It's not about China, stupid. Even during those old paper ballot days, people are known to have stuffed hundreds of votes each PERSON. The more populous cities always got their players more votes. The all star voting lost its entire credibility long long time ago.
Limiting the voting to a single vote per email account could help. Sure people could still sign up under multiple email accounts if they really wanted to, but the NBA actively encourages the same people to vote every single day, and I don't really see why. The winners are not necessarily the players with the most people who voted for them, but the players who's fans vote daily over and over again for them. Or they could set a rule that states that a player has to have started a minimum number of games for his team that year to be elidgeable. Of course that would disallow special situations like when Magic played in his last All Star game after retiring. But Iverson starting isn't really any worse than rookie Yao Ming starting over Shaq in his prime with the Lakers.
I agree with this and I agree that the term and definion for [ALL-STAR] should be re-evaluated... Especially when it comes time for renegotiation of a players contract.
The China effect is overrated. Yao, T-Mac, and Francis are the only Rockets All-Stars since Yao entered the NBA, and they either all deserved the votes or were already popular enough with US fans to be voted in before. People talk about Chinese fans voting for Yao, but what about Kobe? Aren't Kobe, LeBron, and other players benefitting as well from Chinese fans? But the China critics always single out Yi Jianlian or Battier at #4 or #5 or whatever, and say that the Chinese fans are throwing off the voting. Here's the thing now: ONLY #1 and #2 at each position count, at all. And if you look at the voting for EVERY position, there are always more than two players getting votes (duh). Can anyone say that guys like Bruce Bowen or Luke Ridnour deserved their votes? Of course not. The reality is that the fans KNOW that only two or three guys have a realistic chance of being voted in at each position, and that a lot of fans from everywhere just vote for anyone they want. Celtics fans will vote Kendrick Perkins, Philly fans vote Iguodala, etc. They know it won't matter, so they just homer to show their support.
