David Lee won’t be the Knicks first All-Star since Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell in 2001.
Despite averaging 19.4 points and 11.4 rebounds per game, Lee wasn’t selected as a reserve for next month’s All-Star Game in Dallas.
“It’s out of my control, and coach always tells me to try to control things that I can control. I think the overall message was that nobody was taken off a team with a sub-.500 record. So that means one thing: we have to get some more victories,” Lee said Thursday before the Knicks met Toronto at MSG.
The Knicks were 18-26 entering Thursday’s game.
“Like I said before, there are going to be nine guys that deserve to be in there and he is definitely one of those guys,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said. “But it just comes to a little preference here and there and it happens. Somebody has to be left off and too bad it happened to David, but he’s playing like an All-Star. We’ll see going forward if somebody gets hurt or something he can get in that way, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of obviously and he can use this as motivation.”
There is still the chance that if another player cannot make the game — say, Boston’s Kevin Garnett (knee) or Cleveland’s Mo Williams (shoulder) — that Lee could get the call.
“Everybody that made it was very well deserved and everybody that made it is having a great season, so I’d never talk bad about anybody that did make it. I thought I had a good chance, and it didn’t turn out that way,” Lee said.
Yahoo! Sports revealed the rest of the reserves for the game.
The East roster includes Chicago’s Derrick Rose, Boston’s Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce, Toronto’s Chris Bosh, Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace and Atlanta’s Joe Johnson and Al Horford.
The West includes the New Orleans’ Chris Paul, the Lakers’ Pau Gasol, Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki, Memphis’ Zach Randolph and Portland’s Brandon Roy.
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