The Cleveland Cavaliers are having another good season and one of the reasons for that is because of the All-Star play of Darius Garland, the Cavs point guard. He was named an All-Star a year ago, but this year he is being snubbed by the NBA, especially by the opposing coaches in the league who have recently voted for the reserves.
The starters for the game were announced last week and Cleveland’s other guard, Donovan Mitchell, was named a starter. That selection was based a lot on the fan’s vote which in essence was a popularity contest. Because of that, the other starter selected for the Eastern Conference team was Kyrie Irving and that started this snub of Darius Garland to the reserve team.
Two of the reserved guards that were selected from the Eastern pool were DeMar DeRozan of the Chicago Bulls and Jrue Holiday of the Milwaukee Bucks. The NBA coaches also voted for any two players at any position and that helped put a player like guard Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers in the game as well.
For the record, the other reserves for the Eastern team include forward Bam Adebayo, of the Miami Heat, guard Jaylon Brown of the Boston Celtics, center Joel Embid, of the Philadelphia 76ers, and forward Julius Randle of the New York Knicks. The NBA coaches voted for three frontcourt players, so that means that probably Haliburton and DeRozan were the extra guards that were selected in front of Garland.
No. 3 All-Star that shouldn’t have made team: Jrue Holiday, G, Milwaukee Bucks
Jrue Holiday is having a good season with the Milwaukee Bucks but in general, it hasn’t been the difference in the success of his team. Holiday is averaging a nice 19.2 points a game to go along with seven assists a game as well. He’s been sidelined 11 games this year while starting in 39. He’s had 11 games of dishing out more than 10 assists.
Holiday is a great player but Garland, in only his fourth season in the league, is having a better season. Regarding assists, Garland has had 15 games of 10 or more assists and 25 games of having more than five assists which is more than the 23 games that Holiday has in that department. Regarding steals, Garland has six games where he collected more than three in a game while Holiday only has four. Now he’s not the defender of Holiday, but Garland is much-improved on that end in the team scope.
While the scoring averages are similar, Garland’s is at 22 points which is better than Holiday’s (19 pts) as well. In addition, when you start looking at the consistency of those scoring games, Garland has shown more of that and has had many more big games of scoring north of 30 points. Garland has seven of those so far and Holiday only has four of those.