Scottie Barnes was probably already a longshot to make an All-NBA team, but after Cade Cunningham and Luka Doncic both won their cases against the NBA and are shoo-ins to get tabbed for either first or second-team, Barnes now feels like an ultra-longshot.
The NBA's 65-game threshold lasted exactly zero years before players found a way around it. I'm not saying that Cunningham (who dealt with a collapsed lung) and Doncic (who missed games for the birth of his child) don't deserve to be All-NBA players, as they both obviously are good enough to be on those teams.
I also don't like the 65-game rule, for the record! But to put that rule in place, see the carnage it caused, and then say Eh, never mind before ever actually applying it feels a little crazy. Plenty of guys forced themselves to play 65, only to be told, in short, that it doesn't actually matter as much as the league claimed it did.
Scottie Barnes playing 80 games is a legitimate accomplishment that the league wanted you to believe meant something... Until they decided it kind of didn't. Games played alone shouldn't get a player on an All-NBA team, but the league can't even decide how much it actually cares about guys being on the floor every night.
Scottie Barnes likely doesn't have an All-NBA case anymore
Unfortunately for Raptors fans, they won't be too shocked by this. Barnes almost looked like a lock for All-NBA in the first few months of the season, but after the All-Star break, his production dipped. it didn't nosedive, and he still had a sublime season overall, but finishing out the year playing more like a good player than a superstar didn't help his case for any end-of-season awards.
All-Defense is still a near guarantee, obviously, and first-team should be in the cards. That, paired with an All-Star berth and the most wins in five years makes this season still feel like a huge success for the franchise cornerstone.
A playoff series win would only make things sweeter, but the basketball world doesn't seem to be giving the Raps much of a chance against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Great teams find motivation any way they can, and maybe the lack of respect the Raptors are getting will be the catalyst for a surprise run. If that does happen, it's safe to assume Barnes is back playing at an All-NBA level, whether he ends up with the official designation or not.
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