The Rodney Dangerfield All-Stars

Which NBA players “got no respect” from their peers

For as much as having millions of adoring fans provides a steady and lucrative stream of endorsement money, the respect and adulation of your peers is priceless. Being a movie or pop star is great, but the designation as an actor’s actor or a musician’s musician decapitates swooning tweens by the thousands. It’s one thing to be loved, it’s another to be respected by those whose respect carries a heftier weight than glowing user reviews, and in professional sport, there is no higher honor than earning the respect of your peers, for they are also your opposition.

The NBA’s decision to use a weighted All-Star vote format may be a convoluted and ultimately silly exercise, but it does provide the public with a rare glimpse into the minds of the players. We now know not just how many fans voted for LeBron James to be an All-Star, but how many players did as well. This might seem like a trivial amount of information, but it is actually a treasure trove, and from it, we can calculate who the most disrespected players in the NBA were.

In a fortuitous twist of statistical fate, the fan and player votes for the 2026 NBA All-Stars were overwhelmingly aligned. In the Eastern Conference, there was a 0.957 linear correlation between the fan and player vote; in the West, it was 0.906, and overall it was 0.929. In sports statistics, this is as good as it gets. Due to how closely the fan and player votes aligned, in relative terms, we can calculate which players deviated the most from this overwhelmingly linear correlation, which will be our Rodney Dangerfield All-Stars.

The Maths or How I Did It

The math might sound complicated, but it’s relatively straightforward. I took every player’s fan and player All-Star vote total, threw it in a linear forecast model, gave it their fan vote, and found what their player vote total should have been. If you’re a visual learner, take a look at that trend line. Basically, I found where a player should be on it, based on the X-Axis, which is the horizontal one.

Once I had every player’s forecasted player vote based on their fan vote, I simply subtracted the forecasted figure from the actual figure to see which players most over and underperformed. Since we’re a curious bunch, I’ll provide the top-25 biggest overperformers, as that’ll be a meaningful juxtaposition to consider.

The NBA Players’ Players

Players around the league sure love themselves some Cade Cunningham, but a starting five consisting of the top five overperformers of Cunningham, Kevin Durant, Jaylen Brown, Devin Booker, and Bam Adebayo would be a pretty helacious unit. So, maybe the players do know some ball. Now, onto the main attraction.

The Rodney Dangerfield All-Stars

The league’s biggest underperformers are a much more top-heavy group than the overperformers, and there are far fewer players who dramatically underperformed their fan vote than exceeded it. However, it’s nearly impossible not to see three substantial trends, with the first being the foreign player divergence

The three largest underperformers with the players are foreign-born players, Deni Avdija, Luka Doncic, and Alperen Sengun. My best guess is that a combination of xenophobia and national pride is why we see such a stark divergence. Being international stars boosts their fan vote total in a way American players just won’t see– afterall, they have a whole country backing them– and there has always been a slight anti-foreign sentiment among American players.

Generally, foreign players have to prove their bona fides in the NBA in a way that American players typically don’t. You can quibble with this point if you want, but we’re not that far removed from every European being labeled soft, despite many hailing from war-torn countries that experienced waves of genocide. I don’t think this suggests some malevolent, spiteful conspiracy, but it’s hard to ignore 11 out of the 25 players on this list hailing from foreign countries, which doesn’t even include RJ Barrett and Andrew Wiggins, two Canadians, and Karl-Anthony Towns, an American who plays internationally for the Dominican Republic.

The next trend is large markets and brands. The Lakers are the biggest brand in the sport, and as such, they have the most fans doing their darndest to vote them in. Austin Reaves has been great this year, but he’s only played 26 games. The Knicks also have a massive following, and it’s likely why Anthony Towns’ fan vote far exceeded his player total. And finally, the Raptors hail from Canadia, a nation of 41 million, and Toronto, a metro area of 7.1 million. That’s a massive market that’s as plugged into American culture as anyone.

The final trend is simple. Famous injured players. Look, I think Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton are amazing, but they haven’t played this season, and certainly won’t before the All-Star game. Honestly, it’s crazier that Tatum received an actual player vote than landing 61,378 fan votes. A similar phenomenon is likely at play for the two newest Wizards, Anthony Davis and Trae Young, and LeBron James.

In many of these underperformances among the players, multiple factors are at play. However, none of these explain Donovan Mitchell. Based on the fan vote, Mitchell should have received about 100 player votes. Instead, he garnered 66. While the Cavaliers have been a disappointment, Mitchell has been an absolute stud all season. He’s averaging a career-best 28.9 points per game, on a career-best 57.4% effective field goal percentage. Considering he led all Eastern Conference guards in player voting with 116 last season, I really have no idea what happened here, but he certainly “ain’t get no respect.” So, that’s that, Donovan Mitchell and the Globe Trotters are your Rodney Dangerfield All-Stars.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.