The 2016-2017 NBA season was a fever dream. Seriously. Think about it. This was the year Kevin Durant joined a 73-win Warriors team, Russell Westbrook turned into a human triple-double machine, and James Harden reinvented himself as a full-time point guard under Mike D'Antoni. When the NBA All NBA team 2017 ballots finally dropped, the sheer amount of elite talent left off the list was enough to make any die-hard fan throw their remote at the TV.
It was a mess. A glorious, high-scoring, statistically impossible mess.
Choosing fifteen guys out of a pool that included LeBron James in his "Third Prime," a terrifying Kawhi Leonard in San Antonio, and the rise of the "Greek Freak" felt like an impossible task for the media voters. Honestly, looking back at the 2017 All-NBA selections feels like looking at a time capsule of the exact moment the league's "Space and Pace" era went into overdrive.
The First Team: When Stats Met Dominance
The First Team was mostly a lock, but even then, people found things to argue about. Russell Westbrook and James Harden were the guards. Duh. Westbrook had just become the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple-double over an entire season, finishing with $31.6$ points, $10.7$ rebounds, and $10.4$ assists. People forget how angry Russ played that year. He was out for blood every single night because KD had left for Oakland.
Harden was equally ridiculous. He led the league in assists ($11.2$ per game) while dropping nearly 30 a night. If you were a voter back then, how do you choose? You don't. You just put them both on the First Team and call it a day.
Then you had the forwards. LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard. LeBron was, well, LeBron. He averaged $26/8/8$ while shooting over $54%$ from the field. It was his 11th First Team selection, tying him with Karl Malone and Kobe Bryant at the time. Kawhi, meanwhile, was the best two-way player on the planet. He led the Spurs to 61 wins while being a defensive nightmare. This was peak "Silent Assassin" Kawhi before the quad injury and the trade drama ruined everything in San Antonio.
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Anthony Davis took the center spot. He was put as a center despite playing a ton of power forward because, let’s be real, the center position was kinda thin at the top tier that year. AD put up $28$ and $11.8$ with over two blocks a game. He was a monster, even if the Pelicans were mediocre.
The Snubs That Still Sting
Here is where it gets spicy. You want to talk about the NBA All NBA team 2017? You have to talk about Paul George and Gordon Hayward.
Both guys missed out on all three teams. Why does that matter? Money. Massive, life-changing money. Because they missed All-NBA, they weren't eligible for the "Designated Player" supermax extensions with their respective teams. George eventually forced his way out of Indiana. Hayward left Utah for Boston in free agency.
The ripple effect of these media votes literally changed the map of the NBA for the next five years.
And then there was Damian Lillard. Dame averaged $27$ points a game and didn't make a single one of the three teams. Read that again. Twenty-seven points per game. In almost any other year in league history, that's a Second Team lock. In 2017? It wasn't even enough for Third Team. The guard depth was just stupidly deep. You had Isaiah Thomas having his "King in the Fourth" season in Boston, John Wall playing the best ball of his life in D.C., and Steph Curry—who was actually on the Second Team because the voters felt he "sacrificed" too much for KD.
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The Second and Third Team Chaos
The Second Team was basically a "Who's Who" of guys who would be First Teamers in 2024.
- Stephen Curry: 25.3 PPG.
- Isaiah Thomas: 28.9 PPG (The guy was 5'9" and finished 5th in MVP voting!).
- Kevin Durant: Missed some games with a knee injury, which is the only reason he wasn't First Team.
- Giannis Antetokounmpo: His first-ever All-NBA nod. The world was just starting to realize he wasn't just a long-limbed project.
- Rudy Gobert: The defensive anchor who started the "Is he actually good or just tall?" debate that lasts to this day.
The Third Team featured Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, DeMar DeRozan, John Wall, and DeAndre Jordan. Yes, DeAndre Jordan made an All-NBA team in 2017. It sounds weird now, but he was the primary beneficiary of the "We need a center" rule before the NBA finally moved to position-less voting. He averaged 12 and 13. He was good, sure, but was he better than some of the guys who missed out? Probably not.
The Controversy of the Center Position
The 2017 ballot was the peak of the "Center Problem." Voters were forced to pick one center per team. This led to a weird situation where Marc Gasol and Karl-Anthony Towns (who had a 25 and 12 season!) were fighting for scraps while guards with much better overall seasons were being left home.
Rudy Gobert made Second Team because of his defensive metrics. DeAndre Jordan made Third Team because he shot a high percentage (all dunks) and rebounded. Meanwhile, Boogie Cousins was putting up $27$ and $11$ but got penalized because his teams were losing and he was, well, Boogie.
Looking back, the NBA All NBA team 2017 was the final nail in the coffin for traditional positional voting. The league eventually realized that if the 15 best players in the league are 10 guards and 5 forwards, you shouldn't be forced to pick three centers just because the rulebook from 1955 says so.
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Why 2017 Was a Cultural Shift
This wasn't just about stats. It was about the "Helio-centric" NBA. This was the year where we decided that one guy should have the ball 40% of the time and just do everything. Harden and Westbrook proved it could work (statistically), and the All-NBA voters rewarded it.
It also marked the end of the "Old Guard." Chris Paul missed out. Dwyane Wade was nowhere to be found. Carmelo Anthony was fading. The 2017 teams represented the definitive takeover of the 2008-2013 draft classes. Curry, Harden, Westbrook, Giannis, Kawhi, AD. These were the names that would define the next decade.
Key Takeaways from the 2017 Selections
- Efficiency vs. Volume: This was the year the debate peaked. Westbrook’s triple-double was historic, but his efficiency was questionable. Harden was more efficient but "flopped" for fouls. The voters chose both, signaling that "historic" beats "perfect."
- The Supermax Curse: We learned that giving media members the power to determine player salaries via All-NBA votes is a recipe for disaster.
- The Death of the Traditional Center: Seeing DeAndre Jordan on the Third Team while Dame Lillard sat at home was the moment everyone realized the "Center" requirement was broken.
If you're looking back at this era to understand how the modern NBA was built, the 2017 season is the blueprint. It was the year of the superstar, the year of the triple-double, and the year that the All-NBA voting process became as high-stakes as the actual playoffs.
How to Analyze All-NBA History Yourself
To truly get why the 2017 list was so controversial, you should compare the "Win Shares" of the players who made it versus those who didn't.
- Check the Basketball-Reference season summary for 2016-17.
- Look at VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). You’ll notice that some guys on the Third Team were actually ranked lower than guys who didn't make the list at all.
- Factor in Games Played. This was the year "Load Management" started becoming a whispered phrase, though we didn't call it that yet.
- Consider the Team Success bias. The media historically hates giving All-NBA nods to guys on losing teams, which is why Anthony Davis making the First Team on a 34-win Pelicans squad was actually a massive anomaly.
The 2017 All-NBA teams weren't just a list of players. They were a snapshot of a league in transition—moving away from the grit-and-grind of the early 2010s and into the high-octane, three-point-heavy, position-less world we live in today. Understanding these picks helps explain why certain stars moved teams, why certain players got paid, and why the rules of the game changed forever.