Pre-1951 All-Stars

I've been on a kick lately of figuring out awards that never got handed out. I'm not sure why. But it's fun. So let's just keep on rolling with it. Here's the All-Stars from before the first All-Star Game in 1951.

The Pre-1956 MVPs

As many of you probably know (and for those of you that don't), the NBA's most valuable player award was first given out in 1956 to Bob Pettit. However, that leaves us with nine seasons where there was no MVP named. So, I thought, just for kicks, I'd go back through the record books and see who would/should have been named MVP in each of those years. This won't be quite as in-depth as the 1999 All-Star Selection process was, but it should still be fun.

The 1999 NBA All-Stars

One of the worst things about the 1998-99 NBA lockout (for me, at least) was the cancellation of the All-Star game. As a kid, I always looked forward to the ridiculous athleticism on display and sheer amount of fun that game always is - despite its ultimate irrelevance and the fact that it can only loosely be called a "basketball game." As an adult, I still look forward to those same things, but even more than that, I look forward to seeing who gets the honor of being named to the team. Furthermore, those All-Star selections add up and can be an excellent indicator for historical relevance. The 32 games that were missed during the 1999 season really aren't that big of a deal in terms of career totals - they can basically be written off as an extended injury. But you'll never get those All-Star selections back. (This was my biggest worry about losing the 2012 season - not getting the awards and the stats to accurately reflect a player's historical significance/greatness. Well, the biggest worry about besides not getting to watch basketball.) Anyway, with that in mind, this is a one-time one-off project I've been wanting to do for quite some time but finally have the means to do so: figuring out who would/should have made the 1999 All-Star Game.