The All-Star reserves have been revealed, and Nikola Jokic is not among them. To what can we blame this seeming oversight? It is tempting to blame Serbians for not coming out in support of their man, for not flooding social media with hashtags and tweets in a large enough torrent. But they are not at fault here. Unlike those Georgians with their ardent support of Zaza Pachulia, Serbians have better things to do with their time (please don’t freak out it’s just a joke it’s just a joke aaaahhhhh).
No, the real reason is simple: as great as he has been playing lately, Jokic is undeserving of an All-Star spot this year. The NBA is simply too flush with talent for someone who hasn’t been beasting consistently the whole year to earn a spot. Amidst this deluge of 20+ point efforts, and this latest 29-point 14-rebound 8-assist domination of the Suns, it’s easy to forget how slowly the season started for him. Next year, for sure. But not this year. Even though he’s probably better than DeAndre Jordan.
Despite this setback, I bet it’s not too late to get him in the dunk contest. Zach LaVine just pulled out, which means there’s definitely an opening that is Jokic’s for the taking. I mean, the NBA once almost put Brandon Jennings in that thing, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t at least entertain the idea of Magic Jokson facing off against Aaron Gordon. Who needs the All-Star game anyway? No one watches it. People watch the dunk contest, and they’d watch it even harder if The Joker was in it, doing his tippy-toe dunks. He can probably still do those while his hip is shattered into a million pieces, right? God, don’t you dare take him away from us you vengeful tyrant. UPDATE: his hip’s not totally busted so he’s good to go for the dunk contest.