The ASG voting could do some changes

The 69th NBA All-Star Games will be on February 17 PH time at the United Center in Chicago.  Voting for the participants started last Christmas and will end on January 21.  Fans account for 50% of the votes for the 10 starters of both conferences.  25% comes from active players who can vote for themselves and the other 25% will come from the media.  A ballot consists of 3 frontcourt players and 2 backcourt players.

The starters and the team captains will be announced on January 24 and the reserves selected by NBA head coaches will be announced on January 31.  The player who gets the highest number of fan votes in the Western and Eastern Conferences becomes the team captain.

Initial ballot results have Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, James Harde and Kawhi Leonard leading in the WC with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, Pascal Siakam, Trae Young and Kyrie Irving as the highest vote getter in the EC. 

For several years, the All-Star Games had become a popularity contest that more deserving players had been snubbed.  I understand that this mid-season high-profile pick-up game is for the fans but there must be some representation from the other NBA teams.  Injured players and those who had become popular thru their hairdos or in some other ways got higher votes than those who had actually did quality time on the hardcourt.

Irving has only played 11 games for Brooklyn yet fans gave him votes higher than Kemba Walker, Kyle Lowry and teammate Spencer Dinwiddie who’s doing an excellent job in his absence.  Boston’s Tacko Fall played a total of 10 minutes in only 3 games tallying 13 points and 7 rebounds but he’s got better love from fans than Bam Adebayo, teammate Gordon Hayward, Andre Drummond and Domantas Sabonis.

Over at the West, Stephen Curry who also just played 3 games got more votes than Russell Westbrook, teammate D’Angelo Russell and Donovan Mitchell.  LA cult hero Alex Caruso is more popular than Devin Booker who had a 6-game streak of scoring 30-plus points, in the process breaking the Phoenix Suns record made by Charles Barkley.

The top 10 vote getters come from 9 teams and the next 30 players come from 14 other teams.   Because coaches will pick the reserves, they will most likely select from the 30 already on the ballots.  Fat chance they’ll pick players from teams like Sacramento, Oklahoma, San Antonio, Cleveland, Charlotte, Orlando and New York who failed to have players on the balloting.

Maybe the league can initiate changes next time in the mid-season exhibitions so that at least players who had shown All-Star performances but lack fan support because they belong to small market teams, get recognized.  We could show some love to the likes of Bogdan Bogdanovic (SAC) and Nikola Vucevic (ORL).