Politics First, Stars Second

Living here in Washington you might take particular umbrage at the coaches’ selections to fill out the roster for the upcoming NBA All-Star Game, since two highly credentialed locals were passed over.

Rod Strickland and Chris Webber certainly could have made the All-Star team.

Strickland should have made it. And I believe Webber would have made it, if not for his recent, highly publicized arrest.

Let’s look at the coaches’ selections in the East: Rik Smits, Reggie Miller, Steve Smith, Glen Rice, Tim Hardaway, Antoine Walker and Jayson Williams. That’s pretty much a Cub Scout troop. Only Williams could be considered controversial, because of his big yap. But he’s one of the most appealing, mediagenic players in the NBA; Jayson Williams is a poor man’s Charles Barkley. And Williams’s personality clash with his coach, John Calipari, has apparently been resolved, since Williams leads the Nets in minutes played.

Now let’s look at a group of players with all-star credentials who weren’t selected by the coaches: Webber, Strickland, the NBA leader in assists; Dennis Rodman, the NBA leader in rebounds; and Allen Iverson, the highest-scoring point guard in the NBA. What do they have in common? Clearly, they’ve been in trouble. It seems apparent by the selections that when there is a coin flip between scouts and bikers, coaches are rewarding better behavior. (Along this line, I’ll bet if Shawn Kemp hadn’t been voted to the starting team by the fans, the coaches wouldn’t have selected him; they’d have factored in what a team-killer Kemp was last season in Seattle.)

Coaches are always more concerned with discipline and attitude than players are; their job depends on it. The last message coaches want to send is that it’s okay to be a goofball--the leopard-haired Rodman had no prayer of making the All-Star Game. Moreover, these coaches felt the shockwaves of Latrell Sprewell choking one of their own, P.J. Carlesimo. That backdrop made character an even bigger issue this year.

Here’s the case for Webber over Antoine Walker: They both lead their teams in scoring and rebounding with comparable averages (22 points, 10 rebounds for Walker; 22 and nine for Webber). But Webber’s shooting percentage is much higher (.486 to .411). Plus, Webber’s team has a better record than Walker’s. Walker is the only player selected by the coaches in the East whose team has a losing record. You can make an easier case to picking Webber over Jayson Williams, who is primarily a rebounder. Webber outran the “Nellie Problem” years ago; the entire league sees now what a dodo Don Nelson is. Webber is having a better year than he had last year when he played in the All-Star Game. The only conclusion is that the arrest sunk him.

Strickland’s case is easier still. He has been the best point guard in the East. The East has shooting guards up the ying-yang in Reggie Miller, Michael Jordan, Steve Smith and Glen Rice, but only one healthy point guard, Tim Hardaway. Penny Hardaway, who won the beauty contest to start, is hardly durable, having missed most of the season with an injury. Why wouldn’t the coaches pick Strickland, who would have the added enjoyment of going back home to play in New York?

“I think Chris’s arrest hurt Rod as much as Chris,” a Wizards official told me. “All the context stories brought up the Rod stuff again.” The “Rod stuff” includes a fight with Tracy Murray, a summer arrest for DUI and Strickland’s jousts with coaches at other stops in his career. Although Strickland has been a terrific, unimpeachable player here, an NBA official told me last weekend that Strickland has a dubious reputation with coaches, and it came as no surprise in the league office that Strickland wasn’t selected for the All-Star Game.

Even Strickland himself acknowledges how exasperating he can be. He will concede that he’s had problems with what coaches call “time management”; his own clock runs a few minutes later than everyone else’s. Last year I asked Strickland if he’d ever consider becoming a coach. He laughed and said, “No, I wouldn’t want to coach five of me. I wouldn’t even want to coach one of me.”

So Webber and Strickland will stay home this weekend. So, surprisingly, will Sir Charles. Barkley is still one of the five best players in the NBA when he needs to be, but Vin Baker and Tim Duncan deserve to go to New York. (Plus, neither Baker nor Duncan are likely to throw anyone through a window in Times Square.) It’ll be strange watching an All-Star Game without Barkley, and without Scottie Pippen, John Stockton and Alonzo Mourning, who have missed great chunks of the season, and were correctly not selected by the coaches -- not to mention Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon, who are still injured.

This leads me to one last beef. It’s fine that fans choose the starters. But some of their choices are ludicrous.