I rather our players have time to rest and relax. The regular season (and post-season) are more important than the all-star game.
They should really have 2 on 2 street ball competitions of three teams. Fan voting, No refs, first to 10 wins, play by 1's & 2's.
+1. I don't understand the whining that goes on every season about the all star game, and how to "fix it". It's an entertainment event for fans. So the fans get to choose who they want to see play in it. Oh no! It's always the top names. Well no shit. Who cares?
I think veterans vs youth would be interesting. US vs the World could be good but I'm not sure if the teams would be even enough. They should keep something with the fan vote, like the top guard and top big man from each conference make the team, but not the entire starting 5.
Its because being an all-star is used by many to validate how successful players are. It allows players to get a larger contract. Its used for casual fans who don’t closely follow all NBA players. Mo Williams will always be known as the “former all-star”. LaMarcus wasn’t considered a top player at his position until he became an all-star. I don’t know hardly and linemen in the NFL, but when a team has an all-pro tackle and an all-pro guard I instantly know they at least have some talent and potentially good players at those positions. You can say the all-star game is only entertainment, yes that’s true; but ask yourself what the entire purpose of sports is? Athletes aren’t curing illness, they don’t build houses, they don’t deliver food. Sports are purely entertainment, so a show that puts on the consensus “best” in basketball is going to be interesting to many.
I know the Blazers have tried to get the fans involved in the past. Maybe they could do some kind of promotion at a few games. Fill out five ballots and receive a free hotdog (or beer). If you had 20k fans fill out five ballots each for even just four or five games, that would be 500,000 votes right there. Even LeBron only gets something like 1.5 million votes, which isn't that much in the grande scheme of things.
How do you get to a consensus? Being strictly entertainment, it's for the fans to choose what they want to see. Just because in Portland we don't want to see Blake and Kobe, there's enough fans of the entertainment of the game who want those guys in there as starters. As for trying to actually get the best players out there, however that may be determined, the Spurs seem to struggle in the ratings department, and I hear even hardcore basketball fans talk about them being boring, even though they play great basketball. So I don't see that being a success if it's strictly entertainment value for a weekend.
I only want our guys to make the team because I feel like they'll get better treatment from the refs. That's the only reason why I care about it.
That's what I'm saying. It's not hard to get voted into the team. It just takes the effort by one of us to organize it.
