Yao will be an all star starter unless the league changes the way the votes are taken next year. The only question will be how many of the new chinese fans vote for the other rockets along with Ming. A Billion and half people are a lot of people to vote. The Rocket team could be the starting all star team next year.
You really think Yao will get a billion votes? Heck NO!! Yao isn't even that popular in China, but believe me between with computer saavy teen america (myself) Yao will get alot of votes. Hey guys, remember two years ago when we wanted Steve in the All-Star game and we all set our clocks back day in order to vote more than once in a day. Uh. Heh. Heh. Those were the good OLD days. GO YAO!!!!!!
I doubt he'll start. He'll preobably get a lot of votes from China, but not 1.5 billion. Not everyone in China is a basketball fan, and not all Chinese basketball fans have access to the internet. Plus, who's to say all of them are Yao Ming fans? I think Shaq will get a lot of votes, unless his toe is a lot worse that what was expected. All this said, I do think there is a good chance Yao makes it, as well as other Rocket players.
I think Yao has a good chance at a billion votes. No wait! Let's just aim high and make a bold prediction of "ONE TRILLION" votes -That was my feeble attempt to re-enact Dr. Evil in the "Austin Powers" movie
Sorry Yetti, I only make the board every few days and must have missed it. I will check better before making another post.
Dog, If Yao got a trillion votes, that would be..... There isn't that many devoted Yao fans. There is only a few billion people in the world. That means everyone in the world would have to vote a couple of times.
The only hurdle is if the Yao Ming fans in China know that they can vote Yao Ming in, since many of them didn't vote for all stars before. If they do there's no doubt Yao will be voted in. Internet access can be rented in China at affordable rate and such rental is very popular, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Once the season starts there'll be a huge number of Chinese basketball fans watch Yao play and become his fans, let alone over 10 million Shanghaiese backing him up. I won't be surprised if Yao gets 5 million votes if he's eligible.
remind us when it is time to vote for the nba all-star players alright??? just make a thread here at cc.net.... Is there a limit on voting per household?or how many times can each person vote???
I am sure they will figure out something to prevent the "set the clock back day" thing from happening again.
azl-You can vote once a day on nba.com. But, there are ways to circumvent that (as mentioned, set your computer's clock back a day). I'm interested to see how the fan voting for Yao goes. He very well could get the start-IIRC, Tsuyoshi Shinjo, an OF from Japan, was 4th in the NL in fan voting, even though he's at best an average player. Ichiro, of course, was first. I think if Yao plays decently, enough to merit some credit for his play, he could beat out Shaq in the popularity voting.
Considering how Ming has acted so far toward other players in the NBA, I think that if he out votes Shaq in any way, he will decline to start over Shaq; that he has too much respect for him. I mean, he even comended a Canadian scrub on how well he played vs him.
You might be able to vote as many times as you want by deleting "the cookie" or simply by clearing all cookies--unless you have to go through some kind of registration before voting (I've never voted a player for an all-star game). It worked for me when voting for the best center in the WC on nba.com (and I only voted three times by the way).
I'm thinking Stern would find some way to get Shaq back into the starting lineup. No way he lets his beloved Laker fall short of any glory.
I was basing this on statement being made like in the article in the Houston paper by Fran Blinebury: These are new fans and votes for Ming in the US, that does not count the votes he will get from overseas. We all know that we vote several times, I just have a feeling it means more to Mings fans then to the fans of Shaq or any other player. Remember when they played the exibition game in Oakland and there were over 19,000 and most were there to see Ming, votes and more votes. If these voters are not long time NBA fans I have to wonder if they will not vote for the other Rockets also. We may very well play games away next year where the refs think we are the home team. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1557024