The last 12 NBA All-Star Games were Warrior-free.
Warriors have competed in the various All-Star sideshows - slam-dunk contest, rookie-sophomore game, whatever. That's like not getting invited to the birthday party, but being asked to stop by and make balloon animals for the guests.
The drought will end this week if the Western Conference coaches vote Monta Ellis onto the squad. Their picks will be announced Thursday.
Ellis is a bubble guy (not to be confused with a "bubbly" guy, which he also is, at times). Most bubble-guy debates are of minor and momentary consequence, the Hamburger Helper of real sports debate.
A deserving player or two always gets left out, resulting in a few newspaper headlines ("Smidley miffed at snub") and a brace of "I'll-show-you" performances after the All-Star break.
This bubble case is more. Ellis' selection to the team would have an impact on Ellis, the franchise and the Warriors' fans. It even could snap a curse.
A curse?
At this point, that can't be ruled out. Twelve All-Star Games is a long dry spell, and it would be 13 if there had been an All-Star Game in 1999.
If there is a curse, it is the Curse of Spree, activated in December 1997 by Latrell Sprewell, after the Warriors tried to violate Sprewell's right to freedom of expression, in the form of choking and punching his coach, P.J. Carlesimo.
Sprewell was the last Warrior All-Star, in the 1997 game. In the ensuing years, any Warrior entering the All-Star-selection discussion soon has disappeared, literally or figuratively. See: Gilbert Arenas, Baron Davis, Andris Biedrins.
Curse or no, Ellis deserves an invitation.
If it happens, the cloud of Sprewell no longer will hover over the Golden State, Warriors fans will have new hope that their franchise is gaining respect and relevance, and Ellis will be rewarded for his improving performance as a player and a human being.
The case for Ellis:
-- He scores. Scoring is sometimes devalued by All-Star selectors in their quest to salute the intangibles, but scoring is good. In fact, every NBA arena has a scoreboard.
It should work in Ellis' favor that he is scoring nearly 26 points a game while shooting 46 percent from the field. Going into Sunday's game - in which he was held to a season-low two points - Ellis was No. 4 in the league in scoring, only 0.4 points-per-game behind LeBron James and one spot ahead of Dwyane Wade. Being a top-five scorer should be worth an automatic All-Star berth.
-- Ellis carries his team offensively.
During the 1980s, the Lakers had a fine defensive player named Michael Cooper. He also would chip in a dozen points a game, bust out to score 20 on occasion. When Cooper's NBA career waned, he jumped to Italy for a rich contract. He came back wiser.
"I never realized how big a burden it is when you
have to score 25 every night," Cooper told me. "You can't have an off night. Man, it wears you down."
If voters downgrade a candidate because he plays on a sub-.500 team, they should give bonus points for carrying a bad team.
-- If Ellis' last chance to make this All-Star team is as an injury replacement, the rumor is that he would be in trouble. Commissioner David Stern reportedly was angry at Ellis, who never answered an invitation to try out for the national team (turns out Ellis was in the middle of a moped-related crisis) and who rejected an invitation to last year's H-O-R-S-E sideshow.
If that's the case, if Stern would render moral judgment, then he should give Ellis compensatory credit for his progress as a solid NBA citizen. Over the past year, Ellis has grown.
After initially cold-shouldering his new backcourt mate, Ellis has reached out to Stephen Curry, made amends and accepted Curry as a teammate and partner. After pouting about his team's treatment of him in Moped-gate, Ellis has accepted and grown into the role of team leader.
-- Style points!
The NBA always has been a showcase for the freakishly gifted, the guys who can reinvent the game at 100 mph.
The NBA has the only All-Star Game worth watching (I got eye damage Sunday trying to watch a few minutes of the Pro Bowl), and that's because it's all about the show. On the spectacular/creative scale, Ellis ranks in the league's top 10.
-- Why not throw a bone to the Warriors' new ownership for rescuing a fixer-upper franchise and upgrading the NBA neighborhood?
As for Sprewell, he was last seen losing two houses and seeing his beached yacht repo'd. If you run into Spree, tell him he could buy some good karma by calling off his curse.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/30/SPJP1HG3EU.DTL#ixzz1CwHxYsXA
