1. All-Star Stuff: Nothing gets me less excited than the All-Star game and the surrounding All-Star picks and controversies. As we’ve said before, we rarely catch more than a few moments of the whole weekend. Still, we do feel compelled to give our take the usual controversies. The most obvious problem with the rosters is the fact that Allen Iverson is starting. AI has been a bit above-average this season and nothing more but his popularity, at this point, seems to transcend performance. Jon Machora of the Detroit Free Press had an interesting interview with Jeff Van Gundy on the Iverson issue. Van Gundy gave a response to the larger issue: “I mean the fans vote, so I think the bigger question is: Should the fans have the vote? And I think the answer to that question is absolutely not. I think All-Star selections mean too much to the players to leave it in the hands of just the fans. I think the fans should have a part of the vote, but I think the players should have a vote, I think the coaches should have a vote, and I think the fan vote should be limited. It’s too easy to skew it by just stuffing ballots for people.” Van Gundy is a smart guy but his answer reflects his coaching sensibilities (unapologetically so). Sure, being an All-Star means a lot to the players but the All-Star party exists primarily for the fans. Iverson is no longer better than Rajon Rondo or Jameer Nelson but the fans want AI. The revenue comes from the fans and the game is designed to appeal to the fans. So why not let them, at least, choose the starting line up? Of course there will be some bad votes but this is that goes with the territory.
Having said all that, the fan voting should stay within the bounds of reason. One can reasonably argue that the Iverson’s Hall of Fame career merits his inclusion, so long as he’s average to above-average as a player. The real rub is whether a real stinker decision should be recognized. In this case, Yi Jianlian appeared to get a huge push from internet voting (presumably from China), as he was the third in voting amongst Eastern Conference Forwards with 1,813,829 votes, only 250,000 votes behind Kevin Garnett for second place (in defense of the Chinese voters, they all thought they were actually voting for Pat Buchanan). Indeed, the West had some problems too. For some reason, Bruce Bowen was only 68,000 votes from starting ahead of Amare Stoudemire.
So, on the one hand the vote is absolutely for the fans but neither Yi nor Bowen pass the straight face test. There is natural tension between letting the fans have their say and avoiding ludicrous results. I suggest that the answer is simple. When making the ballot before the season, a player should not be listed unless the thought of him doesn’t induce laughter. This isn’t the highest standard but it still may omit players who were mediocre that end up busting out. So it’s not perfect but this solution will best balance the concerns of the parties by keeping the vote ostensibly with the fans.
2. Rookie Game: Another obvious oversight was omitting Kevin Love from the rookie game. He’s been about the best rookie forward/center in the NBA this year and he is someone people would want to see, so it’s not clear why he was shafted. In the scheme of things, a Rookie Game snub has little value. Let’s run through the game since its inception to see who was chosen that seem a little silly in retrospect. But first, a little history lesson on the game: the first two seasons of the game (1993-94 and 1994-95), the rookies were randomly scrambled and played each other. From 1995-96 to 1997-98 the rookie teams were broken up by conference. After the strike year (with no All-Star weekend) in 1998-99, the game was re-conceived to have the top eight rookies play the sophomores. Then, it wasn’t until 2003-04 that the NBA decided that rookies and sophomores who make the All-Star team were not exempt from playing in the Rookie Game too.
Rookie Class
2003-04: Jarvis Hayes made the rookie team, though the rest of the squad was pretty good. Luke Ridnour and Kyle Korver were in the sophomore team. Ultimately, Maurice Williams, Leandro Barbosa, T.J. Ford (when healthy) and David West made more sense.
2004-05: The rookie team was solid enough. Some names that weren’t great (Tony Allen, Beno Udrih). Emeka Okafor didn’t play in either game but he was probably injured. Of the rest of the class, Andris Biedrins and Kevin Martin deserved another look.
2005-06: Channing Frye was quite good as a rookie and made the squad and Sarunas Jasikevicius was getting some burn in Indiana to also earn a roster spot. David Lee took Frye’s place as a sophomore and Andrew Bynum and Monta Ellis also were on that team, basically giving the draft class it’s optimum roster.
2006-07: Yikes. The rookie team has some guys who did not stand the test of time for a variety of reasons: Marcus Williams, Jorge Garbajosa, Adam Morrison). Some of the problems were remedied the next year when they put on LeMarcus Aldridge and Rajon Rondo.
2007-08: It’s bit too early to tell with this group. We do know that many of the players on this rookie team aren’t doing so great right now. Sean Williams is in the NBDL and not exactly thriving. Juan Carlos Navarro went back to Europe (though he was a good player). Mike Conley and Jamario Moon are also not thriving. No doubt Rodney Stuckey will be near the top of this class.