Technically, fan balloting for the All-Star Game ends Jan. 31, and TNT plans to announce the starters on Feb. 2.
In reality, fan balloting already is over, and the starters already have been announced.
While Twitter was all atwitter Thursday, with everybody and their fathers sending snippets of the first returns released by the NBA, we didn’t see anyone point out the yawning margins between the potential starters and also-rans.
To unseat the current leaders at each position, it would take a “vote early, vote often” campaign that would make election day in Chicago look like it was being overseen by Ernst & Young.
Our personal favorite is Eastern Conference center, where Dwight Howard has received 754,737 votes, more than 10 times the 75,038 votes given to Joakim Noah, who should be preparing a speech announcing his withdrawal from the race.
The East forwards are LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, with the latter more than 300,000 votes ahead of teammate Amar’e Stoudemire. The leading guards are Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade, who is nearly 400,000 votes in front of Rajon Rondo.
The Western Conference center will be Andrew Bynum, who is more than 350,000 votes ahead of DeAndre Jordan. (DeAndre Jordan? Really? Come on.)
It’s another landslide at guard, where Kobe Bryant leads and Chris Paul is second with a cushion of over 400,000 votes over Ricky Rubio.
The closest race is for the West forward slots. Kevin Durant leads and Blake Griffin has “only” 160,000 more votes than Dirk Nowitzki. That race probaby is over, too, given that players from Los Angeles hold four of the top five spots, Clippers center Jordan’s second-place standing and Lakers forward Metta World Peace somehow collecting 39,006 votes.
We’re not grumbling about the fans’ choices, at least at the top of the ballot. With the possible exception of Kevin Love at one of the West forward spots, all 10 current leaders are certainly deserving, which will reduce the number of snubs when coaches vote for reserves.
But the balloting is over, no matter how few precincts are reporting.
Also keep in mind that this is more than a popularity contest. When you stuffing the ballot box for your favorite player – deservedly so or not – you may be indirectly rubber-stamping him an automatic raise in his next contract that could impact that team’s salary cap.
One final point: If you are among the 41,832 morons who voted for Joel Anthony, you should have your League Pass account canceled without a refund.
Chris,
The fans aren’t totally wrong this year, which is a rarety. Nobody brighter than a rock thinks Anthony’s an all-star but he’s hardly the worst prospective starter in recent history. But I’ve always thought there was a better system (wrote it up for a TV Guide Canada story last century). I think the fans who’s fannies are in the stands should get the vote. Tag each team’s million ballots (or whatever goes out to each team), with an identifying code and let each team’s fan that attend games stuff their local box with abandon. Each team then divies up it’s SINGLE vote per position by percentages to the voted players. Go to three decimal places. Then, tote up the fractional votes for each player from each outlying district and announce your starters. No New York effect. No extra home games effect. And maybe, just maybe, fans hike over to the next closest team to help correctly fill out their ballots with the correct slate of candidates. Which teams out there would turn up their noses at a brief spike (bump?) in attendance?
Now, if you INSIST on inviting internetters, then set up a vote for them to split. Or two votes. But no more. Remember, all of this voting is the ultimate design-by-committee, also commonly known as the creators of the giraffe by zebra. It’s a wonder we don’t end up with more local stuffing (as exemplfied by Cincy in baseball and Ottawa most recently in hockey) or stunt-voting, like the Rory Fitzpatrick scam in hockey a few years back or the legendary pushing on of Sanjaya in the American Idol world.
You STILL end up with the general will of the people, whether they are voting for the current season’s stars or historically-good players they want to see again. Add up ALL the votes and hand out a Most Votes trophy. There’s NO downside and all the upside of limiting the stupidity. No eliminating it. But it would result in more representational all-star starters.
GM
Gary,
Way too sensible, and way too complicated. If I was an owner, I’d be really concerned about having to pay a player a 30 percent max deal instead of a 25 percent max deal because the fans went nuts with All-Star voting. Thanks for reading. CB