Bradley Beal missed out on another opportunity to make his first career All-Star team when Carmelo Anthony was announced as Kevin Love’s injury replacement and he’s not exactly thrilled with it.
Speaking with the press on Thursday, the Washington Wizards shooting guard expressed his disappointment with the snub.
“I’ll never say a player doesn’t deserve to be on the All-Star team,” Beal said, per Candace Buckner of the Washington Post. “For one, Carmelo is a great player. Hell, he’s been one of the best offensive threats in the league for years now and I’m taking absolutely nothing away from him. But the process of it does not make sense. If they reward winning, then I don’t understand how the decision was made. It was kind of weird to me.
“I don’t know what the rules are or how everything goes, but I definitely feel I had a great opportunity,” he continued. “Being on a winning team and being able to have success and I’m playing pretty well this year, I felt like I deserved to be there, but at the end of the day it is what it is. It’s not going to determine me as a player. It’s not going to put me down for the rest of the year. … I can enjoy my break and come back full steam ahead and rolling into the playoffs.”
The 23-year-old Beal is averaging a career-high 23.9 points this season to go along with 2.9 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. That gives him somewhat of an advantage over Anthony, who holds averages of 23.4 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game. Beal also has a big edge when it comes to team success, as he alluded to, with the Wizards at 33-21 on the year (third in the East) and the Knicks at 23-34 (12th).
While it does follow for a frontcourt player to replace a frontcourt player, Beal is known for his adverse reactions to being overlooked, so it might make sense to anticipate quite the on-court rampage from him after the All-Star break.
