Durant named to first team All-NBA, Westbrook to second team

For a second straight year, the NBA’s scoring champion was named first team All-NBA as Kevin Durant joins Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant on the team.

Durant gathered 69 first team votes and 492 points, which is the lowest of the five. All-NBA teams are voted on by the media.

Russell Westbrook was named to the All-NBA second team after a major breakout season. Westbrook joins Dwyane Wade, Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki and Amare Stoudemire. Westbrook also had the lowest total on the second team, barely edging Chris Paul.

The third team is Paul, LaMarcus Aldridge, Zach Randolph, Al Horford and Manu Ginobili.

Kendrick Perkins also received a couple votes, which is pretty ridiculous considering he played only 23 games this season.

There was a lot of talk whether or not KD deserved first team over Dirk and I think he absolutely does. He led the league in scoring, his team improved and he finished with a quietly excellent year. Expectations were so high for Durant that some just never were able to wrap their head around the fact he had a great season.

As for Westbrook over Chris Paul? That’s definitely iffy. I understand why because Paul wasn’t himself for most of the season. He showed off his skill in the playoffs, but his numbers weren’t Chris Paul-ian for the entire season. He was good, no doubt, but he wasn’t great except for a couple months. To me, picking Westbrook over him isn’t any kind of stretch. Westbrook’s numbers (21.9 ppg, 8.2 apg, 4.6 apg, 23.6 PER) are better than Paul’s (15.9 ppg, 9.8 apg, 4.1 rpg, 23.7 PER) and Westbrook’s team was much better. There will be outrage, but I think that’s more because people have what he did in the opening round against the Lakers still fresh in their head.