On Jan 15, 2024, Sacramento Kings player Domantas Sabonis didn’t make the NBA all-star team for the Western Conference. Mike Brown, the Kings coach, felt like his talent was ignored and was disappointed about the decision.
Sabonis played 67 games with the Kings in the 23-24 season and scored an average of 20 pts with 13 rebounds. Compared to anyone, Sabonis is leading the league in rebounds per game; however, Karl-Anthony Towns made the all-star team with an average of eight rebounds per game, which is less than Sabonis.
For background, Domantas comes from a basketball family, as his father, Arvydas Sabonis, is a former professional basketball player who is considered one of the greatest European players of all time. Domantas spent a lot of his childhood in Spain where his father played for Real Madrid.
Sabonis grew up in Kaunas, Lithuania, where he played for Zalgiris Kaunas, one of the top basketball teams in the country. He was drafted by the Orlando Magic in the first round of the 2016 NBA Draft, but was later traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder before eventually being traded to the Pacers and then the Kings.
The lack of Kings fans attending home games at the Golden One Center in Sacramento may be why Sabonis didn’t get picked to be an All-Star. “When I went to a Kings game, there were more fans for the opposing team, than Kings fans,” said Vista del Lago High School student Alex Sarchisian. The voting for the NBA is 50% based on fans, so if there aren’t any fans supporting the team, then he might have had a low number of votes. The NBA might have taken into consideration that if Sabonis is on the All-Star team, fewer fans from the Kings would go to the game to support him.
The Los Angeles Lakers were able to put two of their players, Anthony Davis and Lebron James, into the frontcourt, which may also be a reason Sabonis wasn’t able to make it this year.
The reason why the Lakers might have been able to have their two players on the front court is because of the Lakers fans. The NBA took into consideration that the Lakers are one of the bigger teams, and having two of their top players in the NBA all-star team would be a good decision for the amount of fans they had at the game.
Almost every year, a couple of players in the NBA get snubbed, but Sabonis has put up historic numbers. Surely next year, if he keeps up his performance, he will make the NBA All-Star team in the 24-25 season.
