No way should Bruce Bowen or Yi Jianlian be anywhere near the top of the voting for the NBA All-Star Game in February.
Bowen, who plays for the Western Conference’s San Antonio Spurs, and Jianlian, a member of the Eastern Conference’s New Jersey Nets, each finished third in their respective conference’s forward positions.
Even though they weren’t elected to the team, it’s still a problem between what’s right and wrong with the process.
Bowen is a defensive specialist at best, averages a lowly 2.8 points per game and has started just nine of 41 games this season for the Spurs. Jianlian has started 37 games but averages 10.5 points and 6.2 rebounds per game for the Nets.
This is what happens when you let the fans have complete control of the vote: Bowen collected 1,392,398 votes and Jianlian received 1,813,829 votes.
These are some of the deserving players they finished ahead of: Carmelo Anthony and Pau Gasol in the West; Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh and Danny Granger in the East.
The reason both finished high in the results is their tie to China, which also is allowed to cast a vote. Bowen taught a basketball clinic in China, while Jianlian played for the Chinese National Team in the Beijing Olympics.
The coaches and media should account for half of the vote.
While I’m at it, here are a few other ways to improve All-Star Weekend:
No more dunk contest
I know, Dwight Howard put on a nice performance in last year’s competition — donning the Superman cape en route to the title — but how many more new dunks are there that people have never seen?
Technically, Howard’s clinching slam wasn’t even a dunk — he never got to the rim and literally threw the ball in. It did look nice, I’ll give him that much credit.
Soon enough players will be risking serious injury trying to pull off a 720 or something insane.
The overall field doesn’t really impress the audience and watching Nate Robinson get 15 attempts to pull off a dunk or pass out trying is torture.
What about a game of H-O-R-S-E?
Anybody who has gone to the playground with their friends has played the game or attempted some half-court hook shot with their non-shooting hand.
A competition like that would probably even convince some of the game’s biggest stars like LeBron James or Kobe Bryant to participate.
The possibility of injury shouldn’t be too high considering some of the most basic-looking trick shots don’t require as much energy as a 360 windmill slam.
Axe the Shooting Stars competition
Does anybody actually like watching a washed up Magic Johnson and some no-name from the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks team up with Lakers guard Derek Fisher?
It’s like watching a team go through shootaround and forcing the television audience to pay attention for 30 minutes.
Two paragraphs is all that horrible competition is worth.