This Thursday the NBA will announce the starting lineups for this year’s All Star Game. Ideally, it’s a snapshot of the league that season, with the best five from each conference matching up with each other before the game inevitably devolves into a layup line. It’s also voted on by the fans. They are aloost always wrong. Thankfully, they finally took complete control away from the fans and added in a players and media vote to help curb the madness. A lot of times, I don’t have a problem with it. For example: As it stands right now, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love would be starting for the East. I don’t think they should be starting, but they are both legitimate All Stars this year, so I don’t really care too much. But Dwyane Wade is also in line to start. And that’s where my anger begins.
The common line you always hear when people like me complain about undeserving players being voted in is that it’s a game for the fans so it should be what the fans want to see. That’s all well and good, but why do we then use all star appearances when discussing Hall of Fame candidacy? When Kobe is up for enshrinement, among his many accolades his 18 all star appearances will be mentioned. At least five were undeserved. Popularity doesn’t suddenly make someone good.
Dwyane Wade is not an All Star. His team stinks and he’s having his worst season. Almost all of his per-36 minute numbers either are or are close to career lows. The only thing he’s randomly doing better is shooting 3s, but a blind person who had never heard the word basketball before would be a better 3 point shooter than Wade has been. There’s at least 15 players in the Eastern Conference more deserving than him and someone is going to get screwed because people like Wade for some reason. Twenty years after his retirement everyone will forget the countless dirty plays and will just see all those totally legitimate all star appearances and think he’s a top ten player ever. That’s not right.
While we’re at it, Carmelo Anthony is currently 6th in front court voting. Which means if the entire roster was decided by fan voting he’d make it. Melo STIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINKS. How anybody can watch this guy and think he’s an all star is beyond me. He’s on yet another embarrassing, bum ass Knicks team and scoring the worst, most hollow 22 points per game maybe in league history. He cared about passing and defense for like a month in 2013, but that time is long passed. He’s pretty much the entire reason the Knicks are horrible, too. He and Derrick Rose create new ways to ignore the best player on the team Kristaps Porzingis. His massive contract and refusal to waive his no-trade clause have hampered the league’s worst front office’s pathetic attempts at roster building, and they’re caught in between tanking and being the sixth seed. Or, they would be if Carmelo wasn’t a dreadful excuse for a star. Same with Dwyane Wade- someday people will look back and see all the all star starts and be like “oh, wow, Carmelo was really good. He must have been a great player and a great teammate and a great leader and not a coward who thinks winning gold medals against teams with at most three NBA players is just as good as winning an NBA championship.” He’s horrible and if you think he’s good, you’re horrible too. Either don’t let stupid fans decide important things that impact a player’s “legacy,” or don’t have all star appearances matter for the Hall of Fame.
And I really hope that in one of the toughest times to make the all star team in the Western Conference, where three or four very deserving players will miss out, I don’t have to explain why Zaza Pachulia making the starting lineup would be the dumbest, most inexplicable and nonsensical thing to ever happen in the history of American voting.
Brian's Den 