It’s official. Despite the agitations and protestations of Raptors fans the world over (actually, they’re mainly concentrated in Canada), Pascal Siakam is not an All-Star this year. Not even as a replacement. Letter-writing campaigns, Twitter brigades, in-person protests at the NBA headquarters, and hunger strikes undertaken while chained to a tree outside Adam Silver’s house can all be halted now, because nothing any of us can do will change the outcome of the All-Star team selections.
Just so you know, it wasn’t me who was doing a hunger strike on Adam Silver’s property in protest of Siakam’s snub. That was a different guy. I was the one who was doing a hunger strike on his front porch in protest of arenas playing extremely loud, annoying music while play is in progress. It’s total bullpoo that stupid beats are playing at an insane volume while teammates are trying to communicate with each other. I had to give up the strike because I was really hungry after twelve hours and I think Silver’s wife was cooking some macaroni in cheese in the house and it smelled really good. But that’s not the point here. The point is that Siakam is not an All-Star this season and we’re just all going to have to deal with it. I personally didn’t think that he was a legit selection (unless he was replacing Lowry somehow) but a lot of people did.
Soon we’ll get to see whether Siakam continues his All-Star-esque play with the addition of Marc Gasol to the roster. Gasol is a good passer, which should help Siakam, but he’s also a guy who likes to have the ball, which hinders Siakam. There might be chemistry issues between them because Gasol has the ability to grow a full beard and Siakam doesn’t seem like he really does. Beard envy is real and it has torn apart locker rooms in the past.