A List of Players Who Received Fewer All-Star Votes than Neemias Queta
The All-Star voting is endlessly fascinating to me. You have three distinct voting blocs with three very different perspectives in the players, media, and fans (and then later, the coach vote). There was a little drama in where Jaylen Brown would rank this season, and he snuck into the top five just at the end, as he should have. Derrick White and Payton Pritchard also got a decent chunk of votes (not enough for White in my opinion). But what I found most fascinating is where Neemias Queta ranked.
I have been beating the drum about Queta for awhile now. The first time I wrote a post specifically about him was in Nov. 2024, and he's certainly justified my faith in him along the way. Others are starting to notice. His weighted score for the All-Star voting in the East was 29.5. That's a little misleading, as 32 players finished with a better score, but the news bulletin here is that Queta finished in the upper echelon of voting. By my count, 268 players received fan votes, and 189 players received a player vote. Now, neither is ever completely serious, and sometimes it's not even half serious. But I think it's notable that only 24 players received more player votes than Queta. He received the same number of player votes as Evan Mobley and Andrew Nembhard. I also think it's notable that only 39 players received more fan votes than Queta.
If anything, I think the impact that Queta has had has been understated, especially since Luka Garza has re-emerged in the lineup. Everyone naturally loves Garza's hustle, but the reason Garza's effort seems so notable is because it's harder for him to make an impact given how slow a foot he is. Queta is the far superior defensive player and lob threat, and I think the C's need to try to go to him more in the post. Queta has shown flashes of having a good baby hook shot, and he may be capable of getting the C's some more close-in buckets for which they don't have to fight so hard.
Getting back to the point, the point is that people are starting to notice. As such, I thought it would be fun to make a partial but representative list of the players who received fewer votes than Neemy in the All-Star voting. I did just the Eastern Conference voting, since it isn't quite fair to compare across conferences. The player is listed, along with the category/categories in which Queta bested him:
- Jarrett Allen (player voting & fan voting)
- Desmond Bane (player and fan)
- Jalen Duren (player)
- Paolo Banchero (player)
- Franz Wagner (player)
- Nikola Vučević (player and fan)
- Coby White (player and fan)
- Kyle Kuzma (player and fan)
- Jay Huff (player and fan)
- Nic Claxton (player and fan)
- Matas Buzelis (player and fan)
- Kel'el Ware (player and fan)
- Alex Sarr (player and fan)
- Isaiah Stewart (player and fan)
- Onyeka Okongwu (player and fan)
- Ausar Thompson (player and fan)
- Brandon Miller (player and fan)
- Mitchell Robinson (player and fan)
- Andrew Wiggins (player)
- Tobias Harris (player and fan)
- Jalen Suggs (player and fan)
- Kristaps Porziņģis (player and fan)
- Myles Turner (player and fan)
- Day'ron Sharpe (player and fan)
I left out a lot of guards, because that's not as relevant for apples-to-apples comparisons, but I mean, I think this is all very impressive. A couple of these players will be All-Stars this year, some have been All-Stars before, and some are likely to be so in the future. If the C's get to the point where they ramp Queta up to 33-35 minutes per game – he's only played 33+ minutes three times this season, and is still averaging 24.8 minutes per game, which is not enough in my opinion – then even more people may notice his impact.
I'm definitely not saying Neemias Queta is worthy of being an All-Star. He still has a big leap to go before he's worthy of real consideration, and as big of a homer as I am, I didn't vote for him myself (though I did think about it). But the player he already is is damn impressive, and marks him as one of the better players in the Eastern Conference. Pretty incredible for a guy who just last season only averaged five points per game. Having faith in a guy is different than seeing him repay it, and it has been just so much fun to watch Queta blossom into the player he seemed capable of being.