NBA All-Star Starters: Andrew Wiggins selection leads to some significant snubs among starters

Wiggins making the cut changed the face of the All-Star starting lineups

Zaza Pachulia was supposed to prevent this. When the journeyman center, buoyed by the support of his home country of Georgia, nearly started the All-Star Game in 2017, the NBA finally decided to insert some checks and balances into the voting process. Fan voting still exists, but rather than bearing the entire weight of starter selection, it now controls just 50 percent of the process. Votes from media and players are responsible for 25 percent each. That was supposed to ensure that the correct players earned one of the league's highest honors. 

And yet, five years later, fans of Pachulia's former team helped boost Andrew Wiggins into a starting role. Wiggins is a far superior candidate than Pachulia was. He finished sixth in media voting and fifth among players, after all, suggesting he had a reasonable chance of making the team as a reserve. Yet few would consider Wiggins among the three best front-court players in the Western Conference even with Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George missing time due to injury. The inclusion of Wiggins generated quite a few snubs in the starting five. Here are the five biggest.