot No. 12 on the East roster, and I'm not sure any of these guys could nab spot No. 20 out West). But I'll go with Jamison, because he's been so durable and consistent and ranks essentially right with the others in PER. Also, if we're giving brownie points for intangibles, I think his locker room influence has meant more in Washington than Redd's or, certainly, Carter's.

And this is an important spot, even if you allow that Kidd or Allen will win the fan voting, because inevitably one of the 12 players above is likely to be injured and miss the game. At that point, Jamison would be the replacement.

• Click here for my West All-Star picks

John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. To e-mail him, click here.