You know what really grinds my gears? For the past couple of years, the NBA All Star voting has been a joke, and it's one of those things where people don't care all that much, so it just goes on like it is, not being changed, not being noticed. Well you know what? I say screw that. But since I have more important things to do (playing Rock Band) than marching on David Stern's home, so I'm gonna blog about it.
Have any of you seen the actual vote tabulations for the All Star squads yet? Of course you haven't. Well the fans think that the Houston Rockets are the Harlem Globetrotters of the West. Which is fine, because I love antics, and those Generals always took it in the shorts, and there's something very relieving about that, it means all is right in the world. Wait what do you mean staged exhibition games?!?!
Anyway, apparently besides Yao and T-Mac, which are sanctioned votes, because they're actually doing things like scoring points and getting rebounds, fundamental type stuff you know, unlike their other counterparts who are getting votes right now, Luis Scola and Shane Battier. Don't get me wrong, these guys are not bad players. Battier is a nice player, he's a glue guy, but he gets it done. I stand by drafting him every year in Fantasy Basketball, and he doesn't disappoint. Scola has done very well for himself also, through week 11 he's 5th in Rookie rankings and is a young Antonio Banderas. However, you mean to tell me that they're better than Kevin Durant or Josh Howard? Cause according to the votes, they are. Battier finished with 3779 less votes than Shawn Marion. Freaking Shawn Marion. That my friends, is too close for comfort. Now I don't want to be racist guy, I'll leave that to LSU fan (warning, that video has retard tigers in the wild), but if Yao wasn't a Rocket (and Chinese), this wouldn't be happening.
Now this is no surprise to any of us that actually know the NBA, but those who are sort of casual fans aren't aware of the effect that Yao has brought on a national scale, and the wave of Chinese fans that are voting based on Yao has sort of been the impetus that got this whole thing going.
That's just one example though. There are guys getting votes that have played very little basketball; Gilbert Arenas is 5th among Eastern Conference guards, and T.J. Ford is 10th, while his replacement Jose Calderon (11.8 PPG, 8.4 APG) is playing absolutely lights out basketball and are nowhere to be found. The Calderon thing infuriates me because those numbers are crazy, with turning the ball over 1.5 times a game, that boys and girls, is outstanding.
I have a few solutions for this redickulousness so please follow along, it's a blues riff in B, watch me for the changes, and try to keep up. I think that we need to go to a more specific positional voting system. Right now it's just guard/forward/center, which was fine from the 50's to the late 80's but there is a resounding number of combo guys in the league and that's making it pretty hard for people to get noticed at their position, and no one is being rewarded for being "a pure point guard/shooting guard/small forward/power forward", which is a dying breed (see Jose Calderon). Right now, Paul Pierce is 4th in Eastern Conference forwards, which seems odd to me personally; in my opinion the guy's not a forward. In that situation, if you specialize the positions and separate the voting, that puts Pierce second in the votes behind LeBron, which makes considerably more sense. Following that, guys like Hedo Turkoglu and Josh Smith, who are playing out of their minds right now get bumped up, and get noticed for their game.
Other than that, it would probably be a good idea to make the stat ranking rule that the NBA uses (guys have to play 85% of games in order to be ranked) follow suit for the All Star game. This way, you don't see Arenas and T.J. Ford getting voted for, and those guys are going to get replaced by reserve selections anyway, which get chosen by the head coaches in those respective conferences in the first place. So why even go through the motions of voting for those guys? It's a win win, the fans still get to vote, and it's fairer because injuries don't come into play.
With those options out there, the NBA gets their fan friendly image, and we get to see a better represented game, so everyone's happy. What do you guys think?
6 comments:
I agree with everything you said, G.L., especially the requirement that the players play a certain amount of games to qualify.
I did initially disagree, but frankly that Too Close For Comfort image swayed me. A masterstroke!
Great Post G.L., but don't hate on those Rocket fans, They Just Want It That Way....
We need to scrap the game altogether and play HORSE anyway. If I wanted to see that many turnovers and botched passes, I can just watch the Knicks.
my thoughts are that the allstar game should be like the MLB's where it counts for home court advantage in the finals. If that were the case the game wouldnt be shit for 3 quarters with guys just fucking around. If the game acutally counted we would really see the best atheletes in their respective sports go all out. Wouldn't it be nuts to see a team of nash, kobe, yao, duncan, & dirk go all out against kidd, wade, dwight howard, lebron, and kg. It would be a great game.
The only reason it doesn't work in baseball is because the pitchers would throw their arms out during the game with the manager trying to make him go 9 innings.
Idk just my wet dream.
Yao is like the Sanjaya of the NBA (except with talent).
Agreed Jobu, HORSE is the answer!
The home court advantage thing is always an idea too ivro, I've always liked forcing the game to count for something; but inherently that's the problem, it feels forced. It also takes away the hard work that teams put in to have a great record all year for home court. However, you have to do something better to the game, and that's not a bad idea.
Word Anna, he is the Sanjaya of the NBA. Before we go any further, I trademark the term Yaohawk. Just in case he grows one.
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