Fans deserve the right to vote for the all-stars of their favorite sport, but the NBA starting lineup is all wrong.
Vince Carter should not have been voted to the all-star team for one reason and one reason only: He barely played the first half of the season. Yes, Carter is a great player, but he has not been great this year.
The fact that he was selected is a slap in the face to every player who has played to the level of an “all-star” the first part of this season. If the NBA is going to allow the fans to continue to vote for the starting lineup, they need to set some type of guidelines for fans to follow.
The United States government did a better job with their voting process during the last presidential election than the NBA did with their process of selecting the correct all-stars to hit the floor in Atlanta for this year’s All-Star game.
The fans need to do one of two things. They need to understand that some players, regardless of their name, do not deserve to be All-Stars every season. The league has become so accustomed with seeing certain players in the game that they miss the true purpose of the game, which is to reward the best players that year with a chance to shine against others at their skill level.
The fans chose Yao Ming over Shaquille O’Neal. This strange twist of fate is very believable and well deserved. Ming has come into the league and stole the show from many of the league’s good big men. He is not the most dominant player at his position, but without him the Rockets wouldn’t be a contender in the Western Conference at all.
Testing the boundaries of international star power, the fans voting Yao in the All-Star game is admirable, but voting Carter is wrong.
This is one test that the NBA and the fans completely failed.