Tweaking The NBA All-Star Game
Quick –name the last three All-Star game MVPs. Can you do it? Probably not.
Okay, try this one instead – name two players that got snubbed from last year’s All-Star game. Do any better? My guess is no.
So what is my point? As soon as the All-Star game is over, everyone forgets it. As they probably should; it’s an exhibition put on for the fans that ultimately has no consequence. So why do we spend so much time getting bent out of shape about who deserved to be in, who didn’t deserve to be in, or how the fan voting usually ends up shafting someone deserving out of a spot in the starting lineup? Isn’t it all just wasted energy?
Well, I’m here to waste more energy. I have a few tweaks that will help solve the problems. The NBA is falling behind in All-Star game progressiveness. Every other major sports league has tossed a wrinkle into their respective All-Star games to make them more interesting. The league that wins Baseball’s All-Star game now has home field advantage in the World Series. The NHL played North America vs. The World a few times, and now they go with a pickup format where two captains pick teams. The NFL moved the Pro Bowl before the Super Bowl. The NBA All-Star game hasn’t changed at all for 20 years. So let’s see how we can improve it.
Of course, none of the ideas were originally mine; that would require lateral thinking on my part. But I did fuse them together. So although I deserve little to no credit, I will accept it should you wish to give it to me.
First tweak – get rid of the divisions in the voting process. Ditch positions, ditch conferences. Let the fans vote on whoever they want to vote for, and the top 10 vote-getters make the All-Star squad. The most basic of democracies. If all 10 guys voted in are forwards from the same conference, we’ll sort that out with our 2nd tweak (coming up in a minute).
Why does this help? Well, for example, in this year’s voting, Rajon Rondo finished 3rd in the voting for Eastern Conference guards, but he got more votes than Chris Paul (2nd among Western Conference guards). Yet Chris Paul gets an automatic spot and Rondo had to get voted in by the coaches. Shouldn’t Rondo get the automatic spot because he got more votes? I know what you’re saying – I’m screwing it up because they play in different conferences. Well, that leads us to the 2nd tweak:
Follow the lead of the NHL and have the All-Star game be a giant pickup game. Kobe and LeBron are the captains, and they pick teams. No more conference boundaries. We just need 24 guys. And because we’re ditching positional requirements (to an extent, I’ll explain in a minute), we really do end up with the 24 best guys (unlike this year, which I will also get to).
So what’s the deal with positions? Why do we shackle ourselves with five titles that were once rigidly defined but now look more like a color wheel? Yeah, they’re different, but they also blend together. Is Stephen Curry a point guard or a shooting guard? Is Andre Iguodala a shooting guard or a small forward? Is Jeff Green a small forward or a power forward? Is Al Jefferson a power forward or a center? I honestly don’t have a definitive answer for any of those questions. If I gave you a group of Amar’e Stoudemire, Tim Duncan, and Dwight Howard, who would be the odd man out in terms of style? It would be Amar’e, right? The other two guys are back to the basket players that rebound well and protect the rim. But these arbitrary names for positions tell us that it’s actually Dwight Howard that is the odd man out, because he is a “center” and the other two guys are “power forwards.” Huh? Why do we still nitpick over them with All-Star selections?
Here’s my solution (or, better said, John Hollinger’s solution): Instead of using 5 hyper-specific positions, we use 3 broader categories. Point Guards (stays the same), Wings (SG/SFs), and Bigs (PF/Cs). For our 24-person pickup game, we’ll need four Point Guards (two for each team), eight Wings (four for each team), and eight Bigs (ditto), and then we can throw in four wild cards that can be whatever position we need. And even those numbers should be malleable. As long as you get 24 deserving guys, that’s all that matters. For instance, this year, when there are as many as eight All-Star caliber point guards, we can find room for all of them. In another year, if there are 12 big guys that deserve All-Star spots, we can find room for them too.
So what do we end up with? We end up with a system where Ray Allen doesn’t make the All-Star game over Steve Nash. Don’t get me wrong, Ray Allen is having a fine season, sporting the best shooting percentages of his career, but at the same time, he’s only the fourth-best guy on a team that isn’t even within six games of the best record in the league. I just don’t see how he is more deserving than Steve Nash, who is having perhaps his best season ever. Seriously. First look up his numbers, and then remember that he lost his most productive offensive teammate. The only reason Ray Allen (as well as Joe Johnson) are in the All-Star game and Steve Nash isn’t is because Allen and Johnson play in the Eastern Conference, a conference that only has seven no-brainer All-Star selections this year (as opposed to the West, which has about 34).
So, by my estimation, we have 17 no-brainer All-Stars this season. They are:
Point Guards: Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Steve Nash
Wings: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Manu Ginobili
Bigs: Dwight Howard, Amar’e Stoudemire, Pau Gasol, Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Love
So now we have seven spots left to fill. In a perfect world, we probably need one or two more Wings and two or three more Bigs, so here are five more guys that deserve to be in:
18. LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland
He’s finally doing the things that all of his former detractors (like, me, for example) used to bring up – he’s playing in the post, he’s rebounding, he’s taking over games when he needs to, and he’s carrying the Portland offense with Brandon Roy out with injury. This is a pretty easy decision.
19. Deron Williams, Utah
Does it concern me that the longest tenured coach in the NBA quit following an (alleged) disagreement with Williams that boiled over, and that Utah looks like a team that’s about to fall apart? Of course it does. But that doesn’t change the fact that Williams is still having a fantastic season. He’s in.
20. Kevin Garnett, Boston
He’s the quarterback of the best defense in the league, and he’s still got a reliable offensive game. As we’ve seen in Boston’s games against Miami, Garnett can still single-handedly control the paint on both ends in important games. He can’t do it every night, just because he can’t play at that energy level every night, but when the money is on the table, there might not be a better power forward in the league.
21. Tim Duncan, San Antonio
I mean, seriously. He’s Tim Duncan. For the most part, his numbers are only down because his minutes are down. His rebounding and defense are still as good as they’ve ever been. The only difference is that the Spurs aren’t leaning on him for offense anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s not an All-Star.
22. Al Horford, Atlanta
Never gets his due because he’s not a flashy player, but he’s remarkably efficient and he’s a gamer. One of my favorites.
Now we have two spots left, and the following pool of players to choose from:
Tony Parker, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Monta Ellis, Zach Randolph, Kevin Martin, Chris Bosh, Nene, Eric Gordon, Lamar Odom, Stephen Curry, and David West.
(Crap, there’s still someone that’s going to get snubbed)
Another tweak! Where is it written in stone that we can only have 24 players and 12 to each team? Doesn’t each NBA team get 15 roster spots? The NBA All-Star game needs some aggressive expansion, that’s what it needs! 30 players!
Good. Now that we’ve got that settled, here are the last eight players:
23. Tony Parker, San Antonio
Whenever a team starts the season 46-9, they probably deserve three All-Stars if they have three players playing at a high level.
24. Paul Pierce, Boston
Whenever a team starts the season 40-14, they probably deserve three All-Stars if they have three players playing at a high level.
25. Chris Bosh, Miami
Whenever a team starts the season 41-15, they probably deserve three All-Stars if they have three players playing at a high level.
26. Lamar Odom, Los Angeles
Whenever a team starts the season 38-19, they probably deserve three All-Stars if they have three players playing at a high level.
27. Ray Allen, Boston
He broke the career record for 3PT made in a career, and he’s on pace to shoot over 50% from the floor, over 40% from three, over 85% from the line, and score over 17 points per game, which would put him in a club with Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Drazen Petrovic, Jeff Hornacek, and Mark Price. I’ll say he’s in.
28. Joe Johnson, Atlanta
Just ’cuz.
29. Monta Ellis, Golden State
He’s got a fan-friendly game and he scores in bunches. He’s a perfect fit for an exhibition game where nobody plays defense and teams combine to shoot the ball close to 250 times. It’s just like every game he’s played in his career
30. Kevin Martin, Houston
Having a sneaky good season. He makes up for his forgettable FG% (only 43.8%) by shooting 40% on over five attempts from downtown and getting to the line almost nine times a game (and shooting 88% when he gets there). Just another case of where True Shooting % (a stat that adjust for the fact that threes are worth an extra point) is more telling than straight FG%. Too often people look only at FG% to judge whether a player is scoring efficiently, when a better way to look for that information is through TS% and Points per shot attempt.
(Tangent on the usefulness of TS%: Derrick Rose is shooting 44.5% from the floor this year (compared to 48.9% last year), but is actually scoring more efficiently. This year, he’s taking more threes (and making a higher percentage of them), and he’s getting to the line more (and making a higher percentage of his free throws). Last year, Rose scores 20.8 points on 17.6 shots per game (1.18 points per attempt). This year, despite shooting a lower percentage overall, he’s scoring 24.5 points on 20.0 shots per game (1.23 points per attempt), and his TS% is up from 53.2% to 54.0%)
So, yeah, that fixes all of our problems right? And if not, well, give me a break. I’m not [expletive deleted] Superman.
