Bradley Beal Unhappy With All-Star Snub

Carmelo Anthony was picked by the NBA to replace the injured Kevin Love on the Eastern Conference All-Star team, a decision Bradley Beal finds “weird.”

Beal argues that playing for a winning team and enjoying a career season should’ve earned him a trip to NOLA.

Beal’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, unsuccessfully lobbied Adam Silver’s office on behalf of his client.

Per the WaPo:

“I’ll never say a player doesn’t deserve to be on the all-star team. For one, Carmelo is a great player. Hell, he’s been one of the best offensive threats in the league for years now, and I’m taking absolutely nothing away from him. But the process of it does not make sense. If they reward winning, then I don’t understand how the decision was made,” Beal said Thursday morning. “It was kind of weird to me.”

 

“I don’t get it,” said Bartelstein, who represents numerous NBA players. “The reality of it is, if the coaches took a vote today for the guy who should be in the All-Star Game, there’s no doubt in my mind it’ll be Brad. I just think it’s wrong. […] I certainly talked to the league office. We make a strong statement all the time of how winning is rewarded, and I don’t understand. There’s no team winning at a higher level than the Wizards are right now. So Brad’s in the center of all that. Nobody can question he’s playing not just at an all-star level but at an elite all-star level.”

 

“I don’t know what the rules are or how everything goes, but I definitely feel I had a great opportunity,” Beal said. “Being on a winning team and being able to have success and I’m playing pretty well this year, I felt like I deserved to be there, but at the end of the day it is what it is. It’s not going to determine me as a player. It’s not going to put me down for the rest of the year. … I can enjoy my break and come back full steam ahead and rolling into the playoffs.”