I don't hate Steph I just hate on Steph. It's not a reaction to the player or person I see him as but my reaction to the way so many overvalue the player and person they see him being. In reality if Steph was seen as the greatest shooter of all time and having a good handle and being a decent passer with holes in his game all over the place besides those very important skills, then I'd be totally cool with him.
I would guess Lillard has pockets of NBA fans that detest him based on what he's done to their organizations with prime time buzzer beaters, hand waves, stone cold facial expressions, etc. I love Dame as does the Portland fanbase. But try getting an all star vote of out Houston and OKC fans not to mention many other fan bases Dame has deflated in his career.
He got nearly 1/2 million more votes than Dame. Its because of population and European votes that have been following Doncic for years. Possibly a good percentage of Euros could have be white but in the good old USA round baller fans like us would vote for whomever they follow. Im sure a good percentage of that nearly 1/2 million votes were black or some other ethnicity.
I don't think every team's base is the same as "round baller fans like us". I see Boston, Cleveland, Utah and other teams' fan bases talking about who the best white player is and if they are underrated a lot more than we do. I know that Portland is the whitest major metro area in the U.S. outside of Pittsburgh but that doesn't mean we have the cultural biases that stat might indicate, other areas might have those biases though.
I am a reasonably intelligent guy and for the life of me can't figure out how the all star team selection works. There are captains that pick the teams but the starters are already determined?
10 starters are picked by the process we've just seen (and apparently hate?). 2 of those starters are the team captains. When the captains select their teams, the first 8 picks have to be the non-captain starter selections. Then the reserves will be selected, starting with pick #9.
Yeah, the "captains" choose back and forth between the other 8 starters and then back an forth after that with the reserves. One guy gets first pick of starters and the other the first pick of the reserves.
I thing regardless of the city you live in NBA fans will vote whom they follow and like regardless of color. Ive got friends in Milwaukee, Boston, Chicago and other cities that are huge basketball fans both pro & college and they will support legit players regardless of color, and try not to be bias and if they are its because of team they team, player or conference, not race. Dame imo has outplayed Doncic, and I would select select Mitchell over Doncic. Im a white dude.
Tell that to the 1.4 billion mainland Chinese...they definitely think of him as Chinese, but this is one of the three T topics you don't discuss openly in the mainland.
That’s interesting information but team record has to be considered as well, and what Dame is doing with legitimate stars out is not only All-Star starter, but also MVP-level.
Rodman was a kook even back then, his comment would have been ignored but when Isiah Thomas agreed it set off that huge controversy and a sequence of events that led to Stockton on the Dream Team while Zeke sat home because he was so hated by Jordan and Bird.
This just adds to my issues with the AllStar game. Either it's an event for the fans and carries no weight in terms of resume or standing. OR it is something that warrants mentioning and the fans should play no part. I don't like that it straddles both. Fans don't know shit. If you want to have an event for the fans, great, but the media and the league shouldn't put any weight behind an Allstar nod. All of the weight should be behind All-NBA nods. But that's not how it is. People talk about someone being an All-Star as if it means something. So the league either needs to shit or get off the pot. Take the fans out of the equation and actually make the honor valuable, OR go full retard and let the fans own the stupid event.
Dirk started in the all star game twice in his career. in 2010 as an injury replacement for Kobe. in 2007 as an injury replacement for Yao. He was not voted in on any of his 14 appearances. It has nothing to do with market.
While you're right that Thomas' agreement set off a huge controversy, all the accounts of that time suggest Thomas being left off the Olympic team was due to solely to Jordan, not Bird (Jordan apparently said "It's him or me"). And Jordan didn't care about that comment, he was focused on what he considered slights against him by Thomas, notably the supposed freeze-out of him in his first All Star game and the walk-off when the Bulls finally beat the Pistons in the playoffs, both organized by Thomas in Jordan's opinion.
I know all of that but if you watch the Bad Boys documentary Bird hated Zeke after that garbage. Thomas somehow managed to piss off two of the biggest “chip on their shoulder” superstars in pro sports history to the point it cost him a Dream Team spot. Quite possibly Zeke’s greatest achievement outside of the two titles and NCAA title.
Maybe the league should have the fan voting weighted based on the country. I.e., US votes count for 60% of the vote, Non US counts for 40 or something. I'd like to see the makeup of the vote based on country of origin for the vote.
