The narrative about the Boston Celtics’ collective team effort propelling them to within one win of the NBA Finals got a boost Thursday.
The NBA announced its first-, second- and third-team All-NBA selections for the 2017-18 season, and wouldn’t you know it, not a single Celtics player made the cut.
Here are the three teams.
First team: LeBron James, James Harden, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Kevin Durant
Second team: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Russell Westbrook, Joel Embiid, LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan
Third team: Stephen Curry, Victor Oladipo, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, Paul George
Again, no Celtics.
What you will notice, however, is four of those 15 players — James, Durant, Harden, Curry — all are still playing. But none of them are Celtics.
You probably also noticed the inclusion of Antetokounmpo and Embiid. The C’s went through the Greek Freak’s Milwaukee Bucks and Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers en route to the Eastern Conference finals. Impressive.
The crazy thing, though, is it’s not like there’s a glaring omission. Kyrie Irving is the only Celtic who could make a claim to get a nod, but he only played in 60 games this season before his year was cut short by a knee injury. It wouldn’t have been a grave injustice for him to make the team, but it’s also not surprising he didn’t. He received 42 votes, while Celtics big man Al Horford received 32 votes.
Just another reminder of how impressive the Celtics have been this postseason despite their supposed lack of talent.
