Heat’s Adebayo, Butler not All-Star Game starters. But will they be voted in as reserves?

As expected, the Miami Heat’s duo of Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler were not voted into the NBA All-Star Game as starters.

Washington’s Bradley Beal and Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving are the two Eastern Conference guards who were voted in as starters, with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid as the three East frontcourt players who made the cut. The All-Star starters were announced Thursday night on TNT.

The NBA also announced Thursday the 2021 All-Star Game will be held on March 7 at 8 p.m. at State Farm Arena in Atlanta during the season’s midseason break, which is scheduled for March 5-10 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this year’s All-Star events, the NBA and National Basketball Players Association will commit more than $2.5 million in funds and resources toward Historically Black Colleges and Universities and support and awareness around COVID-19 care, relief and vaccines.

Heat squanders big lead, loses in overtime in Golden State

Adebayo and Butler, who were both voted in as All-Star Game reserves last season, are both considered East frontcourt players on the All-Star ballot. Both have had impressive individual seasons, but the Heat still enters Thursday night’s matchup against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center with the sixth-worst record in the NBA at 11-17 after representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals last season.

The Western Conference All-Star starters are LeBron James from the Los Angeles Lakers, Nikola Jokic from the Denver Nuggets and Kawhi Leonard from the Los Angeles Clippers in the frontcourt, and Stephen Curry from the Golden State Warriors and Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks in the backcourt.

To determine the All-Star Game starters, fan balloting represented 50 percent of the vote, with all current NBA players and a media panel each accounting for 25 percent of the vote.

Butler was fifth in the fan vote, sixth in the player vote and seventh in the media vote among East frontcourt players. As for Adebayo, he finished sixth in the fan vote, fourth in the player vote and seventh in the media vote.

After all votes were tallied, players were ranked in each conference by position (guard and frontcourt) within each of the three voting groups — fan votes, player votes and media votes. Each player’s score was calculated by averaging his weighted rank from the fan votes, the player votes and the media votes.

When the final score was calculated, Butler finished fifth among East frontcourt players behind the three starters and fourth-place Jayson Tatum from the Boston Celtics after taking the fan votes, player votes and media votes into account. Adebayo finished sixth.

The next question is: Will Adebayo and/or Butler make the All-Star Game as reserves for the second consecutive season?

The conference coaches determine the seven reserves from each conference, which will be announced Tuesday at 7 p.m. on TNT.

The seven reserve spots usually include three frontcourt players, two guards and two additional players regardless of position. That allows for a maximum of five frontcourt players from each conference to be voted in as reserves.

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Statistically, Adebayo and Butler each have a strong case for a spot in the All-Star Game.

Adebayo, 23, entered Thursday averaging 19.9 points on 57.3 percent shooting, 9.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, one steal and one block this season. The only other NBA player who’s averaging at least 19 points, nine rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block this season is Antetokounmpo.

Butler, 31, entered Thursday averaging 19.4 points on 43.8 percent shooting, 7.7 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 1.9 steals and already has three triple-doubles in 16 games this season. He has missed 12 games — 10 games because of the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols and two games because of a sprained right ankle.

Adebayo played in his first NBA All-Star Game last season. Butler is already a five-time All-Star and earned a starting spot in 2017.

The competition Adebayo and Butler are facing for a frontcourt reserve spot in the East includes Tatum, Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis, New York’s Julius Randle, Detroit’s Jerami Grant and Charlotte’s Gordon Hayward.

It remains to be seen how much the Heat’s losing record will impact Adebayo and Butler’s chances of making the All-Star Game, but it’s not often that two players from one team near the bottom of the standings earn the honor.

In the previous five seasons, only four players on teams that have entered the All-Star break with a winning percentage under .400 have been voted into the All-Star Game: Trae Young from the Atlanta Hawks in the 2020 All-Star Game; none in 2019; Kristaps Porzingis, then with the New York Knicks, in 2018; none in 2017; and Anthony Davis, then with the New Orleans Pelicans, and Kobe Bryant from the Los Angeles Lakers in 2016.

The Heat entered Thursday’s matchup against the Kings with a winning percentage of .393.

The NBA and NBPA agreed to condense this season’s All-Star Weekend to one night, and established additional measures to supplement the league’s current health and safety protocols in order to hold the showcase event in the middle of a pandemic. The Skills Challenge and Three-Point Contest will be held pregame at 6:30 p.m., and the Slam Dunk Contest will take place at halftime of the All-Star Game. Adebayo won the Skills Challenge last season, while Heat forward Duncan Robinson participated in the Three-Point Contest and former Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. won the Slam Dunk Contest.

The 2021 All-Star Game will follow last year’s format: The two team captains will draft rosters from the pool of players voted as starters and reserves in each conference, making their picks regardless of conference affiliation. The captain for each team is the All-Star starter from each conference who received the most fan votes in his conference, which is James from the Western Conference and Durant from the Eastern Conference.

In addition, like last season’s All-Star Game, the teams will be competing to win each quarter and playing to a final target score during the untimed fourth quarter.

Additional details regarding this season’s All-Star day and the date of the All-Star Draft is expected to be announced in the coming days. The second half of the regular-season schedule is also expected to be released soon.

ABOUT WEDNESDAY NIGHT

The Heat led by 15 with less than nine minutes left in regulation, but was outscored 39-16 during the final 14 minutes of the contest — including overtime — to fall to the Golden State Warriors 120-112 on Wednesday night at Chase Center. It marked Miami’s third straight loss.

The Heat has already managed to lose games in which it has led by 19 points (on Wednesday), 18 points and 13 points twice this season.

“I just feel like we get complacent with our lead and we expect that they’re just going to give us the game,” Adebayo said after Wednesday’s loss to the Warriors. “We gotta play 48 minutes.”

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra accepted blame for his decision to not call a timeout after Warriors forward Kelly Oubre Jr. missed a three-pointer with 9.2 seconds left in regulation and the score tied at 105. Instead, the Heat rushed up the court and guard Kendrick Nunn missed a finger roll layup as the clock expired to send the game into overtime.

“That’s on me,” Spoelstra said following Wednesday’s loss. “That’s a bad decision. That’s on the head coach. I just thought it was going to go somewhere else. So that’s just a bad decision. I take responsibility for that.”