Though All-Star Games are typically an accurate indicator of who were the best (or, in some cases, most popular)) players in a given year, sometimes players just sneak in, maybe in an off-year for talent or maybe for other reasons.
Editor's note: the list counts down from best to worst.
13) Tom Gugliotta (1997)
Gugliotta was highly regarded coming out of N.C. State, seen as maybe the next Larry Bird, and the Bullets took him #6 overall in 1992. He was 1st-Team All-Rookie, but for the most part never rose above the level of serviceable, a pretty good post scorer and above average rebounder with no defensive skills and below average athleticism. But he did have some solid years after being traded to the Timberwolves in 1994, where coach Flip Saunders transitioned him to small forward to play along side Kevin Garnett. With opponents doubling up on Garnett inside, it freed Gugliotta to deploy his array of short range jumpers. In '96-'97 he actually led Minnesota in scoring and rebounds, at 20.6 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, and with the Western Conference relatively weak at small forward, was named to his only All-Star Game, in Cleveland (joined by Garnett, who was an injury replacement). He compiled nine points and eight rebounds in 19 minutes of play.
12) Devin Harris (2009)
Even though the Celtics were the defending champs, and LeBron James and Dwight Howard were megastars still on the Cavs and Magic respectively, the talent level in the East was still a notch below the West in '08-'09. This was especially true at guard, where Dwyane Wade and Ray Allen were the headliners, followed by a past-his-prime Allen Iverson, Mo Williams, Joe Johnson, Jameer Nelson (who missed the game due to injury), and Harris. It had been less than a year since Harris was traded from Dallas to the Nets in exchange for Jason Kidd, and the young point seemed to be coming into his own in New Jersey, averaging 21.6 points per game at the time the rosters were announced. Many were surprised to see Harris included over his superstar teammate Vince Carter, who was having a solid season as well for the Nets. It would turn out to be a career peak for Harris, though he's crafted a solid 15-year career.
11) James Donaldson (1988)
Once you got beyond Hakeem Olajuwon, there wasn't a lot of talent at center in the West in the late '80s. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was impressively efficient still at age 40, but no other team in the conference was fielding an All-Star level talent at the position. And back then, coaches still considered it an imperative to feature three centers on the All-Star roster. Thus, Portland's Steve Johnson (see #5 below) was selected for the West bench, and when he was injured, coach Pat Riley turned to Dallas' Donaldson. He was not a bad player, by any means. Coming off a career year in '87-'88, with 10.8 points and 11.9 rebounds per game, Donaldson was solid and steady in the middle for the contending Mavericks, and one of the more efficient low post shooters in the league. But his inclusion certainly sticks out on a roster that features seven future Hall of Famers in Olajuwon, Abdul-Jabbar, Alex English, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Karl Malone, and Clyde Drexler.
10) Campy Russell (1979)
1979 was as sure a bet as any year to show up on this list, as the '78-'79 season is considered by many to be the nadir of NBA talent. With Larry Bird and Magic Johnson one year away from taking over the league, the 1979 All-Star Game featured a bevy of solid but unspectacular talent, like Otis Birdsong, Jack Sikma, Rudy Tomjanovich, Maurice Lucas, and Bobby Dandridge. It also featured Russell, a small forward for the Cavs who was in the midst of averaging a career high 21.9 points per game that season. A first round pick of Cleveland in 1974, Russell was a mainstay in the team's lineup for the remainder of the decade. The East had a pair of star wings in the starting lineup in 1979 in Julius Erving and George Gervin, but lacked depth beyond that. Interestingly enough, just as Russell was becoming only the fifth player in Cavs history to be named an All-Star, and the first in five years, 1979 also marked the first time in NBA history that the East roster featured no players from the Celtics or Knicks.
9) Danny Granger (2009)
An inclusion in the 2009 All-Star Game seemed like the start of something big for Granger and the Pacers. He would finish the year with 25.8 points per game, good for fifth in the NBA, and winning the Most Improved Player award. But it was an omen in retrospect that Granger was hobbled heading into the All-Star break, and wound up playing only about 11 minutes in his first, and ultimately only, appearance in the exhibition. He had a couple more solid seasons for Indiana, including leading the team to its first playoff appearance in five years in 2011, but the wheels fell off in a hurry after multiple knee surgeries during the '12-'13 season. Granger played just 138 total games in his final four seasons before finally retiring in 2015.
8) Chris Gatling (1997)
With several of the game's biggest stars ailing and requiring injury replacements, the 1997 All-Star Game in Cleveland was a great opportunity for some players to make their debut. One such player was Gatling, who was averaging 19.0 points and 7.9 rebounds per game that season for the lowly Mavericks. But it was a curious decision for Gatling, a 6'10" power forward, to replace the injured Clyde Drexler. Even with Charles Barkley also sitting out the game with an injury, the West already had a glut of forwards on the roster, including traditional power forwards Shawn Kemp, Karl Malone, and Kevin Garnett, plus combo forwards Detlef Schrempf and Tom Gugliotta. Sure enough, Gatling found little playing time in the game, scoring a team-low two points in 12 minutes of action. Eight days later he was traded, along with Sam Cassell, to the Nets, who became Gatling's fourth team in just five seasons. He would actually get traded six more times over the next four years, and never came even close to making another All-Star roster.
7) Chris Kaman (2010)
Selected sixth overall by the Clippers in 2003, Kaman never matched the output of the four superstars drafted before him (LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh) but he did manage to make an All-Star team in 2010. He was a traditional, plodding center that hit the league right as that role was becoming increasingly irrelevant, and it didn't help that Kaman struggled with various injuries throughout his career. He managed to stay upright for most of the '09-'10 season, playing in 76 games and averaging 18.5 points and 9.3 rebounds per game. He was called upon as an All-Star thanks to an injury to Brandon Roy, becoming just the second Clipper All-Star of the 21st century, along with Elton Brand. Kaman played limited minutes in the game, finishing with four points and three rebounds. The next season he lost his starting job at center to DeAndre Jordan and never matched those statistical highs again.
6) Dana Barros (1995)
A popular role player throughout his career thanks to his long distance gunning, Barros is mainly remembered for his early years with the Sonics and later seasons with the Celtics. But it was a brief stint in between with the Sixers that produced his best statistical season and only All-Star appearance. Barros was traded to Philadelphia right before the '93-'94 season and landed on a team in disarray. The Sixers were still reeling from the Charles Barkley trade one year prior and in the midst of seven straight seasons without a playoff appearance. This allowed Barros a starting spot at point guard and bigger minutes than he had been afforded on the contending Sonics. He responded by averaging 20.6 points and 7.4 assists per game, and winning Most Improved Player for the '94-'95 season. He was also named to the All-Star Game that year in Phoenix, playing 11 minutes despite being the only pure point guard on the East roster. After the season ended he signed with the Celtics and returned to a bench specialist role for the rest of his career. Though this was Barros' only participation in the All-Star Game, he also competed in the Three-Point Contest during All-Star Weekend four times, including finishing as the runner-up to Mark Price in 1994.
5) Steve Johnson (1988)
He was a terrific low post scorer with a respectable sky hook, but Johnson struggled in most other aspects on the court, especially defense. He led the NBA in field goal percentage in '85-'86 at 63.2%, which was the eighth-highest total in league history at that point. But he also led the NBA in personal fouls twice. A first round pick of the Kings in 1981, Johnson wound up playing for seven teams in his nine-year career, and his best seasons came in the middle with Portland. The Blazers immediately installed him as their starting center to replace an injured Sam Bowie after trading for him in 1986, and Johnson responded with career highs in points (16.8), rebounds (7.2), and assists (2.0) per game in '86-'87. He got off to another solid start in '87-'88, and by mid January was averaging 18.5 points per game and was named to the All-Star team. But he then suffered an ankle injury that cost him almost two months, and was replaced on the All-Star roster by James Donaldson. By the time Johnson was healthy again, he had also lost his starting spot in Portland to Kevin Duckworth. After one more season with the Blazers coming off the bench, he was selected by the Timberwolves in the 1989 expansion draft and made just 49 game appearances in his final three seasons.
4) Kermit Washington (1980)
The typical narrative is that Washington's career never recovered from "The Punch" incident in 1977, but he actually had his best season and only All-Star appearance three years later. Never much of a star player anyway due to inveterate back injuries, Washington was a solid power forward for the Lakers in the mid '70s, a physical rebounding and defensive presence that meshed well with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After his infamous decking of Rudy Tomjanovich in 1977 game, he was traded three times in a two-and-a-half year span, ending up with the Blazers for the '79-'80 season as part of the Bill Walton trade. In Portland he got his first real recognition from the league, not just as an All-Star but also an inclusion on the 2nd-Team All-Defensive list. Washington's All-Star appearance was due to an injury to Kansas City's Scott Wedman, and though he appeared in the game for just 14 minutes, he did manage to rack up eight rebounds.
3) Jamaal Magloire (2004)
Though he had the third-worst career of an NBA All-Star in history, via our metrics, Maggiore had the best All-Star performance of any players on this list. On an Eastern Conference roster that featured only one other pure center in Ben Wallace, Magloire logged 21 minutes off the bench, amassing a team high 19 points, plus eight rebounds. It's conceivable he may have even won MVP for the game if the East had pulled out the victory. But the West, led by Shaquille O'Neal with 24 points and 11 rebounds on his home floor in Los Angeles, hung on late for a 136-132 win. The '03-'04 season turned out to be a career year for Magliore, who finished with 13.6 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, both career highs, while helping lead the New Orleans Hornets to the playoffs. He then suffered a broken finger that cost him the majority of the '04-'05 season, and after one more decent season with the Bucks in '05-'06, provided swiftly diminishing returns in later stops with the Blazers, Nets, Mavericks, Heat, and Raptors.
2) Theo Ratliff (2001)
Just like Jamaal Magloire, Ratliff benefited from the paucity of talent at center in the Eastern Conference in the '00s. His NBA career was a long one, starting in '95-'96 when he was a first round pick of the Pistons out of Wyoming, until '10-'11, when he filled in some light bench minutes for the Lakers. But he missed a significant amount of time over those years due to injury, including in his All-Star season in '00-'01. He was playing for the 76ers at the time, starting at center for a team that would eventually reach the NBA Finals. But their playoff run that year came without Ratliff, who broke his wrist right after being named to the All-Star team and was declared unavailable for the remainder of the season. He was replaced on the All-Star roster by Antonio Davis, and the Sixers soon traded him to the Hawks in exchange for a new starting center, Dikembe Mutombo. Though Ratliff appeared in just 50 games in '00-'01, he played enough to qualify to lead the league in blocks, with 3.7 per game.
1) Jayson Williams (1998)
A promising young power forward from St. John's when the Suns drafted him in 1990, it took seven seasons of struggling with inconsistency and injuries for Williams to break out in '97-'98, at age 28. '97-'98 was the second straight season where Williams averaged a double-double for the Nets, with 12.9 points and 13.6 rebounds per game. That rebounding total actually placed him second in the NBA that season, behind only Dennis Rodman. When he was selected to the 1998 All-Star Game in New York, he became just the sixth player in Nets franchise history to receive that honor, in what was already their 22nd season in the NBA. Williams contributed four points and 10 rebounds for the East, who won in a 135-114 blowout. The Nets rewarded him heading into the '98-'99 season with a six-year, $90 million contract, but in April of that season he broke his leg, ending his career. His post-playing days have been plenty eventful, including writing two books, owning a pro lacrosse team, and getting arrested multiple times, including for manslaughter after he accidentally killed his limousine driver.