Luka made first-team all NBA again, tied for second-most voting points! While that’s true, it’s not quite as impressive as it sounds. Forgive me while I geek out over the numbers a bit, to see how it’s a bit more complicated.
Check out the nba.com list. Much better than espn’s awkward attempt to give all the names in story form.
Podcasters have talked all season about the problem of Jokic and Embiid both being top-three in MVP voting, while they generally can’t both end up on first-team all-NBA because they’re both centers. If you look at the numbers, that also affects Luka’s standing in the whole process.
To put Luka’s numbers in perspective, imagine voters could have voted for any combination of players, regardless of position. Virtually every voter would have chosen both Jokic and Embiid for first team, which would move both of them up next to Giannis and drop Luka to 4th.
Then there’s also a trickle-down effect of the logjam at center. Since Jokic and Embiid totaled 145 first-place votes, at least 45 voters placed one or the other of them as a first-team forward. If those had all been votes for center, and all the forward votes went to actual forwards, where would the other 45 first-place forward votes have gone? Looks like mostly Tatum, and maybe a few for Durant and Lebron. If 40 or more of them had gone to Tatum, he would have passed Luka in the voting as well, bumping Luka to 5th.
Luka does have one other point in his favor: outside of the Giannis/Jokic/Embiid trio, Luka was the only player to be on first or second team of every single ballot. That could mean something, or it could mean that, say, 4 voters were going to place Durant and Lebron on their first team no matter how many games they missed, so the forward position was over-crowded and Tatum got bumped to third team on four ballots. There aren’t any sacred cows like that among guards for Luka to compete with right now.
None of that denigrates Luka’s stature as the best guard in the NBA this year, an astonishing achievement. I'm not decrying any unfairness, just giving a little context. And also embracing another reminder that in *any* context––sports, politics, science, whatever––a quick glance at numbers doesn’t always tell the whole truth.
Still enjoying this playoff run. And while we’re here, let’s all take a moment to thank God that Sacramento took Marvin Bagley III.
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