Carmelo Anthony? No, Bradley Beal Should Have Taken Kevin Love’s All-Star Spot
Carmelo Anthony is taking Kevin Love’s All-Star spot, but Bradley Beal should have been his replacement.
Just days away from the All-Star Break, the Cavs announced that All-Star forward Kevin Love will miss six weeks after undergoing an arthroscopic surgery on his left knee on the morning of Tuesday, February 14.
From this, most importantly, we hope Love returns to form and that this surgery helps him finish out the season strong. On a less important note, Love’s sidelining left a hole on the East’s All-Star roster. While the NBA has announced that Carmelo Anthony will take Love’s spot, there’s an argument to be made that there were more qualified candidates available.
Joel Embiid was a worthy candidate, but with his latest injury, along with his already-low minutes due to restrictions, Wizards’ sharpshooter Bradley Beal should have been the guy to take Love’s spot.
Beal has had injury issues of his own in the past, and there was worry that it would be a career-long problem. However, Beal has only missed four games this season, and he hasn’t missed a game since December 30. His ability to stay on the court has been a positive sign for the Wizards, but his play has been a tremendous help as well.
Beal is averaging career-highs in points (22.3), assists (3.7), and shooting percentage (47.2). His 39.9 three-point percentage is not a career-high, but his three-point attempts (7.2) is — by a long shot. Before this season, he never attempted more than 5 threes a game.
Playing second fiddle to John Wall — who is also having a career year — Beal has helped Washington overcome a tough 7–13 start, and they now find themselves as the East’s third seed at 33–21, 12 games over .500. Washington has established themselves as one of the East’s best teams and a possible postseason challenger to the all-mighty Cavaliers.
Beal isn’t doing anything new this season; he’s just doing it better and for a longer period of time. Being available is a skill in the NBA, and Beal hasn’t been that available up to this point. Aside from his sophomore year — when he played 73 games — Beal had missed at least 19 games per year for his other three seasons.
He’s been plenty available and plenty good this season, scoring a lot of points at a rather efficient rate. Two of his three 40-point games were wins, with the one loss coming at the hands of the Cavs in arguably the best game of this season.
There were more snubs in the West than East, as always. But, a few players outside of Beal had a case for a spot on the team. Embiid hasn’t played enough to truly be considered, but what he has done while on the court has been incredible enough to at least be mentioned. Dwyane Wade will always be considered for notoriety sakes, and his numbers aren’t bad, but the state of the Chicago Bulls doesn’t help his case.
Melo’s teammate — Kristaps Porzingis — had a pretty strong case at the beginning of the season, but his play leveled out with some lingering injuries, and he fell out of contention. Dwight Howard is scoring about the same as last year at a more efficient rate — both from the field and charity stripe — and is bringing down more rebounds than he has in the past four seasons. He had a good case, but he’d probably rather be doing Dwight things.
It wouldn’t have been surprising to see any of those guys selected — sans Porzingis and probably Embiid, especially considering his current injury. But none of those snubs are more deserving of the spot than Beal. Of starting shooting guards, Beal is fifth in PER, third in real-plus minus, and — for the first time in his career — posting a positive net rating.
Without Beal, the Wizards are a much less scary team that probably doesn’t have a chance of getting to the Eastern Conference Finals. He’s not the only reason the Wizards have dramatically improved, but to dismiss his play and role in their success, would be foolish.
