The case for (and against) Joel Embiid, NBA All-Star

The NBA All-Star starters are in and now we must do our basketball internet duty and obsesses over reserve picks that we have no influence over whatsoever.

First to recap the scene: Neither of us had Kyrie Irving or DeMar DeRozan as starters, which is fine. They’re both deserving of a trip to New Orleans. Neither of us had Stephen Curry over Russell Westbrook either, but again, that’s fine. Both would have been there anyway. The real trick here is picking through the dozen or so deserving players for those seven reserve spots.

A lot of this discussion focuses on Joel Embiid, as all NBA conversations do these days. Gonz has him on his team (shocker), while Flanns is more pragmatic about his overall minutes players relative to the other players.

Also on the pod:

• Gonz is road-tripping to Houston for the Super Bowl. Follow him for hilarity and shenanigans.
• Ancient Aliens was good.
• Man, that player vote was squirrelly. Also petty!
• Our various rationales and reasoning for picking All-Stars expose as hypocrites.
• Mike Conley, Damian Lillard, Klay Thompson ... somebody’s going to get left off the team that deserves to go. We both think Klay will be the odd man out.
• Here’s an idea that might make sense in the future: a commissioner’s pick in the event that some fading legend achieves a huge percentage of the fan vote. Like say, Kobe Bryant.

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