2. Jrue Holiday, Milwaukee Bucks
While Holiday is a guard that may not compete directly with Siakam for All-Star nods, it stings to see a player with Siakam’s per-game averages left off the team. Holiday was the beneficiary of playing on a winning team, while Siakam is apparently getting dinged because of Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster’s lackluster offseason.
Holiday is averaging 19.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game as the second (and often third) option alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. Siakam’s omission is the result of the Bucks contending for a championship and the Raptors eyeing a rebuild.
Toronto Raptors PF Pascal Siakam is outscoring Jrue Holiday.
Holiday, like Siakam, has value that goes way beyond the box score for a very talented Milwaukee team. He has a legitimate First-Team All-Defense case. There are two problems with leaning on this fact to justify his candidacy, however.
First, Siakam is a tremendous defender in his own right. Second, the idea of defense mattering in the famously defense-light All-Star game is applied very inconsistently. Players like Holiday have it factor into their decision, while it is often disregarded in cases of players like elite players on iffy teams like Siakam.