It is quite easy actually. When I was younger I voted for the All Star Games, do you think I had any understanding as to who was the best players in the NBA? I voted for my favourite players & because I was ridiculously obsessed with boys my favourite players were those who I thought were the cutest. The NBA is a global sport & the point of the games is to cater to that. If they had better technology in Africa Serge Ibaka would be king of the All Star Games. I know that for a fact because I am African & Serge has a massive fan base there. The vast majority of NBA fans are casual fans who know very little about the intricacies of the business. And the NBA is also a business, a business of entertainment. The point of the games is to make fans feel closer to the sport. Look at the dunk competition for example, it has become less about the dunk & more about the side show activities, ex/ Pam McGee kissing the judges. If it had anything to do with the best players then Andrew Bynum who has played ZERO games this season shouldn't be getting votes. Or do you think Bynum is currently the best center in the East? I understand that there is a widespread hope that popularity lines up with merit. But remember wanting the best is highly subjective. For example, if Rose comes back next week is he the best PG? Ricky Rubio & Amare Stoudemire just came back are they the best? Listen it is obvious that there are two schools of thoughts, merit based vs popularity contest. Everyone is entitled to there own stance you don't have to agree with the other but both sides definitely have valid points for there assertions. No need to pretend otherwise.
I can't understand a thing. What does Lebron being in the dunk contest have to do with anything? And you can't interpret the term all-star differently in sports. Ask any person what the term all-star means in sports, and without a doubt they will most likely say the best players. Nobody has ever referred to an all-star athlete as "the fan favorite athlete". You are the one making the argument that all-star is a fan favorite award in the first place.
I seriously doubt you have the ability to understand my arugment here. I have no interest knowing or impacting how you interpretate what "All-Star game" is, do it at your own will, its your right, but at same time other people have the same rights too. IF they want to vote for Lin, they shall be able to without being called moron. And Yao in his rookie year, was voted over Shaq, who was the final MVP, as the starter of the West while averaging something like 10ppg, and people here was writing the samething about Yao just like it is about Lin now. This is a fact, BUT not the arguement here. The argument is that it's sad to see the fans of the Houston Rockets trying to hard to log a notion of "unworthy" on their players. But again, this is your opinion, and you are entitled to that.
Wow, a well-thought question, have it ever occur to you how come coaches don't pick the starting five? Gosh...
The truth is that the AS is primarily a popularity contest and secondarily a merit based contest. If you want to make the argument that the AS game is only supposed to include the "best of the best," then go examine this year's ballot and please try to support your stance. If the AS game was primarily merit based, then IMO 60% of the players on this year's ballot don't deserve to be there due to their mediocre play and/or the lack of games they have played due to injuries...yet mysteriously, there names are still there. I wonder why? Is it because they are playing like the "best of the best" this year? No. Just go back and look at the ballot and I fail to see how you can argue otherwise. In fact, there are many more players who are more deserving to be on the ballot this year, yet they haven't made the ballot Ask yourself, then why are some of those players there? Take for example, Dwight Howard. He has over 700K votes. Has he played like an all star? No. The reason why he has so many votes is partly due to the Chinese vote. (Yes, the same Chinese votes some members here claim that has helped Lin.) From my understanding, Howard is an extremely popular player there and he makes frequent visits to China. Anyway, my point is that the list goes on and on. It is undoubtedly a popularity contest and has been for quite some time now.
I would say fans tend to vote 75 to 90% of the time based on current merit and 10 to 25% based on popularity or past merit the results speak for themselves. everyone deserves to be ranked where they at based on merit alone except for jlin, howard, allen, felton, and terry.. probably more but the only make upto 25% of the results
Chandler probably the second most important guy next to Carmelo for the Knicks this season in the east, who would you have rank as for Garnett and Pierce, the east doesn't really have a big pool of forwards playing insanely good this season
why are you putting words in my mouth. I don't care if fans vote for Lin or not, it's their choice. But when they try to argue somehow Lin deserves to be in the all star game because "the all star game is meant a popularity contest" I am going to call them out on it.
How does the ballot for starters signify what the all star game is suppose to be. The poll results only proves one thing we already know, the voters are mostly casuals and don't know all that much about basketball. If the all star game is really a fan boy circus, it would be purely based on fan votes. Stern added the voting part so that fans would become more involved with the league therefore increasing viewership and overall interest. The voting thing has worked out pretty well anyway because historically the best players usually have the most mindless fanboys and casual fan following. The voting is not suppose to change the meaning of the all star game which is still finding the best players.
My only peeve with fan voting is that you get a basketball fan who votes once for his favorite players, which gets completely drowned out by a fanatical fan who will vote 10 times a day for his. In that light, it's not really based on popularity.
Exactly, that's why voting has gone from actual paper ballots they used to hand out to bball game attendees to unlimited internet voting. More page hits and advertisements = more money. Greed always wins over fairness (except the 2 times Obama won )
Well good luck on bashing your head against the wall. Cos nothing is going to change just because you won't accept that it's a popularity contest in your reality. I think the only way you can change things is if you had billions and you sponsor a winner takes all $20,000,000 all star game. The winning team takes the money and divides it, and you give $10,000,000 extra to David Stern. Then you can be sure that the best players from each conference will be in. Otherwise, David Stern is getting his millions from merchandise sales of the most popular players and your indignation don't matter one bit to him.
While I don't mind the purists among fans who wish to see the best players on the court, I do have to wonder why the extra loud voice for fairness when it comes to Lin. For comparison, I refer to this following thread. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=231265 This is the pro-bowl voting. I know many here don't follow football. But many Texans this year were voted in based on team performance and reputation. Wade Smith, for example, was pro-bowl caliber last year, okay this year. Same with Joseph. Schaub was voted in as the QB, and he may be one playoff loss to the Bengals away from being booed out of town. I mention the above thread because of the responses there. There are no hatred for the system, or lamenting how the "best" players weren't voted in based on merit. Rather, it's acceptance for the way things are. It's similar when previously injured NBA players, like Shaq or Vince Carter made it in on reputation alone. So you have to wonder why when it came to Yao Ming before, and Jeremy Lin right now, that suddenly a flawed but accepted process comes under attack. And also, I should expect more from Rockets fans on the matter of internet balloting, aka the mythical "China vote." While the rest of the country may just accept this utterly ridiculous myth for no reason, Rockets fans should remember how Yao Ming kept beating Shaq on paper ballots year after year to debunk that ridiculous assertion. And this year, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he's ahead of CP3 on paper ballots alone. He draws a lot of fans on road games, and likely have a much better in-game contingent of fans selecting his name than normal basketball fans who vote online.
Lin is popular in China undoubtedly,but I don't really think he has the impact of Yao in China,because he wasn't even a Chinese citizen. Is anyone familiar with how Chinese( natives )thinks ?If I recall correctly conservative Chinese do not like Chinese ppl that couldn't speak Chinese or having a poor command over their native language.
You're on to something. Maybe they should scrap voting and go by jersey/merchandising revenue. Say portion of proceeds go to charity or something.
