One game doesn't make an All-Star, and anyone calling Nickeil Alexander-Walker one after a single season opener is getting ahead of themselves. But watch how he spent the back half of Atlanta's 132-125 win in Orlando on Wednesday, and the only argument left against him is that it hasn't been long enough. That clock is running out fast.
With the game genuinely in the balance, Alexander-Walker scored 31 on the night, 11 of them in the fourth quarter, and the two shots that decided it were his: a three that put the Hawks up four with 1:27 to play, then another that stretched it to five with 51 seconds left. Orlando had led after three quarters, and the fourth quarter went back and forth all the way to the finish. Then a 28-year-old guard who used to be a bench piece in Minnesota took the pen out of their hand.
He did it on a night Paolo Banchero poured in 35 for the home side. A franchise cornerstone on one of the four most expensive rosters in the league had his monster game, and it bought Orlando nothing. The guy closing for Atlanta was better when it counted, out-executing a max-money centerpiece down the stretch and looking like the best player on the floor doing it.
Rating
RatingThis is Game 1 of 82, a single data point, and you can't build an All-Star resume on one road win in October. Nobody should be printing his jersey for the February weekend yet. All-Star berths come from a full season of production and winning, plus a name voters already trust, and none of that gets settled in the fall.
The skepticism is about recognition. Alexander-Walker averaged 20.8 points in his first year in Atlanta and won Most Improved Player after scoring 9.4 a game the season before in Minnesota. People are still filing him under "the pleasant surprise from the Hawks' reshuffle," a nice story next to Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels and CJ McCollum. That framing is a season out of date. He's a high-usage closer now, and he just proved it in the highest-leverage minutes of the night.
RTGHe's not an All-Star today, and a season opener isn't a referendum. What's keeping the label off him is the lag between what he's become and what the rest of the league still assumes he is. That gap is the skeptics' problem to fix, not his. He's already doing the convincing; everyone else is just slow to update.
