BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: 12-year NBA veteran Tyson Chandler, blocking a shot by Atlanta’s Jeff Teague earlier this season, will make his first All-Star Game appearance tonight in Houston. (Paul J. Bereswill)
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: 12-year NBA veteran Tyson Chandler, blocking a shot by Atlanta’s Jeff Teague earlier this season (inset), will make his first All-Star Game appearance tonight in Houston. (
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HOUSTON — Grab your handy NBA player stats package. Go to the glory entry, scoring — the statistic almost everybody cares about. Find the All-Stars.
There’s Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, James Harden. Keep going and find the Knicks’ Tyson Chandler. We’ll wait.
Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook, Dwayne Wade … Blake Griffin, Chris Bosh. OK jump down to No. 91. There he is.
“Tyson knows what he does well and he does it to the best of his ability,” Bryant said. “There’s something to be said for that. If you’re a rebounder, be the best rebounder in the world. If you’re a defender, be the best defensive player in the world. And when you do that, you get the recognition you deserve.”
OK, Chandler’s not the best rebounder in the world (with 11.1 a game, he’s sixth in the league). And maybe he’s not the best defender on Earth, although he is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. But Chandler, the Knicks’ “never quits defensive anchor,” according to the Nets’ Brook Lopez, is an unquestioned All-Star, despite the lowest scoring average (11.4) of any of the stars here for tonight’s game.
“It means a lot because it’s that much tougher and that much harder [to get here],” Chandler said. “The way I play the game, it’s not the most glamorous, the stats are not glorified, but I feel like I bring something special to the game each and every night.”
The 7-foot-1, Chandler is at the All-Star Game for the first time. It took the 30-year-old 12 seasons, but finally he got the recognition for what he does — even though he has won an NBA title, a gold medal and that award for being the league’s best defender, an honor he believes is his to lose.
“I feel like what I bring to the table for my team is like no other player in the league. There are a lot of special defensive players in the league but I feel like what I bring is very unique,” Chandler said.
What he brings is the stuff of coaching dreams. Fans don’t vote for the guy who steps up to clog the paint or back-taps a rebound. Coaches love that stuff while fans largely ignore it. Even Chandler voted for an under the radar guy — Boston’s Avery Bradley — as a defender he admires. So it was by a vote of the coaches that Chandler got here.
Chandler is thrilled about the selection. Whether by fan vote, coaches’ selection or tabulator bribery, he made the event that he admitted having past doubts of ever making.
“There was [doubt], honestly. There were times I really thought I should have been an All-Star. Like last year, like my Dallas year, like New Orleans when we had the No. 1 record,” Chandler said. “There were definitely plenty of years where I was like, ‘Man, I really thought this was the year.’ It definitely was disappointing. I thought maybe the way I played is not necessarily being recognized.
“But one thing I wasn’t willing to do was sacrifice the type of player I am, and what I really stood for as a player to gain it. I’m just thankful that it actually happened.”
Chandler admitted those offensive numbers don’t wow anybody: 11.4 points a night doesn’t really make you run out to invest heavily in his rookie trading card.
Fans said “inconsistent,” Chandler theorized.
But that’s on one end of the floor.
“I look at it like I’m consistent every night, because I’m every night I’m going to come out there and give you everything,” Chandler said. “Play defense. Rebound the ball. Sometimes you’re just looking at the wrong stat.”
Not everybody, though. Just some.