
I'm old enough to remember when All-Star voting wasn't that controversial.
I would go to the NBA ballot box at McDonalds, Foot Locker, or my local AMC movie theater. Then, I would spend about 10 minutes figuring out what guards, forwards, and centers I wanted to see. I didn't care who was the "best" or "most deserving." I was voting for myself and me only. Karl Malone's cult in Utah can select him. I want to see Shawn Kemp and Kevin Garnett because the occasional appearance on Thursday's TNT games and NBA on NBC triple-headers weren't enough. After punching my votes on my third bi-fold paper ballot (the first two ended up in the trash because of my indecisiveness), I would drop it in the box and then enjoy my $2.99 Big Mac meal or $8 movie.
Months later, I would find out the All-Star results by opening up the sports section of the USA TODAY newspaper and learning the Mailman Cult outnumbered people like me. Oh well!
I would call or meet up with one of my friends to complain about a player like Joe Dumars and his 13 points per game making the team while the league leader in assists, Rod Strickland, was "snubbed" again. But I didn't care enough to be one of those angry callers on the local sports radio show. And I didn't care enough to mail a vent letter to SLAM or SPORTS ILLUSTRATED with the hopes of them publishing two sentences from it in their mail-bag section. I also only cared about Shaq back then, and he was usually the leading vote-getter.
When All-Star weekend came along, we enjoyed it. We enjoyed all of it because it looked like the players enjoyed all of it. They participated in whatever event they were invited to on Saturday (even 2Ball) and competed to win on Sunday. Players and coaches took the All-Star game so seriously that they used to have "freeze outs." Everybody remembers the MJ one in 1985, but in 1994, the Western team double and triple-teamed a young Shaq (Gary Payton denied this when I asked him about it, and don't ever ask Western All-Star coach George Karl about it).
Can you imagine if Trae Young, LaMelo Ball, and the Eastern team decided to triple-team Wemby in this year's game? That's right, the league leader in assists (Young) and the leading All-Star vote-getter (Ball) didn't make the team.
I'll leave the outrage to others, but how does a player get the most All-Star votes and have one of the top 10 selling NBA jerseys not make the team? That sounds like a slap in the face to NBA fans. What's next, replacing the All-Star game with a tournament, giving us the weakest dunk contest lineup in All-Star history, and thinking shortening the quarters to 10 minutes will make people watch more games?
I think Mavs owner Mark Cuban had the best response:
"Those tv ratings for All-Star are gonna be crazy... Lol NBA gonna, NBA JUST INSANE"
Since I'm reminiscing about the days of Mavs fans punching holes next to Shawn Bradley's name and possibly winning a SONY PlayStation or CD Discman by voting, here are some WTF memories about some of the most undeserving starters in NBA All-Star history.
In 2013, the NBA replaced "centers" from the All-Star ballot with "frontcourt players." The change meant traditional centers like Chris Kaman, James Donaldson, and Jamaal Magloire would never make another All-Star team. It also meant names like Greg Ostertag, Olden Polynice, and Michael Olowokandi would never appear on another ballot.
Of all the dinosaurs to make the team, the one that stands out to me the most was Tyrone Hill in 1995. The Cavs center averaged 14 points and 10 boards that season. Not bad, but seeing him stand next to Shaquille O'Neal, Patrick Ewing, and Alonzo Mourning on the East while facing Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson was mind-boggling. Magic coach Brian Hill probably thought the same thing, so he only played Hill for six minutes (the only player in the game with less than 10).
Also worth mentioning is Hill didn't even crack the top five in fan voting for Eastern Centers. Rik Smiths was fourth, and 42-YEAR-OLD Robert Parish was fifth (with the team's lowest number of All-Star votes).
My favorite Tyrone Hill story is his history with Charles Oakley. In 2001, Oakley hit him in the head with a basketball during a morning shootaround. This occurred a few months after Oakly slapped Hill before a preseason game and punched Jeff McInnis during another morning shootaround. Oakley had Hill so scared, according to Udonis Haslem, Hill even faked a sickness so he didn't have to play in a game against Oakley.
"I don’t know what Oak was doing at that game. But Tyrone Hill got sick, and he did not go warm up, or he did not play that night. Oak was looking for that MF. It was well-known in the locker room.”
Due to Michael Jordan opting out of the NBA's shared licensing agreement in 1992, the GOAT didn't appear in most video games in the 90s. So, some video game makers stuck a mysterious, high-flying shooting guard who couldn't miss a shot on the Chicago Bulls roster. Fans loved MJ so much that they played with that player and pretended it said Michael Jordan.
Back in 1994, MJ was playing baseball during the first of his three retirements from the NBA. His fans loved him so much that they had to have a Bulls guard starting in the NBA All-Star game. So they voted for B.J. Armstrong so much that he not only made the team, but he ended up with the third most All-Star votes.
I remember seeing the announcement and thinking, "You know that's not MJ, right?"
How could B.J. and his averages of 16 points and 4 assists get more votes than Penny Hardaway, Reggie Miller, Gary Payton, Clyde Drexler, John Stockton, Mark Price, and his teammate, Scottie Pippen, who was having an MVP-type season?
B.J.'s final stats from his only All-Star appearance were 11 points and 4 assists. As for his teammate, Pippen had 29 and won MVP of the game.
Unfortunately for B.J., the Toronto Raptors took him first in the 1995 NBA Expansion Draft, so he never got to win another championship with MJ. If you are trying to remember B.J. as a Raptor, you can't because he refused to report.
He eventually ended up in Charlotte, where he got to face off against MJ in the 1998 Playoffs. In Game 2 of the series, B.J. knocked down a game-winner and let his former teammate know about it. As expected, MJ took it personally.
"I felt like B.J. should know better," Jordan said in THE LAST DANCE. "If you're going to high-five, talk trash, now I had a bone to pick with you. I'm supposed to kill this guy. I'm supposed to dominate this guy and from that point on, I did."
The Bulls won the next three games behind 30.3 points from MJ.
Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest trash-talker ever. But Scottie Pippen delivered arguably the greatest trash-talking line ever during Game 1 of the 1997 NBA Finals: "The Mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays."
The line was said to Karl Malone right before the Mailman missed two free throws with 9.2 seconds left in regulation. Michael Jordan grabbed the rebound on the second miss and delivered the game-winner at the buzzer.
Seven years earlier, Malone didn't want to deliver on All-Star Sunday because he was upset that fans voted AC Green into the starting lineup.
I don't ever, ever, ever want to agree with Malone on anything, but he did have a right to feel offended. Malone was averaging 31 points, an MVP candidate, the MVP of the previous year's All-Star game, and the best power forward in the game. Green was good for 13 and 9 a night for the Showtime Lakers.
After threatening to boycott the game and saying he would go fishing in Louisiana instead, he decided to attend the weekend as a reserve. Malone, being Malone, chose not to play "due to an injury" and watched Green go scoreless in 12 minutes of action.
How injured was Malone? He only scored 61 points in 33 minutes on 81% shooting against the Bucks a few nights later.
The city of Detroit was celebrating Cade Cunningham's All-Star berth because the last Pistons' guard they had in the All-Star game was Allen Iverson in 2009. Most people probably don't remember AI's 57 games with the Pistons, and he and most Pistons fans would like to forget about them.
In 2008, after three regular season games, the Nuggets traded Iverson for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess. Initially, things weren't looking too bad, as AI scored 20+ in six of his first 10 games. But as the season went on, the shot attempts went down, and AI grew frustrated with his role on the team that wanted him to come off the bench for Rodney Stuckey. The next thing you know, he's deactivated, watching the team get swept in the playoffs, and his time in Detroit is over. Unfortunately, the curse of trading Big Shot isn't; they haven't won a single playoff game since.
After saying he would rather retire than be a 6th Man, he signed a one-year deal with the Grizzlies, who asked him to come off the bench. He tried it for three games and then left the team for personal reasons. The team terminated his contract.
At 34, Iverson said he was going to retire. That plan lasted just five days. The Sixers asked him to come home but for the league minimum. He accepted, and despite playing less than 20 games, the fans voted him to be an All-Star starter (listen to Kenny's reaction in the following video).
"The way I look at it is, what should I do?" Iverson said of the selection. "Should I worry about what those people say or concentrate on the million-plus people that voted for me? To me, it's a no-brainer. My fans want to see me play and they have the right to put in who they want to put in the game. They voted me in, and it's an honor. I don't want to disrespect them by not participating in the game."
He ended up not playing in the game "due to an injury" and playing a total of 46 games before being released in his final season. It was far from the farewell tour you would expect for one of the most influential players in NBA history.
In 2014, an injured Kobe Bryant averaged 13.8 points for a total of six games. That was still enough for fans to give him more votes than Chris Paul, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Dame Lillard. Kobe even asked the fans not to vote for him.
"Even though there's so much respect that comes from me to be able to play for the fans, I'd much rather see the young guys go out there and play in the game. They've obviously put the work in to be there that weekend, so I'd much rather see them go in there and participate."
Kobe sat out the game, which allowed Harden to get his first All-Star start.
In 2015, fans once again voted Kobe into the All-Star game despite his 22 points per game on 37% shooting and James Harden having his second straight All-NBA 1st team season. Due to a torn rotator cuff, Kobe didn't play or even attend the event.
Regardless of how awful Kobe played in 2016, there was no chance he wouldn't make the team during his farewell season, which was also the final season of just fans determining the starters.
The league was more than happy with Kobe leading all All-Stars in votes. They weren't so happy seeing a couple of other names in the Western frontcourt.
In 2017, after seeing Pachulia was on pace to start in the All-Star game over Kawhi Leonard, the league split the voting into fans, players, and media. It was called "The Zaza Rule."
"First of all, I'm gonna take the credit," Pachulia said. "We gonna take the credit as Georgians that we changed the rules, so you guys can call it Zaza rules."
Some of you might know "The Zaza Rule" as another rule from the same year. In Game 1 of the 2017 WCF, Kawhi Leonard injured his ankle after landing on the foot of Zaza, who placed his foot under Kawhi as he was landing. The incident led to a NBA rule change about "reckless closeouts" and this wild response from Coach Popovich:
"Who gives a damn about what his intent was? You ever heard of manslaughter? You still go to jail I think if you’re Texan and you kill somebody. And you might not have intended to do that. All I care is what I saw. All I care about is what happened. And the history there exacerbates the whole situation and makes me very, very angry."
Recap: In 2017, Zaza Pachulia averaged 6 points and 6 rebounds, almost started in the All-Star game, was responsible for two rule changes, and won the first of back-to-back NBA Championships.
“I never asked anybody to vote for me last year," Pachulia said. "That’s the beauty of it. That’s the special part of it.”
I agree with him. I believe in giving voting FANS what they want regarding All-Star weekend. And if fans want to see LaMelo Ball or Trae Young over a "better" player on a more winning team, give them LaMelo and Trae and reward that "better" player when All-NBA teams are selected.
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