Zion Williamson was not a snub for the All-NBA team

The All-NBA teams were announced yesterday and Zion Williamson was not among the players chosen for any of the three teams.

I don’t think there were any huge surprises, though Zach Randolph making the second team and not the third was a bit unexpected.

Even though Zion Williamson had an amazing breakout season, I don’t think he was a huge snub considering the names on this list.

You could make an argument that Zion was more impactful than Randle, Jimmy Butler and Kyrie Irving but the forward position was loaded as always, so it’s a tough group to crack and keep in mind that Kevin Durant, the current best player on Earth, didn’t make the team.

Neither did Devin Booker, Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell or Bam Adebayo. In fact, you could make a damn good team out of Zion Williamson and these four, a team I think would beat this year’s All-NBA 3rd team, but I digress.

If anyone out of this group was a snub, it was Mitchell or Booker, whose teams had the best records in the NBA and are still fighting in the playoffs. This is a good example of why the NBA needs to consider ditching positions altogether, as Chris Paul and Rudy Gobert aren’t even the best players on their own teams and yet are somehow on the All-NBA team.

The question is whether Zion Williamson can make the All-NBA team next season.

How Zion Williamson will make the All-NBA team

Personally, I think Zion should have made the third team, but I don’t think you can call it a snub because there are a lot of good players.

The players that did make the team mostly have one thing in common: They made the playoffs. Stephen Curry and Bradley Beal were the only two on the All-NBA team who didn’t make the playoffs and their teams both made the play-in tournament at least.

They were also the two leading scorers in the NBA.

If Zion had won the scoring title, which I think he eventually will, or the Pelicans had made the play-in game, I think Zion Williamson might have cracked the 3rd team this season.

Hopefully the Pelicans will have more team success next season, so that Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram can be rewarded for their individual efforts, but until the two of them improve on the defensive end, they might be on the outside looking in, as the NBA is loaded with elite talent.

Zion will get there, but he has to take his team to the playoffs before he will earn a spot.