Mike Conley is (yet again) an All -Star snub

Mike Conley, once again, finds himself as an NBA All-Star snub.

The NBA announced All-Star reserves earlier this week and there is some debate as to who should have been on the team who shouldn’t be on the team. While I believe the league got the right players into the game, for the most part, there was one glaring omission – why couldn’t Mike Conley make the team?

Mike Conley has been of the best point guards in the game for over the last 12 years, yet he’s never made an All-Star team – it’s a travesty. Conley is a product of bad luck, someone who has played his entire career in the brutal Western Conference in which Steph Curry, James Harden (until this year), Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook (until this year), Chris Paul, and now Luka Doncic have gotten all the attention.

Conley has always been the forgotten great player that doesn’t get the respect he deserves.

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You’d think this would finally be the year for Mike, who is posting career bests a ton of major offensive categories and is the starting point guard for the best team in the league. However, this was not the case when selections came out, and it’s a real shame.

Mike Conley is having a career year

Mike Conley is having one of his best statistical seasons in his career, and a key reason why Utah has been plowing over opponents this season. Conley is currently averaging 16.4 points and 5.6 assists per game while shooting 41 percent from three and shooting 6.7 threes a game (both career-highs). His effective field goal percentage is 56 percent (also a career-high).

There are only five players in the league that is taking more than 6.5 3’s a game while shooting above 40 percent from 3: Steph Curry, Zach Lavine, Gary Trent Jr, Terry Rozier and Mike Conley. One is an MVP, one is an All Star, and the other two are extremely good players that have nowhere near the usage and responsibility that Conley has.

Looking closer into the numbers, Mike Conley has proven to be one of the best in the game in the pick and roll. This season, as the primary pick-and-roll ball-handler, Mike Conley is scoring 1.05 points per possession (PPP) with an effective field goal percentage of 57 percent – that would put him in the 84th percentile in the league – the same as All Star Luka Doncic. Conley is behind James Harden (96th percentile – OMG!) and Damian Lillard (88th percentile) in this category, but is ahead of guys like Trae Young (81st percentile), Paul George (79th percentile), and Chris Paul (66th percentile).

What’s impressive is Conley’s pick and roll defense. As the primary defender on the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll, Conley only allows 0.75 points per possession (81st percentile). That isn’t elite defender status, but compare that to some of the other All Stars – Damian Lillard (29th percentile defensively), Luka Doncic (23rd percentile) and Steph Curry (10th percentile). Even Paul George, an All Star widely regarded as one of the best defenders in the game, is in the 17th percentile for pick-and-roll defense.

Some of Conley’s great numbers are no doubt benefiting from playing with Rudy Gobert. However, Conley is in the 80th+ percentile in both offense and defense with the pick and roll – no one else in the league is doing that. That’s not just a coincidence.

The Utah Jazz are really good with Conley on the floor

The Utah Jazz are great this season with just about any lineup, but they’re especially great with Mike Conley on the floor. The Jazz are a +17.4 points per hundred possessions when Conley is on the floor and only a +2.7 points when he’s off the floor, making his +14.7 point differential is the best in the league.

What does that mean? The Jazz offensive rating is 120 when he’s on the floor and have defensive rating of 103 when Mike Conley plays. They are essentially the 2016 Golden State Warriors on offense and the 2017 Utah Jazz on defense when Conley is in the game. Again, a lot of this is attributed to playing along with Rudy Gobert, but Mike Conley has pushed this success to another level.

What Utah is doing needs recognition

I understand the arguments against having three or more All Stars on a team, but it’s not like that hasn’t been the case in the past couple years. The Brooklyn Nets got three All-Stars this year despite having a 21-12 record in the Eastern Conference. The Golden State Warriors were getting four All-Stars from 2015-2017. LeBron’s Heat and Cavs super-teams were consistently getting three All-Stars from 2012-2016. I know – those teams had LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant or Steph Curry, but not all of them have had future Hall of Famers.

Look at the 2014 Atlanta Hawks, one of the most entertaining teams in recent memory. That season the Hawks won 60 games and got four players into the All Star game – Jeff Teague, Al Horford, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver – despite none of them averaging more than 16 points per game.

The Jazz are currently on pace to win 65 games in an 82-game season, and their +9.3 overall point differential is better than the +5.4 differential that Hawks team did in 2014 (and in the softer Eastern Conference). What Utah has been doing this season is incredibly impressive, and they should have been rewarded by sending Mike Conley to the ASG along with Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.

I hope Mike Conley gets the opportunity to play the game eventually, but this 2020-2021 season might have been his best shot. Once again – it’s a shame.