4. Hey Now, You are an All-Star…But are you All-NBA?

The All-NBA selection can have long-term financial impact on a player’s career; therefore, the selection should be fair. This chapter investigates how the All-NBA selections should be chosen with empirical analyses based on the criteria set by the league. Player level data was collected for the years 2015–2020, and a series of analyses of variance was conducted to compare the player efficiency ratings (PER) of players who got first team All-NBA, players who got second team All-NBA, players who got third team All-NBA, and players who had top 15 PERs in the league but did not get selected to an All-NBA team. The results showed that (1) first team All-NBA selections have the highest PER in comparison to the other groups; (2) second team All-NBA selections have higher PER than the third team, but there is no difference between the PER scores of second team All-NBA selections and the PER scores of the players who were not selected to any All-NBA teams despite having had top 15 PER scores; and (3) third team All-NBA selections had lower PER scores than the players who were not selected to any All-NBA teams despite having had top 15 PER scores.