Pascal Siakam not being named All-Star in career year is a disgrace

The Toronto Raptors are one of the most disappointing teams in the league, as Nick Nurse’s much-maligned squad went from a 48-win feel-good story to a lottery team inundated with trade rumors. However, one of the positives to take away from this season is Pascal Siakam becoming an undeniable elite player in the league.

Siakam has been even better than last year, team wins and losses be damned, amid constant chaos. One would think that such a phenomenal performance would be greeted with all sorts of ring-kissing and adulation from the talking heads, right?

Wrong! Like just about anything this Raptors team have tried to do in the last few months, that idea has blown up in their face and been reduced to ash.

Siakam was not named an All-Star for the 2022-23 season, as the coaches voted in players like Julius Randle and DeMar DeRozan despite the fact that their numbers don’t match up to what Siakam is doing.

Toronto Raptors star Pascal Siakam is not a 2022-23 All-Star.

Siakam is averaging 24.9 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 6.2 assists per game this season. Even if the Raptors have failed to properly surround him with the talent needed to turn this team into a winner, Siakam has been one of the best players in the league offensively.

Siakam just lost out on a ton of money as a result of this decision. This likely means he won’t end up as an All-NBA player, which will not make him eligible for a supermax contract in the offseason. Siakam has every right to be blinded with rage after this move.

The blame for this snub could fall on the voters, but Nick Nurse and Masai Ujiri are the main reasons for this. Ujiri didn’t get him a bench worth a damn this season, and Nurse tried to overcompensate by grinding him into dust to the point where he had a major scoring slump at the worst time.

We can call this another example of the American media not paying enough attention to Siakam, but there was no way that Toronto was going to get much consideration with the record they had. Ujiri and Nurse need to look themselves in the mirror and realize how they bungled this.