Every season, 22 players get to go to the NBA All-Star game. In a league that features approximately 450 players that is an incredibly small number, and some players just never make it.
Currently, CJ McCollum and Jamal Murray, for example, are some of the top players still waiting for their All-Star nod. For McCollum, time might be running out, but Murray still has many years left to get there.
There are many others, however, who already finished their careers and despite putting together impressive resumes never made an All-Star team. So, let’s look at the six best players who never quite crossed the border into All-Star territory.
Non-All-Star #6: Rod Strickland
From 1988 to 2005, Rod Strickland played for nine NBA teams and averaged career numbers of 13.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 7.3 assists, and 1.5 steals. Some of his best seasons were in 1994-95 with the Portland Trail Blazers (18.9 points, 5 rebounds, 8.8 assists, and 1.4 steals) and in 1997-98 with Washington (17.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 10.5 assists, and 1.7 steals). In the latter season, he led the league in assists and made the All-NBA Second Team but was not voted an All-Star.
There were plenty of opportunities for him to make it. From the 1989-90 season all the way to the 1999-2000 season, Strickland averaged double-digits and over 7 assists every season. This is not something a lot of players do, and he would have deserved at least one All-Star nod during that time.
There were already a lot of guards in the All-Star conversation at that time, however, and Strickland just never made the cut. Between Michael Jordan, Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Clyde Drexler, and later Reggie Miller and Penny Hardaway, among others, Strickland got lost. This is not to say that he was more deserving than any of these players. He simply had tough competition to face at the guard spot and never got voted to an All-Star team despite putting up numbers that would warrant a selection.
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Author: Elaine Blum
August 26, 2023 | 12:00 pm
