Kevin Love has been injured most of the year. Lee is beasting. He is on Fantasy team. Griffin is second in PER behind duncan so he is pretty deserving.
You have an honor code that you adhere to...granted. But just because you'll be embarrassed to see Lin in the ASG doesn't mean that: a) Lin is very outclassed and doesn't deserve to be there b) Lin will/should be embarrassed c) That the Rockets Organization will be embarrassed. Points a) and b) are subjectively based on your own opinion. On Point c), the Rockets have been telling people to vote for Rockets every home game, so you know they want Lin in there (along with all the others). Best thing to do is just let the chips fall where they may. If Lin gets in good for him, if he doesn't then he doesn't. Either way, I don't see why anyone should feel embarrassed. It's not like they represent him.
I'm one of the people who leans towards the merit side of starting in the All Star Game. I'm not a Lin hater, nor do I think anyone else is, who happens to feel that there should be some correlation between named an ASG starter and a level of performance & skill deserving of being called an All Star. It's not just fans on this forum who feel this way. Players and coaches do as well. For example, this, from 3 years ago... "I think the commissioner (David Stern) should make a statement and probably talk about it and give it to the guys who deserve to be there,'' said Nuggets coach George Karl, referring primarily to the possibility of McGrady being voted a starter. "I don't think it should be a popularity contest. I have no problem with someone being a popular guy who plays. A.I.'s playing. McGrady would be kind of sad.'' http://www.aolnews.com/2010/01/19/billups-mcgrady-iverson-dont-deserve-all-star-berths/
I think if you read it carefully, George Karl was talking about active players (and AI was in serious decline 3 years ago). He actually said he had 'no problem with someone being a popular guy who plays'. Lin fits the definition of a popular guy who plays, wouldn't you say?
Lin deserves to be in the ASG as much as any other players voted in. All-Stars are fan favorites disregarding of stats or skills. The NBA is a business and in the business of selling tickets and products. The ASG was created to showcase fan favorites that's all. Skill and stats competition is your annual NBA playoffs with the best team eventually crowned the Champion. To deny Lin is to move the goal post when things are not going your way. If the NBA is still restricted to just the US and voting should be confined in the US, then Lin most likely would not be voted all-star because the NBA voting demographics will change significantly. Since the NBA goes international and significant revenue and potential revenue are from outside the US, the demographics changed dramatically with it the redefinition of fan favorites. Since Asia has 2/3 of the world's population and for the longest time being marginalize and left out and leaving the West to define who gets to be all stars who's not.... well that changed. This is the 2010s and the world has changed quite a bit, wealth has spread more evenly, consumption changed, culturally shifted a bit back to the East and the thirst for Asian stars be it American or anywhere else is very high. To deny Lin of his spot in the ASG is to deny today's reality. The only way to stop people from voting for Lin is to turn back the clock and isolate the NBA to only within the US and perhaps Europe. That's not going to happen in today's world. To do so is to speed up the death of the NBA.
Are you a lawyer? I don't think it matters whether or not I agree with the question as you've framed it. My sense is that there are a lot of players and coaches who hold being an ASG starter as one of the many measures of a successful playing career. It's often lumped in with other stats as evidence of a player's greatness, but I've never seen it cited as proof of a player's likability. To answer your question, yes, Lin plays and he is popular, but I don't draw the same connection that you do.
Lin would definitely be fined and reprimanded if he refused an invite. Blame the system - not the player.
T-mac was "mysteriously" overtaken a couple of days right before the all star game when he said he thought he didn't deserve it. The league wouldn't fine him, they would actually urge him to come out with a sdtatement like tmac did. I have thought about what I have said and I do stand by it, but another factor just hit me. The AS game is in houston this year. If its in houston then for that reason alone I would want to see as many rockets as possible. So I think this is an exception to the principle I was talking about.
Nothing wrong with the system. ASG was designed to have fan favorites play each other. It's been that case since the beginning of ASG. So why is the system wrong when an Asian fan favorite got voted in? If the NBA change the ASG voting system, you can pretty much bet that the NBA will be irrelevant in 10 to 20 years time as the rest of the world would move on. Perhaps lacrosse stars will be fan favorites or may be CBA will be the default world basketball league with American players entering into the CBA draft every year.
If you're okay with being named an AS due to popularity as opposed to merit, then you'd have to be okay with diluting the AS accolade. Having a couple AS's on our team wouldn't necessarily mean that they're that much better than other players in the league but perhaps they're just more likable or more entertaining. All star or borderline all star wouldn't have the same meaning as we all throw it around now.
Fans do not vote for merit since day one. It just so happened that back in the old days there are not many avenue for media access other than your TV, radio news paper and magazines. Today fans can access information from many media and information is not as privileged as before resulting in the dilution of hyping certain players by sport experts. If it is like the good old days, you will never see a chubby Korean guy singing Korean in mainstream US media. That is democracy at its best and Lin voted to ASG is similar to that. The good old days are over. Get over it and embrace diversity and differences.
What complete crap. If the all star game is what you described why are the coaches have a say in selecting the rest of the players. Are you saying all the coaches get memo from stern that they are only to select fan favorite and ignore merit and skills because NBA is a business
Coaches have a say because fans may not vote for star players who are not fan favorites. That is the even out the playing field. It is like how many deserving students are not admitted into choice colleges instead school bureaucrats bypass meritocracy and select lesser students to even out the playing field. Same idea here. Face it. The millions paid to players do not grow from trees but rather from the pockets of fans. Hardcore fans are a small fraction of the overall revenue stream. Casual fans are the majority of the revenue. Casual fans vote for their favorite players. ASG coach selection coincide with the increase access to more information either through the internet, cellphone technology or increase quantity of media through more cable channels. That's why AI and TMac keeps getting voted because who doesn't love them? Same with Yao when NBA went international.
Icono's grammar is hard to dissect, but I think he's saying that fans may not necessarily pick the best and most deserving players, and therefore the coaches picks can act to counterbalance that.
There is a difference between logic and grammar. Get your terms correct. Your logic may be flawed by your perception that all-stars means all-talent. I am saying that fans select their favorite players which does not necessary translate to the best available players as per stats or talent. It is the coaches that even the playing field by adding unvoted talented players. This means rigging an established ASG system when the outcome does not favor a certain group of people. This rigging started when information is more readily available and fans are less influenced by sport writers and are able to pick and choose what information are more relevant to them thus favor players that are more identifiable to them. The ASG should be through fan meritocracy because talent meritocracy is the annual NBA championship where the team with the best collective talent wins. Fan meritocracy meaning the players with the most fan votes would be in the ASG. Talent meritocracy means you win the championship or most games.
I voted for Lin and want him to make it. Along with Harden, Asik, etc. Some ppl around here are already calling out Lin for being a hypocrite if he doesn't decline. Probably them same who think Tebow is a demigod. Maybe they have a problem with a popular Asian athlete. Yao got the same crap. A lot of "true" Rocket fans were upset cuz Shaq's feelibgs would be hurt.
This is bull****. Yao was a multiple time all star and one of the best centers in the league. Injuries are the only thing that derailed his career. I'm yet to meet a Rockets fan who doesn't like Yao. It's ridiculous to put Jeremy Lin's name in the same sentence as Yao. He'll never even be close to the same player
So on what basis do fans vote for players if not for the merits of their play? The point I'm making isn't that fans votes shouldn't matter, or that diversity of opinion on what constitutes an AS is a bad thing. What I'm saying is if fans vote based on reasons other than merit, those fans can't say, "hey we have an all star on our roster, he must be a 'star' performer in the same level of the other AS". Just because Lin might make the asg doesn't put him anywhere in the same discussion of cp3 or Westbrook. I don't have a proble with diversity and differences....I have a problem with differing reasons equating to the same definition of 'Star' player.
