Vote Your ASG 2011 Starters!

[George7]

C:Bynum

Might as well vote for Greg Oden, George, Bynum doesn't come close to making All-Star.

Really? Didn't know that Axel.
I guess I will vote again,with another center this time

[Jackal]

Much like shadow I can't be bothered to sign up...but I had a question.

What is Gasol (Pau) listed as? A center or a forward? If as a forward, Dirk over Pau? Really?

[dare]

Pau listed at forward

[Murat]

There are also some bugs on vote, it's able to make someone write-in and vote in starting five. There was O.J. Mayo on write-in list and starting five list. Same for Hedo.

[maksie]

west : Westbrook | Roy | Durant | Love | Camby
east : Rondo | Rose | James | Smith | Howard

write-in Shaq

[Andrew]

Much like shadow I can't be bothered to sign up...but I had a question.

What is Gasol (Pau) listed as? A center or a forward? If as a forward, Dirk over Pau? Really?

As dare said he's listed as a forward, though given none of the players listed as centres on the ballot for the West are having standout seasons and Gasol is currently filling in at centre while Bynum's out, I'd definitely be inclined to call him a centre this year. I went with Okafor as he's the closest to averaging a double double out of all the Western centres on the ballot and the Hornets are currently tied for the best record in the league; not exactly stellar criteria.

[Mandich]

WEST : Williams - Bryant - Anthony - Beasley - Jefferson
EAST : Rose - Wade - Durant - LeBron - Howard

[maksie]

^^ Durant will be surprise in Eastern Conference's line-up as he is playing in the Western Conference.

[Mandich]

maksie, haha damn i mixed up, the Durant in for Anthony in the west, and for the east it's Amar'e

[Rukawa_11]

This year the voting continue interesting, but i hope in the next year don't see Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul in Eastern, it's hard but, this will going to be more harder to vote hehehe

EAST

C - Dwight Howard / PF - Amare Stoudamire / SF - LeBron James / SG - Dwyane Wade / PG - Derrick Rose

WEST

C - Nene / PF - Dirk Nowitzki / SF - Kevin Durant / SG - Kobe Bryant / PG - Chris Paul

[[Q]]

with Pau, Dirk, Durant, Duncan, Melo, Blake Griffin, & Love among the forwards, someone's going to get snubbed.

[benji]

The coaches don't have to vote players at the position they're listed on the ballot. They could take someone as a center. If say Dirk and Durant were starters, Gasol could go as a center, Melo and Duncan as forwards and then Griffin and Love as wildcards.

Now the coaches won't do this, but they theoretically could.

It's Love that's going to be snubbed because of the Wolves record. Top of the lottery teams don't have any All-Star players.

Griffin is likely to be for the same reason.

[[Q]]

the question is who will be voted as center? i hope Bynum or Yao don't get it. the only other candidates that even have a remote chance are Okafor & Marc. I hope they somehow make Pau a C so someone like Blake or Love get a chance to make it.

[rayallen20]

East

PG-Rondo
SG-Carter
SF-Pierce
PF-Garnett
C-O'neal

West

PG-Nash
SG-Kevin Martin
SF-Marion
PF-Nowitzki
C-Lopez

[George7]

later this week there will be the first results of the all star voting.
Curious to see how the two teams are so far.

[Andrew]

The West centre is really going to be interesting. I'm guessing Bynum or Okafor will have the lead.

[Martti.]

Yao's on the ballot so I think he's still #1.

[[Q]]

i think the league could pull some shenanigans like they did to deny Yi the starting gig that one year he was on the ballot (they've subsequently learned their lesson and stopped putting him on it) although yao has played this season so they would probably allow it since he's actually an all-star caliber player when healthy plus the other candidates suck. in 08 (new orleans) duncan was on the ballot as a center but magically started as a forward next to the unbeatable Yao so i think they could make some way for Pau to start at center

if they seriously counted all of the ballots from the chinese people the west would start yao, pau, battier, kobe, and jeremy lin
in the east, dwight, yi, lebron, wade, and maybe wall (since he's yi's teammate)
EDIT: actually i take that back. mcgrady in the place of wall since iverson & francis aren't in the league anymore.

[Andrew]

Listing Gasol amongst the centres on the ballot might solve the problem.

[Cleveland wins]

I made my votes there, and here are my east and west starters.
East starters
Forward-Chris Bosh
Forward-Lebron James
Gaurd-Dwayne Wade
Gaurd-Rajon Rondo
Center-Dwight Howard
West starters
Forward-Kevin Durant
Forward-Pau Casol
Gaurd-Kobe Bryant
Gaurd-Russell Westbrook
Center-Emeka Okafor
_________________
I don't understand why they had such a limited number of centers, if i had a choice i would have put Al Jefferson as the west center but i didn't see him. Also for the west starting point gaurd, it's going to either be Steve Nash or Russell Westbrook. The east starting power forward could either be Kevin Garnett, Chris Bosh or Ameri Stoudamire, awe, forgot about Ameri, otherwise i would have voted for him instead of Chris Bosh.

[[Q]]

Listing Gasol amongst the centres on the ballot might solve the problem.

well that's what they did in 08. duncan was under centers, but then in all of the results they put him under forwards

[benji]

That's because the media members in charge of the ballot voted after the ballots were printed to change his position. The website actually changed Duncan to forward, IIRC, but the printed ballots left him at center.

I'm not sure the NBA did anything to Yi or Chinese votes either. Yi never dominated any of the results. And there was an active fear based anti-Chinese campaign in the U.S. fan base pushing for Garnett's victory.

Have we ever seen proof that the Chinese vote is large enough to sway the outcome of all five positions alone? I can't believe the Chinese vote bloc is lockstep enough AND large enough to swamp the combined votes of the rest of the world in such a way that they could always determine the vote winners as you suggested. I mean the turnout rate is insanely low mapped solely against a standard ABC broadcast estimation let alone the size of the NBA fanbase in the U.S.

From looking at the results there's no reason to believe this either. Relative to what would be an equal distribution for players on all teams, the Nets overachieved as Carter and Harris came up third and fourth in guards. But the Spurs did even more with Bruce Bowen more votes than both and more than any Rockets forward, with Parker and Manu also third and fourth. And Duncan the top non-Kobe vote getter in the West. Where's the nationalistic or ethnic causation for this? The Spurs are one of the smallest fan bases, yet they also overachieved to where a guy who averaged like six points a game and stood in the corner for half the game finished third in the forwards.

I think the best evidence we have from the numbers is that there is a significant voting bloc (Rockets fans and Chinese nationalists) who will vote for Yao. Chinese nationalists will also vote for Yi, but they aren't a dominating voting bloc merely the one that moves him up. If anything the fact that not a single New York Knick player managed 200,000 votes, while three Nets players finished top four seems to provide support for the largest market in the country swinging in some respects for Nets players when their choices suck. Meanwhile there are enough people who continue to vote for the "best" player and Yao has generally been the best Western Conference center since Shaq moved out in 2004. (And when Yao made it, as a much hyped rookie, in 2003 he only got 1.2 million, less than a third of all votes. Then he just barely edged out Shaq despite the Shaq fatigue voters were going through. In 2005 after Shaq left the West, they then came within shouting distance of each other for most TOTAL votes and both set new vote records.) Otherwise the votes are determined by size of the markets or popularity of the team.

The Chinese threat, like they are in all our lives, has always been more than overblown. The idiot voter bloc will always defeat the mythical unstoppable lockstep Chinese bloc since it's 80% of the voters.

The real issue continues to be the completely stupid way the league selects the ballot and reserves instead of simply having every player be eligible and the voters determine every spot on the roster.

But of course, I figure the NBA doesn't want to have an actual fair election anymore than the NHL did (when they actually did change the results after the fact when it failed to be what they wanted) or anymore than the political class does. Which is why they pretend the All-Star selections mean ten different things depending on the situation and have never done anything to make the system actually make sense. And like other elections, the media is of course complicit in deriding the results "being wrong", the voters "not doing their job" and calling for the enlightened elites to save us all with more "correct" and "proper" votes for people who "actually deserve it" like Anthony Mason and Jamaal Magloire.

I don't understand why they had such a limited number of centers

Because the established process limits the number of players at each position (12 for centers, 24 for forwards/guards) on the ballot. It also mandates at least three players from each team. They convene a panel of the media members who then attempt to pick popular and good players. And this is done during the offseason.

There is simply no reason to continue doing this other than some arcane need to continue printing paper ballots. The votes from those alone cannot be a large percentage at all, and couldn't kiosks at the arena to allow voting serve the same purpose among many others?

[deihatein]

Should have put Tyson Chandler on the Center ballot.

[benji]

Go back in time six months and tell them he'd be healthy and 100% instead of struggling to stay on the court for 60 games.

[George7]

First Results are in!No huge surprises so far on the voting.
Source

2011 NBA ALL-STAR BALLOTING
EASTERN CONFERENCE

Forwards:
LeBron James (Heat) 607,994
Kevin Garnett (Celtics) 456,111
Amar'e Stoudemire (Knicks) 327,626
Paul Pierce (Celtics) 235,107
Chris Bosh (Heat) 161,801
Josh Smith (Hawks) 104,713
Carlos Boozer (Bulls) 82,655
Andre Iguodala (Sixers) 71,517
Danny Granger (Pacers) 66,759
Luol Deng (Bulls) 52,398

Guards:
Dwyane Wade (Heat) 570,489
Rajon Rondo (Celtics) 497,141
Derrick Rose (Bulls) 424,356
Ray Allen (Celtics) 235,977
John Wall (Wizards) 120,284
Vince Carter (Magic) 117,628
Gilbert Arenas (Wizards) 88,599
Brandon Jennings (Bucks) 65,705
Joe Johnson (Hawks) 46,811
Jamal Crawford (Hawks) 31,524

Centers:
Dwight Howard (Magic) 611,561
Shaquille O'Neal (Celtics) 241,782
Joakim Noah (Bulls) 97,163
Andrea Bargnani (Raptors) 53,275
Al Horford (Hawks) 49,098
Andrew Bogut (Bucks) 48,298
Brook Lopez (Nets) 38,103
JaVale McGee (Wizards) 36,227
Roy Hibbert (Pacers) 35,006
Ben Wallace (Pistons) 21,858


2011 NBA ALL-STAR BALLOTING
WESTERN CONFERENCE

Forwards:
Kevin Durant (Thunder) 470,881
Pau Gasol (Lakers) 390,808
Carmelo Anthony (Nuggets) 369,768
Dirk Nowitzki (Mavericks) 264,301
Tim Duncan (Spurs) 247,364
Blake Griffin (Clippers) 245,167
Lamar Odom (Lakers) 134,594
Luis Scola (Rockets) 119,901
Caron Butler (Mavericks) 96,785
Kevin Love (Wolves) 81,865

Guards:
Kobe Bryant (Lakers) 722,682
Chris Paul (Hornets) 386,649
Manu Ginobili (Spurs) 230,137
Steve Nash (Suns) 190,226
Deron Williams (Jazz) 184,148
Jason Kidd (Mavericks) 141,283
Russell Westbrook (Thunder) 140,519
Eric Gordon (Clippers) 113,510
Tony Parker (Spurs) 103,238,
Derek Fisher (Lakers) 81,088

Centers:
Yao Ming (Rockets) 430,984
Andrew Bynum (Lakers) 198,044
Brendan Haywood (Mavericks) 127,375
Marc Gasol (Grizzlies) 120,811
Emeka Okafor (Hornets) 115,647
Nene (Nuggets) 105,747
Chris Kaman (Clippers) 87,536
Marcus Camby (Blazers) 57,046
DeMarcus Cousins (Kings) 37,571
Andris Biedrins (Warriors) 36,655

EAST:
Personally,I would prefer Rose as the starter,because he's a Bull,and because he's performing better than Rondo so far this season.Wade,Bron,KG and Howard the usual voted players, though I would like Amar'e to be a starter if he keeps that performances.

WEST: Kobe,KD,Gasol,CP3 and Yao!!He may be sidelined but he's voted as hell!!!