This week, the NBA released the top vote-getters for the All-Star Game coming up in February, and this has easily become one of the dumbest fucking systems in all of sports. The league has almost turned this into a meme where we are seeing players like Kevon Looney AND Austin Reaves in the top 10 of votes for their position.
You read that right. Austin fucking Reaves, who isn’t even the fourth-best player on this horrific Lakers team, is in the top 10 for votes in the West and is barely even averaging 10 PPG. All-Star my fucking ass. He’s a role player and that’s it. What’s even worse is that Kevon Looney is not even averaging 7 PPG. Adam Silver, how in the actual fuck is this allowed.
As it stands, here are the top vote-getters:
To add more salt to the wound, here are some players who should definitely be all-stars that aren’t even on this list:
Domantas Sabonis is helping turn the culture around in Sacramento and fucking lighting that beam bright. He is currently leading the league in rebounds with 12.5 a game and averaging 18.7 PPG on top of that.
Even his teammate De’Aaron Fox is getting zero love. He’s averaging 23.9 PPG with 5.9 APG.
Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant should even be more in consideration for what they were doing in Portland while Lillard was hurt (I know these could be a stretch but if Reaves and Looney are here, this shouldn’t even be a debate).
And lastly, even players like Jalen Green and Keldon Johnson are having a far better season than Green, Looney, and Reaves combined.
Look, I love the fact that fans get to vote, but this system has almost ruined what it means to be an All-Star because the fans have too much of a say. We saw it last year when Andrew Wiggins was VOTED as an all-star STARTER. In a year where he played the best basketball we have ever seen from him, he still should have been a snub for the game at best.
This year’s version of that is Klay Thompson. Don’t get me wrong here either, I think Klay is one of the best shooting guards we’ve seen in the last 10 years, but lately he hasn’t been worthy of being an all star. This is all due to his tragic injuries he suffered in back-to-back seasons, and I still think he will be back to his former self in the near future, but he’s simply not an all star this year.
Here’s how I think it should be fixed, and it’s so simple: Give fans a set list of players to vote from. This way we can actually appreciate this talented group in the league and recognize the players who are playing at an elite level night in and night out.
But, in a league with faltering regular season ratings and an asinine play-in tournament which makes a laughing stock out of the seedings, I don’t see this happening. Silver should consider something like my mentioned alternative because you still allow fans to have a say, and you can eliminate the amount of snubs we see every year.
All in all, fix this headassery Silver. If we saw real changes like this, then people might be able to care about the all-star game again. And also put the dunk contest back to normal, you coward.