After First All Star Ballot Return , Once Again Yao is First

Barkely is gonna be crushed looking at the numbers. He has been lobbying hard for Camby to get the votes.

This year though, I think they are showing the vote counts, including in US. If Yao gets more votes in US, then all the "he wins only coz he got 5000 billlion votes from China" excuses should stop.

Feel bad for Yao. No matter what happens, he still manages to be a scapegoat somehow.

 

You know McGrady leads all Western Conference forwards in voting with Garnett second, meaning Duncan won't start.

 

Good to see TMac leading the forwards, I was worried this season since TMac was hurt.

 

I'm tired of hearing about this. Yao has led the last three years in paper ballots - meaning those turned in in the United States.

Besides, computer votes count - one computer vote per day per computer. Any fan can grab hundreds of ballots and easily outvote a whole gaggle of fans over the course of 3-4 games.

 

Good! Let that scrub win the NBA championship rings. Thats all he is good for!

 

no, no, no.. he's implying that people from china are coming in hordes to the US to fill in the paper ballots and then going back. God forbid non-chinese people voting for yao, that would be national backstabbing!

 

For the last time Yao does not dominate allstar voting because of online balloting. In fact, in his sophmore year Shaq actually outpolled him head to head from online votes.

http://www.nba.com/allstar2004/west_center_040129.html

Yao will lead the league in all-star votes because he is a likeable player and has no competition. None of the top western centers can be considered popular players at all (Camby, Miller, Dampier etc). At least in the East, Ben Wallace can steal a few votes away from Shaq.

 

Hey it looks like VCarter leads all forwards in voting

 

Those damn Chinese YOF in America, they're stuffing the ballots!

 

Awesome! It would be great to have 2 Rockets in the starting lineup for the All Star game in Houston.

Honestly, the leaders at each position dont suprise me in the least. And I bet they dont change. I think those guys will be the starters.

 

Agreed. Don't forget, this is a popularity contest and has absolutely nothing to do with numbers. We saw this when VC led all players in votes a couple years back and he had only played like 2-3 games.

Camby is having a fantastic year, but not a lot of people know who he is, everyone knows who Yao Ming is.

 

Too bad none of this matters. Pundits and experts will continually espouse the China vote as the reason for Yao's high vote count. If he were averaging 30/20 - it'd be the same. I'm not sure if some of these people (ie Barkley) are purpsefully disparaging Yao or just ignorant. I would find it hard to believe that a YOF like me would know the paper ballot results while experts do not.

 

That's totally true. Heck Andrei Kirilenko isn't even in the top ten Western forwards.

 

Does anyone agree that basketball All-Start voting should be changed to mimic baseball all-star voting? I mean, it's sad that both the starters AND the back-ups are all by popularity. In MLB, the fans only pick the starting position players. MLB players select the pitchers, and managers fill up the rest of the roster (except the fans choose the last player).

At least like this it would be a little more fair for those who are as popular but actually DESERVE to be in the All-Star game.

Anyone with me??

 

The coaches vote to select the reserves in the NBA.

 

I am not with you because the ASG is always touted as "a fan-appreciation event", meaning that it's designed for the fans to enjoy and have a chance to see/watch the players they like the most. In that sense, it's a popularity contest. The intention is not to build an All-NBA 1st team and a 2nd team, the intent is to let the fans have their say and enjoy it.

The only thing fans should remember, however, is that the ASG nominations don't really mean much in the grand scheme of things, they don't tell you who's a better player and who's worse. That's all we as fans need to keep in mind.

 

Great, now everyone KNOWS I'm an idiot. Thanks for exposing me.

 

If that's really all it's about, then why do the coaches (as I was recently corrected) get to pick the reserves? And who do they usually pick? The rest of the most popular guys? Or the ones who have had the best season so far? It's the latter (just in case there was any question).

I agree with you to a small extent. But according to all other "All-Star" games, I doubt anyone would agree that it's ONLY about who the fans want to see and about who's popular. All-Star games have been defined as the best players.

Now, that said, it's usually the best players that are most popular, so this goes hand in hand. However, the VC getting a vote to start after having played less than a handful of games made me angry, as well as others, I'm sure. And if he'd actually played, that would just added fuel to the fire (good move, VC, for not starting).

But all this can be put aside since the reserves are picked by the coaches and I'm an idiot. So forgive me.

 

I agree, Camby has good rebounding numbers but its already been 10 years into his career, and he just got his career high in points of 16.8--
Yao is already averaging 20 pts. a game in only his 4th year.

Either way, its a popularity contest, so Charles should just live with it.