Sports: Thompson named All-Star reserve.
He’ll make fifth straight appearance, while Green falls short
Klay Thompson will once again join his Warriors teammates Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant in the NBA All-Star Game after the leagues coaches voted him in Thursday as a reserve.
While Thompson will be making his fifth straight All-Star appearance, Draymond Green’s three-year All- Star streak came to an end as he wasn’t among the seven Western Conference re- serves announced.
In a surprise, Thompson was ruled out of Thursday’s game against the 76ers with an unspecified illness. The Warriors announced the news about a half hour before tipoff. Thompson did participate in morning shootaround. Alfonzo McKinnie started in Thompson’s place.
While Thompson considered the appearance to be a “huge honor,”” will Green view his exclusion as a source of motivation?
“I don’t think Draymond needs a whole lot of motivation night in and night out. He’s in a very good place now,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s playing at an incredibly high level, and we’re winning. He’s happy. I’m sure he’d love to make the team next year. Maybe that will be a goal in the offseason to try to get back there. But for now, he’s enjoying what’s happening with our team.”
As much as Thompson said he “feels excited to be there with my teammates” with Curry and Durant as starters, Thompson did not show as much enthusiasm
about the NBA’s 3-point contest despite having the chance to go against Curry and his brother, Seth. Thompson beat Curry in the 3-point contest during All-Star weekend in 2016.
“I don’t know,” Thompson said about competing in the 3-point contest. “Probably not.”
The Lakers’ LeBron James and the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo, the leading vote-getters and thus captains of their respective conferences, will choose their teams from the remaining 22 All- Stars on Thursday, Feb. 7, on TNT.
Oakland’s Damian Lillard of the Blazers was also chosen as a reserve in the West. He and Thompson were joined by Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, New Orleans’ Anthony Davis, Denver’s Nikola Jokic, San Antonio’s LaMarcus Aldridge and Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns.
In the East, the reserves added were Toronto’s Kyle Lowry, Detroit’s Blake Griffin, Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton, Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons, Washington’s Bradley Beal, Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic and Indiana’s Victor Oladipo. He is out for the season with a thigh injury and will be replaced.
Perhaps the biggest omission on the coaches’ part, at least in the fans’ eyes, is the absence of exciting Mavericks rookie Luka Doncic.
Thompson cemented his spot in the game by looking more like himself again. He began the season making just 13.9 percent of his 3-pointers while shooting 39 percent overall. Thompson had a recent 11-game stretch in which he averaged 26.8 points while making 52 percent of his 3-point attempts.
“Most of it was the law of averages. But early in the season, he was taking difficult shots,” Kerr said of Thompson. “As the team began to get healthier, we started to generate better shots for each other. That probably benefited Klay as much as anybody. Some of it was his own awareness of the fact we needed better attempts.”
Even though Green had struggled and also missed 15 games this season, his play lately gave himself a decent chance of becoming an All-Star again. Green has been the catalyst during the Warriors’ 11-game winning streak, playing lock- down defense while also turning in an eyepopping 4.62-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Nonetheless, Green didn’t seem overly concerned whether or not he made the team again, telling reporters, “If I don’t, I’ll enjoy a nice vacation. So kind of a win-win situation.”
“He’s probably looking forward to five days somewhere,” Kerr said of Green. “That’s not the worst thing in the world. I would be willing to wager there are future All- Star games in store for him. But it wasn’t meant to be this year. ”
Curry and Durant were voted in as starters from the Western Conference last week, along with James Harden, Paul George and James. Antetokounmpo was joined in the East by Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Joel Embiid as well as Kemba Walker from the host Hornets.
The All-Star Game will be played in Curry’s hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday, Feb. 17.