Young among those with reactions after not getting selected for NBA All-Star Game

Atlanta guard Trae Young doesn’t view not getting picked for the All-Star Game as getting snubbed.

He has a new word.

“It’s getting ‘Traed’ at this point,” he wrote on social media.

Young, the NBA’s assist leader this season and a three-time All-Star selection, obviously wasn’t pleased about not getting picked for the Feb. 16 All-Star event in San Francisco. The league’s coaches pick the reserves for the game, their selections getting revealed on Thursday.

And a few notables didn’t make the cut, including Young and Phoenix’s Devin Booker — a two-time Olympic gold medalist and four-time All-Star.

It is not the first time Booker has been left out when many felt he had All-Star numbers. In recent days, Suns coach Mike Budenholzer also offered a strong pitch for Booker to get an All-Star nod this year.

“Obviously, something that I wanted to be a part of,” Booker said Friday in comments after Phoenix’s shootaround practice before a game at Golden State. “But definitely not going to complain about taking a week to regroup with the family.”

When arguments are made that someone who wasn’t selected should have made an All-Star Game, the inevitable question then becomes asking who made the list and wasn’t worthy of the spot.

“That’s always going to be the conversation every year — who got snubbed, who didn’t,” Booker said Friday. “There’s a lot of people who are deserving.”

Young hasn’t been voted into the game since 2022; he was an injury replacement selected by Commissioner Adam Silver for the All-Star Game last year. Hawks coach Quin Snyder made clear that he believes the players who made the All-Star roster are deserving.

“That also doesn’t preclude me from feeling the way I do about Trae,” Snyder said. “I haven’t coached him for that long, but I feel like he’s had the best year of his career. … No disrespect to anyone that has made it, but as Trae’s coach, I am allowed to feel disappointment for him not making it. And that’s unfortunate.”

Fan voting accounts for 50% of the formula for deciding which players start the game, and Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball was the backcourt player who got the most votes from fans in the Eastern Conference by a wide margin. But he narrowly missed being a starter after finishing third in the East backcourt voting by current players and seventh in the media balloting — then missed out on being a reserve because he didn’t get listed on enough coaches’ ballots.

Ball — averaging 28.2 points this season, fourth-best in the league — is the first player under the current voting format to win the fan vote at his position, but not get picked for the All-Star Game.

“It’s unfortunate,” Hornets coach Charles Lee said. “In my humble opinion, he has been an All-Star. He’s done a great job of just helping this team in a lot of different ways — helping us weather the storm during injuries, helping put us in a situation to be in a lot of these close games that we’ve been in.

“I think his numbers have been phenomenal. His play has been phenomenal. He’s gotten better in a lot of different areas. It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s one of those things where we just keep pressing forward. The votes are in. I know he will use this as continued fuel, as he always is just trying to strive to be the best player he can possibly be.”

Booker lauded Young and Ball for putting up what he called “unheard of numbers” and when asked if All-Star rosters should be expanded said that “the more talent in there, the better, I think.”

“There’s so many talented players in the league now,” Booker said. “You could build a case probably for three or four guys on each side that have a legitimate case of being an All-Star.”

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AP freelance writer Richard Walker in Charlotte, North Carolina contributed.

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