duncan228
01-26-2009, 09:52 PM
NBA commissioner facing his own China Syndrome with All-Star voting (http://www.star-telegram.com/nbainsider/story/1163355.html)
By Jan Hubbard
On Bruce Bowen’s Facebook page, I discovered that he has 3,891 friends.
I thought that explained how he finished third among Western Conference forwards in All-Star voting, but then I found out that you can vote only once a day from each computer. My calculations are that each of those friends would have to own six computers for Bowen’s total of nearly 1.4 million votes to add up. That seems unlikely.
Regardless of how it was done, Bowen finished a little more than 68,000 votes behind Amare Stoudemire for the second starting spot in the West and had more votes than Dirk Nowitzki, Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol, Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh.
And leagues wonder why players, executives and writers criticize fan voting.
The Bowen phenomenon may be the best piece of news the NBA has received in a while, however, because it gives the league a wonderful excuse for creating an intelligent All-Star voting system.
David Stern loves the potential riches of China almost as much as Homer Simpson loves beer, but their respective passions have created dilemmas for David and Homer.
In Stern’s case, the passion of Chinese fans translates into millions of eyeballs watching NBA games on TV and millions of dollars spent on replica jerseys and assorted paraphernalia.
Chinese fans, however, are as loyal as they are passionate. And that has distorted the fabric of All-Star voting for two years.
Last year, the NBA put out its official ballot with Tim Duncan listed as a center instead of a forward. When San Antonio officials, Duncan and Mrs. Duncan became upset about it, Duncan was moved back to forward on the Internet ballot and made the starting team for the ninth consecutive year.
The reason for the unhappiness was the intimidating presence of Yao Ming, who controls the Chinese bloc that is the most powerful voting machine this side of Chicago politics. If Duncan were eligible only at center, his streak of All-Star starts was in doubt.
Interestingly, Duncan went on to get more votes than Yao last year and this year.
But the Chinese voting bloc almost delivered second favorite son Yi Jianlian of the Nets to the East starting lineup. Yi had more than 1.8 million votes, only about 250,000 fewer than Kevin Garnett and more than all forwards in the league except Garnett, Duncan and LeBron James
Yi is a 21-year-old forward with fabulous potential, but he is currently the 142nd-leading scorer in the league (10.5) and the 68th-leading rebounder (6.2). He is not close to All-Star status at this point in his career.
The problem for Stern has been this: If he changed rules for All-Star voting — say, giving more weight to coaches, executives, players and the media while decreasing the strength of Internet voting, it would look anti-Chinese.
Stern would rather refund all of Mark Cuban’s fine money than even take the slightest chance of irritating Chinese fans (i.e. pocketbooks).
And that’s where Bowen comes to the rescue. He has been an extraordinary player, a blue-collar worker who has elevated himself to one of the greatest 6-7 defensive players in the history of the NBA.
At points in his career, an All-Star berth would have been richly deserved. But not now, not at age 37 when he no longer even starts for the Spurs.
And so Stern can look at the Bowen near-miss and have his translators tell the Chinese with straight faces that this was not about a fine player like Yi, it was about an elderly American whose near-selection almost made a mockery of the All-Star starting lineup.
It is important to star players who have made the NBA so popular in China to be All-Star starters. It is not an honor that should be sold to the largest voting bloc, anymore than a Senate seat should be sold to the highest bidder.
Stern should not let a foolish system penalize his primary assets. He owes it to his star players to make All-Star voting fair. He has an opening now to change the system and he should take advantage of it. Afterwards, he can thank Bruce Bowen in a most appropriate manner — perhaps by becoming Bowen’s 3,892nd friend on Facebook.
By Jan Hubbard
On Bruce Bowen’s Facebook page, I discovered that he has 3,891 friends.
I thought that explained how he finished third among Western Conference forwards in All-Star voting, but then I found out that you can vote only once a day from each computer. My calculations are that each of those friends would have to own six computers for Bowen’s total of nearly 1.4 million votes to add up. That seems unlikely.
Regardless of how it was done, Bowen finished a little more than 68,000 votes behind Amare Stoudemire for the second starting spot in the West and had more votes than Dirk Nowitzki, Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol, Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh.
And leagues wonder why players, executives and writers criticize fan voting.
The Bowen phenomenon may be the best piece of news the NBA has received in a while, however, because it gives the league a wonderful excuse for creating an intelligent All-Star voting system.
David Stern loves the potential riches of China almost as much as Homer Simpson loves beer, but their respective passions have created dilemmas for David and Homer.
In Stern’s case, the passion of Chinese fans translates into millions of eyeballs watching NBA games on TV and millions of dollars spent on replica jerseys and assorted paraphernalia.
Chinese fans, however, are as loyal as they are passionate. And that has distorted the fabric of All-Star voting for two years.
Last year, the NBA put out its official ballot with Tim Duncan listed as a center instead of a forward. When San Antonio officials, Duncan and Mrs. Duncan became upset about it, Duncan was moved back to forward on the Internet ballot and made the starting team for the ninth consecutive year.
The reason for the unhappiness was the intimidating presence of Yao Ming, who controls the Chinese bloc that is the most powerful voting machine this side of Chicago politics. If Duncan were eligible only at center, his streak of All-Star starts was in doubt.
Interestingly, Duncan went on to get more votes than Yao last year and this year.
But the Chinese voting bloc almost delivered second favorite son Yi Jianlian of the Nets to the East starting lineup. Yi had more than 1.8 million votes, only about 250,000 fewer than Kevin Garnett and more than all forwards in the league except Garnett, Duncan and LeBron James
Yi is a 21-year-old forward with fabulous potential, but he is currently the 142nd-leading scorer in the league (10.5) and the 68th-leading rebounder (6.2). He is not close to All-Star status at this point in his career.
The problem for Stern has been this: If he changed rules for All-Star voting — say, giving more weight to coaches, executives, players and the media while decreasing the strength of Internet voting, it would look anti-Chinese.
Stern would rather refund all of Mark Cuban’s fine money than even take the slightest chance of irritating Chinese fans (i.e. pocketbooks).
And that’s where Bowen comes to the rescue. He has been an extraordinary player, a blue-collar worker who has elevated himself to one of the greatest 6-7 defensive players in the history of the NBA.
At points in his career, an All-Star berth would have been richly deserved. But not now, not at age 37 when he no longer even starts for the Spurs.
And so Stern can look at the Bowen near-miss and have his translators tell the Chinese with straight faces that this was not about a fine player like Yi, it was about an elderly American whose near-selection almost made a mockery of the All-Star starting lineup.
It is important to star players who have made the NBA so popular in China to be All-Star starters. It is not an honor that should be sold to the largest voting bloc, anymore than a Senate seat should be sold to the highest bidder.
Stern should not let a foolish system penalize his primary assets. He owes it to his star players to make All-Star voting fair. He has an opening now to change the system and he should take advantage of it. Afterwards, he can thank Bruce Bowen in a most appropriate manner — perhaps by becoming Bowen’s 3,892nd friend on Facebook.