Then Yao would beat Amare based on popularity. Also, someone brought up the point that Yao beat out Shaq, so I think he would beat Amare as well.
i'm tired of hearing this chinese vote crap. first off if you completely took away the internet vote yao would still win his position. it's already been shown in his rookie year that yao won on the paper votes that are only available in the arenas in the us. i'm sure that's still the same case. yao is a likeable and popular guy, unless you're a referee or a sportswriter which is so ridiculous. did a billion chinese people fly here to attend games and vote him in? unlikely. secondly, yao is competely deserving of being the starting all-star this year, the only competiton he has is brad miller. amare is a pf plain and simple.
why doesn't shaq and the newspapers just go out and say that chinese votes should count 2/3's? Dangit, why don't we have voting by district instead and just gerrymander the whole thing up? If i was shaq, i'd just be happy that he beat out the great Michael Jordan in all star votes, in fact, I bet Shaq has the most all-star votes combined in HISTORY.
not to say that the all-star ballots are rigged; But with population of more than a billion people, the number of internet users in China will hit 134+ million by the end of 2005 (it's currently at 103+ million). If all of the internet votes were counted, I think there's great possibilities that it'll exceed the 2+ million that they're "claiming" Yao's getting right now.... I know not everyone with internet access are NBA fans, but let's just say one out of ten votes for Yao... maybe with a little double-click or triple-click here and there... since i'm not good in math, so you do the math.... and that's just on internet voting (in China)
ACtually I think that Amare knows that he has no chance of beating out Yao if he were to compete with Yao in the center category. However, if he is to be listed in the Forwards category, he will have a much better chance of being voted as the all star starter someday assuming that he is to play along with Nash for a long time.
God in his infinite mercy would never allow the cataclysmic collision of two such mighty forces to occur.
Best post in this thread. Wtf did Amare do when Steve was out? Suns went like 0-5 with Amare shooting in the 30's and averaging like 10 points.
your assumption that every Chinese NBA fan will vote for Yao is wrong or at least baseless. not every one of them is a fan of Yao's. my guess is tha number doesn't exceed 70%. and if the rest of 30% vote for Yao too that's because they think Yao deserve it not because Yao is Chinese. and on top of that Shaq is in different conf. than Yao this year. as far as i know, every Chinese nba fan loves Shaq. so Shaq should get as many votes from China as Yao if not more. anyway, haters are gonna hate no matter what. if you prove to him Yao win in the states too, they're going to say that's because of Chinese American's votes, etc.