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Krieger: Expect merciful Stern with Melo

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 5, 2007 at midnight

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In the space of a few days, Carmelo Anthony's omission from the early version of the West's All-Star team has morphed from the traditional snub to an unprecedented outrage to an extended form of punishment from NBA commissioner David Stern.

Not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, but let's all take a deep breath.

David Stern does not choose the All-Star starters. Fans do.

David Stern does not choose the All-Star reserves. Coaches do.

Neither the fans nor the Western Conference coaches selected Anthony. If the commissioner's influence is that widespread, he should be doing something more important than running the association.

Stern's only involvement in the selection of All-Stars is to name replacements for the injured, which means he now has his first chance to punish Anthony further for the sucker punch at Madison Square Garden that cost him 15 games already.

The West All-Stars injured so far are starter Yao Ming of Houston and reserve Carlos Boozer of Utah. The obvious replacements are Anthony and Josh Howard of Dallas. I'm betting Stern names them both.

One of the commissioner's favorite lines, which he has uttered to everyone from Washington pols in formal hearings to wretches in informal chats, is Shakespeare's "The quality of mercy is not strain'd," which begins the best-known speech in The Merchant of Venice:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Rather than using the All-Star Game as a tool of punishment, for which he has been blamed erroneously already, Stern would be using it to show the quality of mercy by naming Anthony as an injury replacement. This is why I expect him to do it, not because Anthony would otherwise be the first league-leading scorer not to be an All-Star.

No other leading scorer missed a third of his games during the voting period because of a league suspension, either. Anthony was close enough in the fan voting to conclude that the missed games cost him election as a starter.

They also permitted coaches to overlook him when they chose the reserves. If you look at the big men they selected (Boozer, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Dirk Nowitzki), they all play for teams with much better records than the Nuggets.

Coaches tend to reward winning. Even so, they omitted Howard, giving Dallas, the team with the best record in the NBA, only one All-Star. If Howard replaces Boozer and Anthony replaces Yao, that will give the Nuggets two players in the game and the Jazz, which leads them in the Northwest Division by 6 1/2 games, none.

Coaches prefer key contributors on good teams to gunners on mediocre teams, even though the gunners almost always have better numbers. Seattle's Ray Allen, a six-time All-Star having his best season, wasn't selected, either. Anthony and Allen Iverson are bigger stars than anybody on the Jazz roster, yet the Jazz is the better team.

In fact, Marcus Camby is at least as important to the Nuggets' fortunes as Anthony. Without Camby, they have no defensive presence.

Without Anthony, they still have Iverson and J.R. Smith as offensive threats.

The Nuggets are 16-14 with Anthony this season, 7-8 without him. They are 21-19 with Camby, 2-3 without him. If they have to play the NBA's best offensive team tonight without Camby, it should be . . . interesting.

If the quality of mercy were not an issue, Camby would be as sensible an All-Star replacement as Anthony, in part to replace Yao with a center and in part to reward the team player. Utah's Mehmut Okur would also be a candidate on those bases.

Anthony is the second-best scorer in basketball, behind only Kobe Bryant, who trails him in the scoring race because Bryant has consciously sacrificed shots this season to get his teammates involved. As a result, the Lakers are better than they were supposed to be.

The Nuggets are not, and you can't blame Anthony's suspension for that. They haven't been much better with him.

Ernie Johnson pointed out a remarkable stat the other night on TNT. He asked panelists Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Magic Johnson how many double-doubles Anthony has this season. The guesses, if memory serves, were between 19 and seven.

Ernie's answer was zero. Anthony doesn't have 10 rebounds or assists in a game this season.

Actually, the answer is one. He had 10 turnovers against Chicago.

I'm guessing his sparkling scoring numbers and Stern's affection for the quality of mercy will get him to his first All-Star Game. But if they don't, it will rank somewhere behind Martin Scorsese's lack of an Oscar on the grand list of insignificant injustices.