While I was at Georgia Tech, the school erected a statue in which the base was grooved like a screw and supported a large shaft structure. As Tech was a difficult place to go to school, that statue became a symbol for dejected students as they described the ridiculously hard tests that some professors gave. "Man, I just got screw-shafted by that test!" was a commonly heard phrase.
That phrase comes to mind as I look at the rosters for the NBA All Star and Rookie teams that will participate in the All Star festivities, and notice the absence of two very deserving Wolves. In the wake of Kevin Garnett's departure from 'Sota I have watched Al Jefferson try to succeed in an impossible position. He is following in the footsteps of a legend, he has been made the franchise player for the Wolves when that may not really be suited to his talents, and he has been surrounded by the killer combo of young teammates and highly questionable coaching which almost guarantees lots of losses. Last season Jefferson was the ultimate "good numbers on a bad team" player, sporting eye-catching 20/10 point/rebound totals but highly negative +/- numbers to suggest that those numbers may be empty. He was a terrible defensive player, a terrible passer, and was obviously physically overmatched playing at center.
This year, though, that has started to change. Big Al is still putting up the big numbers, but now his net +/- is positive. He still struggles a bit on defense, but has had noticable flashes of solid effort and is becoming a solid shot blocker. He is slowly starting to trust teammates and pass out of double-teams, which recently led directly to a game-sealing shot by Randy Foye in a win. And the young Timberwolves are starting to win, entering Wednesday night as the winningest team in the NBA in January before their eventual loss to the Pistons. While I called out Gary Payton earlier this week for saying that Jefferson deserved to start over Duncan, I definitely think that he was deserving of a reserve slot. Jefferson is one of only three 20-10 guys in the league this year (along with All Star starters Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan), he is making a young team competitive (Minnesota has the same number of losses as All Star Danny Granger's Pacers), and he has played the equivalent of 15 games more than Shaquille O'Neal so far this year. At the very least, Jefferson has a case.
But Jefferson isn't even the worst snub on his own team, as the NBA leader in offensive rebounding percentage was left off of the Rookie team. Like Jefferson, Kevin Love has also performed very well in the face of being compared to a more high profile player for whom he was traded (O.J. Mayo, a strong ROY candidate). Stop N Pop over at Canis Hoopus and John Hollinger both made a strong case for why Love should have been on the team. In fact, I'll let them do the talking.
Stop N Pop: "Love is the league's leading offensive rebounder and he has played light's out since Christmas. His team has a combined 11 wins more than the Clips and Griz (each of whom has two players on the Rookie team)."
Hollinger: "The decision to select Eric Gordon (of the Clippers) ahead of Kevin Love for the rookies was completely inexcusable ... Gordon is the only rookie team member with a Player Efficiency Rating below the league average, while Love has a better PER than every player on the rookie team except Greg Oden."
While stats are not the be-all/end-all, considering that Love leads the entire league (all players, not just rookies) in a certain category, is among the rookie leaders in many advanced stats (PER, Wins Produced, Roland Rating, etc.), and is playing a part on a team with a better record than several of those chosen ahead of him, he has a pretty compelling argument that he should be playing on the team. I'll let Love give you his own opinion on his exclusion:
"Pardon my French, but that was just (bull)."
I couldn't have said it better myself.