| 31 January 2008
(Boulder-CO) The NBA All-Star reserves were named today and Marcus Camby was amongst others who also took a snubbing. Henry Abbott from TrueHoop writes this about "The Captain"."There are ten teams in the West that are all still bunched high enough in the standings to be theoretical candidates to win the conference. Each has a team leader who is a strong candidate to be an All-Star. (Indeed, only Golden State missed out). Denver only the middle of that pack, but already has two guys starting on this team! How greedy can you get! I know, it's not fair to exclude a guy because of what his teammates do. But has Camby really been better than David West, Brandon Roy, Baron Davis, or Manu Ginobili?"
Usually, I take what Henry writes as basketball scripture, but in this case I am going to have to respectfully disagree with him about Manu Ginobili being more deserving than Marcus. Manu is averaging 19.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and a career-high (or is it a low?) 2.7 turnovers per game. Camby is averaging 9.3 points, 14.3 rebounds, 3.9 blocks, and 2.9 assists with his rebounding, blocks, and minutes played per game (35.2) all being career-highs. Granted, to be fair, Manu's averages are all career highs too, but are any of them really all that "All-Star" worthy?
In comparison, Camby's reboudning clip is only .6 fewer boards per game less than Dwight Howard's league leading 14.9 rebounds per game, his 3.9 blocks is #1 in the league, and his 1.05 steals per game and assist average are ranked second and third best amongst all NBA centers. Throw in the fact that he is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year (Plus- there isn't another player even close to removing Camby's belt so far this season) and I think things start to look pretty clear.
Now you tell me, who was a more deserving All-Star given all the aforementioned statistical facts, Manu or Marcus?
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