Fans should be left out of NBA All-Star voting

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Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook All-Star

The fans have proved once again that they shouldn’t be allowed to vote for the starters of the NBA All-Star team. After last season, the breakdown of voting was changed. Fans used to select the starters for both teams and after a lot of controversy, the league decided to change the format. Well, this season was no different.  Fans were given 50% of the vote while the players and media each got 25% and yet, they still got the starters wrong once again.

Here’s the starting lineups if the old format was used:

NBA Fan All-Star Starters
NBA All-Star Starters based on Fan Votes. (highlighted numbers represents the number of votes each player received)

There are so many cogs in this All-Star lineup that it’s not even funny. This breakdown of votes shows that fans don’t vote on who they truly believe should make the all-star team. They vote based on popularity.

We all know Dwyane Wade got the “O.G.” vote. Being a legend in the game its only right that he receives a high volume of votes. And to be truly honest, I’m not even mad at the Joel Embiid votes. If he were to start, a part of me would be fine with that because he’s truly anchoring a Philadelphia 76ers comeback that’s resulting in remarkable play during this month of January.

On the Western side, there are two picks that stand out to me. As much as I love Stephen Curry, it’s utterly ridiculous to vote him over Russell Westbrook. What Westbrook is doing this season is historic and all-star worthy at its finest. Curry has garnered the love of the fans during the past three seasons and it was prevalent here. And then we get to Zaza Pachulia who received the 4th most votes in the Western Conference. We all know that this is a joke and kind of funny but at the same time, this is the type of thing that we can’t allow to happen.

Although some of these players didn’t get chosen as starters due to the effect of the player/media vote, the fans’ vote still had an impact in the starting lineup. When I look at the votes that Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving received, I believed they played a huge enough factor that they ended up in the starting lineup. Either Isaiah Thomas or Kyle Lowry should’ve received that starting bid on the Eastern side and like I mentioned earlier, Westbrook was more than deserving of the Western guard spot.

This is just another case of the fans getting it wrong and I believe this is something that we have to get rid of. The fan vote has proven to be a popularity contest when it should based off of a deserving factor. Although many may not take the actual “all-star game” serious due to the lack of defense and effort, the “All-Star title” is something that is taken seriously. When you hear people debate and discuss players, their number of all-star appearances is something that’s mentioned. When they get their orange jackets at the Naismith Hall-of-Fame podium, they’re announced by name but their All-Star appearances are always mentioned in the monologue. The All-Star title is something that fans should take seriously. They’ve proven time and time again that they’re not worthy of a vote and I strongly believe that their votes should be taken away.

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