2021-22 All-NBA picks: Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum crack First Team; Marcus Smart, Bam Adebayo make All-Defense
CBSN
Our experts make their selections for the All-NBA, All-Rookie and All-Defensive Teams
You want a tough task? Try picking this year's First Team All-NBA squad with a completely clear conscience. We've never had this many First Team talents in the league at once, and the battle over positioning makes it that much more difficult.
Sure, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid are eligible at center and forward because everyone knows they're both deserving of First Team, just as they were last season, but until they actually change the antiquated format to remove position designations entirely (which they absolutely should do), that's a loophole I would suspect a lot of voters won't crawl through, because where does the positional manipulation end?
Until the arbitrary letters that reside next to players' names on starting-lineup television graphics go away, Jokic and Embiid are centers. For a lot of voters, one is going to fall to the second team. That's just the way it goes. For me, it was Embiid who got the short straw. Jokic is my First Team guy, and he should be the MVP, too, while we're at it.
