As Chuck once said about the NBA All-Star game…
Hell, there ain’t but 15 black millionaires in the whole country & half of ’em are right here in this room.
~Charles Barkley
That quote really doesn’t have anything to do with the content of this article, aside from being about the NBA All-Star game. But Sir Charles said something that remotely applied to this piece—so I had to include it.
The NBA All-Star game brings together some of the most talented basketball players in the world every year. Yet has this talent always been recognized?
In the same manner I analyzed the NFL’s 2011 and 2012 All-Pro teams, I wanted to analyze the 2012 NBA All-Star teams. Here’s a table with all of the 2012 NBA All-Stars and how many stars they were given by Scout and Rivals coming out of high school (players that graduated high school before 2002 were not in the database, and thus not included):
Player |
Scout |
Rivals |
| Carmelo Anthony | 5 | 5 |
| LeBron James | 5 | 5 |
| Kevin Garnett | – | – |
| Rajon Rondo | 5 | 5 |
| Chris Bosh | 5 | 5 |
| Tyson Chandler | – | – |
| Luol Deng | 5 | 5 |
| Paul George | 2 | 3 |
| Jrue Holiday | 5 | 5 |
| Kyrie Irving | 5 | 5 |
| Brook Lopez | 5 | 5 |
| Joakim Noah | 4 | 4 |
| Kevin Durant | 5 | 5 |
| Blake Griffin | 5 | 5 |
| Dwight Howard | 5 | 5 |
| Kobe Bryant | – | – |
| Chris Paul | 5 | 5 |
| LaMarcus Aldridge | 5 | 5 |
| Tim Duncan | – | – |
| James Harden | 5 | 5 |
| David Lee | – | – |
| Tony Parker | – | – |
| Zach Randolph | – | – |
| Russell Westbrook | 4 | 3 |
The answer is yes, this talent has almost always been recognized. Relative to the NFL All-Pro teams, players that made a NBA All-Star team were much more likely to have been 5-stars coming out of high school.
So—to end on a word of encouragement—to all of you 2-star basketball players coming out of high school this year: if your dream is to one day be an NBA All-Star, be diligent, work hard…
…and it still probably won’t ever happen.
————
By: Tyler Raborn
Sports Righting 
Very interesting. I think this is due to the AAU circuit. Scouts can see the best players match up with the best players on a regular basis so it is easier to gauge talent. Whereas in football you only play during the fall with your high school team and usually only against teams in your area so it is hard to compare a 2a Mississippi defensive end to a 5am defensive end in California . Of course there are 7 on 7 teams , but hard to judge talent purely off that and they aren’t as serious as the AAU basketball leagues.
Interesting that Paul George of Pacers, who’s having breakout year, was not 5-star, but just about everyone else was.