Opinion: Fans should not vote for All Star Starters
February 11, 2009
By Marcus Johnson
Sports Writer
It’s once again that time of the year. The NBA all-star is coming up in the next few days. While many people are ready to partake in these joyous activities, some players in the NBA aren’t feeling the same way as others. Every year fans vote for the starters of the East and West squad, and the coaches choose vote for the rest of the team. But with the fan choosing those five starters for the all-star team, there are always a few players who are all-star worthy that are left off the roster. With this being said I believe that fans shouldn’t vote for the starters of the all-star team. Instead a new system of which every GM and head coach of each NBA team should get to pick 12 players and whoever has the most votes get to be on the team.
This system stops a lot of confusion. Fans bring in the money for the NBA, but not every fan that votes for all-star selections know a lot about the NBA. Some people do it based on name purposes. Such as if they vote for that player (example: Yao Ming) because that is the only player at center whose name they know. Many players are being left out of the game because they are not household names. This is very disappointed to some players, because they aren’t getting reward for the amount of effort they have put in during the first half of the year. It takes away from the competition also. As stated earlier, some fans vote for players because they are a household name. But they’re performance might not be all-star caliber though. They will still make the team because many fans voted for them. The all-star game has become a popularity contest. It is no longer honoring the best players in the league for their accomplishments. There are numerous examples out there for each year of the all-star game, but let’s take a look at a few examples for this year.
Yao Ming
Yao Ming was voted into the all-star game by the fans this year as a starter. Yes I believe he deserves to be in this year’s game, but not a starter. A more ideal starter for the west would be Al Jefferson. Let’s compare stats Yao Ming 19.8 PPG and 9.5 RPG and a field goal percentage of 54%. Al Jefferson’s stat line looks like this: 23.1 PPG and 10.3 RPG while shooting 49% from the floor a game. If Al Jefferson was a household name, he would be a starter and also would have made the team. But instead he will watch from the crowd.
Chauncey Billups
Chauncey is of course having a good year, no doubt about that but I don’t he should have made the team over Deron Williams. They both average the same amount of points at 18.5, but Deron averages about 4 more assist then Chauncey and also his field goal percentage is 5% percent higher than him. Deron should definitely not being watching from the stands this year.
