Adam Silver likes idea of increasing size of All-Star rosters

Every year, NBA fans and coaches select the players who will represent the Eastern and Western Conferences in the midseason All-Star Game, and every year, some deserving player finds himself on the outside looking in. This time around, after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver chose Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins to serve as the injury replacement for Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant on the West's roster, it's Damian Lillard who's dealing with the disappointment of missing out on the midseason exhibition. (Evidently, he's dealing with it by deciding not to defend his title in the Skills Challenge.)

But while the Portland Trail Blazers point guard stands as the most prominent omission from the 2014 NBA All-Star Game, he's not the only player with a strong All-Star case to get the short end of the stick. Memphis Grizzlies point man Mike Conley, Atlanta Hawks sharpshooter Kyle Korver, Houston Rockets center Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic pivot Nikola Vucevic ... they all had solid resumes, but won't participate in the festivities, thanks in part to the nigh-impossible task of giving everyone the recognition they deserve with just 12 roster slots on each side.

Well, the commish has an idea for making that task a little easier — increase the number of roster slots.

From Marc Stein of ESPN.com:

[...] Silver told ‎the "NBA Lockdown: Insiders" show Sunday night that he intends to broach the subject [of increasing the size of All-Star rosters] in the near future with new Players Association executive director Michele Roberts.

Asked to reflect on what he would remember most about his first year as commissioner, with Sunday marking exactly one since he replaced David Stern, Silver said: "That I had to decide between DeMarcus Cousins and Damian Lillard. I didn't like having to make that choice. I wish I had another slot for Damian because I think he's deserving of being an All-Star as well.‎ [...]

Asked specifically about expanding the rosters in the respective conferences to 13 or even 15 players, Silver said: ‎"I think that's something that will get very strong consideration. I think that's an issue that we'll end up discussing with the Players Association. It has a direct impact on many of the player's bonuses. There's preset bonuses in their contracts for making the All-Star team. I think counter-balancing that is the issue of playing time. [NBA executive vice president] Rod Thorn and I were having this discussion yesterday. We said we should move to [Kentucky coach John] Calipari's platoon system for All-Star to make sure that everyone gets [enough] playing time.

"In all seriousness, that's one of the concerns with a larger team. We want to make sure guys get minutes as well if they're All-Stars. I'm in favor of expanding it. I'm not sure if it's by one or two [roster spots], but it is something Michele Roberts and I will discuss."

 (Among, of course, the multitude of other things that Roberts would like to discuss with Silver in the days ahead.)

There have been a number of calls in recent years to increase the size of All-Star rosters, which have stayed flat at 12 players a side for decades, despite the addition of a slew of expansion franchises (the Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets, Orlando Magic, Minnesota Timberwolves, Toronto Raptors, Vancouver-then-Memphis Grizzlies and Charlotte Bobcats) that made the NBA into a 30-team league and drastically increased the size of the league's player population, and despite the post-2011 lockout boost of in-season active rosters up to 13 players per team. As NBA.com's Steve Aschburner and ProBasketballTalk's Dan Feldman note, there are fewer All-Stars per NBA team than ever before; adding an extra couple of roster spots would bring the contemporary exhibition more in line with its predecessors and afford some additional opportunities with which to recognize the Lillards, Conleys and Korvers of the world.

There are those who'd rather not see the rosters increased, arguing that adding somewhere between two and six All-Star berths would unduly diminish the honor of selection. When you're talking about a game honoring the best of the best, exclusivity is kind of the point, after all. Plus, it's not like going from 12 to 13 is going to eliminate "snub" arguments forever; it just moves the goalposts a bit, changing the arguments from "Boogie or Dame?" to "Lillard or Conley?" That last spot will always be a matter of some debate, no matter how big the roster is — and considering how much people seem to enjoy arguing about snubs every year, and all the interest such arguments generate, maybe that's OK.

Then again, it doesn't really seem like very much is or should be sacred in a selection process that allows fans to hashtag their way to deciding 10 spots. If increasing the size of All-Star rosters means an always-the-bridesmaid player like Conley — who continues to improve as the metronome-steady leader of the ascendant Grizzlies and just happens to have the bad luck of playing at a time when Chris Paul, Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook also roam the earth — gets a nod, then I have a hard time getting too mad about it. Some players might view a lack of meaningful All-Star minutes as a personal affront, but for others, those brief couple of minutes of floor time can make a world of difference in their standing in the game and the way they're perceived by fans. There's worse things in the world than that.