First off, I am loving the plethora of “I can’t believe Paul Milsap was left off the All-Star Ballot.” articles that are littering the web in the last few weeks. Any national articles lauding a Jazz man are ok in my book.
Second, I could not care less that he was left off the All-Star ballot. If anything, it just shows that the way they pick the nominees, basically a few writers/columnists from around the country get together in a room and pick, is flawed. Dumb. Really, it doesn’t really matter anyway. Paul was never going to get voted in by the fans anyway. NBA All-Star voters around the world vote in stars regardless of their stats. Millsap could put up 40 a game in the first half of the season and still not get voted in because he is not really a “name” yet. You have to remember that All-Star voters come from around the world so they vote in the guys they know. i.e. Guys the NBA promotes. To the best of my knowledge, the Jazz have had one game on national TV. Lakers/Celtics/Heat got to be at least 6/7 times. I mean take a look at some of the dubious All-Star starters voted in by the fans.
2010 – Allen Iverson – Played 19 games up to the All-Star break. Cut by the Grizzlies. 2007 – Shaq – Had only played 4 games for the Heat that season.
Every year – Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady leading the field in votes. I can personally attest that this is due to ballot-stuffing in China. People in China love some T-MAC. Even though he is now a marginal role player for the Pistons he will still be in the top 10 for Eastern forwards. Mark my words.
In fact, you can pretty much call who the All-Stars will be right now. What’s the point of voting? Here is what they will be:
EAST:
Dwayne Wade
Rondo or Derrick Rose (This is the only one I am not sure about. People will probably be so shocked that they can’t vote for Allen Iverson they might have a heart attack)
Lebron
Kevin Garnett
Dwight Howard
WEST
Chris Paul
Kobe
Carmelo/Durant (I had Carmelo as a lock but I think KD is starting to take off internationally so he will not be denied.
Tim Duncan
Yao
That’s the list. Even though some of these guys are hardly deserving of another selection they will still get the votes. Millsap may be killing Timmy Duncan in the stats department (he is) but it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t have been a starter. The lucky thing is that if he keeps playing the way he is playing he will get the call from the West Head Coach to be an All-Star reserve. D-Will will get one too.
However, the best part of the story is that the guy who cares the least about the “snub” is Paul himself. When asked by the writer’s decision, Millsap said "It's just one of those things." "It's not a big deal to me. I'm going to get out there and continue to do what I'm going to do." Way to be, big man. Keep on killin’ it out there.
Just for fun the following scrubs are on the All-star ballot. Recall that Millsap is averaging 20.4 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 1.21 spg, .93 bpg.
Ron Artest – 9 ppg/3.5 rpg
Trevor Ariza – 10 ppg/5 rpg
Caron Butler – 13 ppg/4 rpg
Grant Hill – 13 ppg / 4 rpg
Hedo Turkoglu – 10 ppg/3 rpg
And that is just the West Forwards. There are plenty of other jokes there as well.
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