Karl-Anthony Cities, you might be an All-Star as soon as once more.
Cities, who earned his first profession All-Star beginning nod underneath Tom Thibodeau final season, didn’t make the minimize as a part of the opening 5 in a down 12 months underneath Mike Brown.
However the 29 NBA head coaches tasked with deciding on the reserves noticed the identical factor: a perennial All-Star averaging 20 factors and 10-plus rebounds for a workforce nonetheless positioned to make a legit championship push close to the highest of the Jap Convention.
To Brown, it was a no brainer. His friends agreed.
Cities was named a six-time All-Star roughly 45 minutes earlier than tipoff towards the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday — a nod that arrived amid an odd statistical season by his requirements. His 20.0 factors per sport are the fewest he’s averaged since his rookie 12 months a decade in the past. His league-leading 11.8 rebounds per sport are down from final season and solely barely above his profession common (11.1). His field-goal proportion (46.1) and three-point effectivity (36.1) are each hovering close to profession lows.
And he entered Sunday’s sport tangled in Giannis Antetokounmpo commerce hypothesis — the type that may nearly actually require Cities’ $54 million wage to make the maths work — almost one 12 months to the day after the Lakers beat the Knicks at Madison Sq. Backyard final season, then shocked the league by buying and selling Anthony Davis to Dallas for Luka Dončić in a single day.
Context issues. So do details.
And the actual fact is that this: Cities stays the second-most vital participant to the Knicks’ potential championship formulation.
He’s nonetheless a strolling mismatch — one the Knicks haven’t absolutely optimized — and a dominant drive on the glass. His back-to-back 20-rebound performances getting into Sunday gave him probably the most such video games by a Knick this century, regardless of having spent only a season and a half with the franchise.
Extra importantly, in Brown’s view, Cities — alongside All-Star starter Jalen Brunson — is without doubt one of the engines driving a successful workforce, even when the Knicks’ coach believed New York deserved greater than two All-Stars when reserve bulletins have been finalized.
“I’m a firm believer that winning should be a big factor in [All-Star voting], and we’re sitting third in the East right now, so we should have multiple guys on the [All-Star] team,” Brown stated forward of tipoff. “Jalen definitely is in the MVP conversation, but we have other guys on this team that have stepped up and helped in a lot of different ways. KAT — he’s leading us in rebounds, he’s second in scoring, I don’t know how many double-doubles he has, but that’s impactful when you’re talking about doing it in a winning situation.”
Brown made a softer case for OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, however neither has been constant sufficient offensively — and the Knicks themselves haven’t been dominant sufficient wire-to-wire — to justify three-plus All-Stars. Cities finally joined a reserve group that included Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell, Atlanta’s Jalen Johnson, Indiana’s Pascal Siakam, Miami’s Norman Powell, Toronto’s Scottie Barnes and Detroit’s Jalen Duren.
Boston, regardless of holding the East’s No. 2 seed with Jayson Tatum sidelined all season resulting from an Achilles damage, didn’t land a second All-Star — a reality unlikely to be forgotten when the Knicks go to TD Backyard subsequent Sunday.
Out West, Anthony Edwards, Jamal Murray, Chet Holmgren, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Deni Avdija and LeBron James rounded out the reserves.
“You can throw other guys in there — possibly OG, especially when you combine his defensive prowess, and Mikal, and you know Josh who’s right there too,” Brown stated. “However we must always have, for my part, two-to-three guys not less than on this All-Star workforce based mostly on what our file is.
“Not only that — we were the NBA Cup champions. So there were a lot of positives that, in my opinion, went into this.”
They have been NBA Cup champions. Then they misplaced 9 of their first 11 video games to open the brand new 12 months. Since then, they’ve steadied themselves, getting into Sunday on a five-game successful streak.
That bounce-back might have been the distinction between Cities incomes one other All-Star nod — and another person being left on the skin.
