With the voting for the NBA All-Star game beginning soon, many are already looking forward to the big weekend and want to cast their vote for the players they believe are deserving to be part of the annual event.
This year, however, will have a different format for how the participants will be chosen as the NBA will be making the fans’ votes only account for 50 percent, as opposed to 100 percent in the past for the starters. In addition to that, the rest is to be split between current players and selected members of the media.
The changes made by the league to the selection process has not been their most popular decision and one of the NBA’s elite point guards in Kyrie Irving has shared his thoughts on media members having a say in who plays in the All-Star game.
“It is what it is, honestly. I guess they’re trying to fix the deserving factor maybe. Leaving it up to the players, that’s good as well. Leaving it up to the fans, that’s good as well. But the other 25 percent I think they need to throw out.”
“They just do. They just do. Everyone is going to be biased anyway, so it’s cool.”
The Cleveland Cavaliers‘ star is referring to reporters or broadcasters leaning more towards voting for players they are covering or those more friendly to the media. Small market teams or teams who won’t normally have an All-Star could very well end up being representatives for their team if they garner enough votes.
Voting will commence on Christmas Day, where fans can go to the league’s official website, app or through social media to cast their votes. For fans in China, they can use Sina Weibo and Tencent Microblogs to make their selections count.
Should there be some questionable results in this year’s voting, it will be interesting to see how the league will react to it and what changes they will make in the future to make sure the top 12 players in each conference will be the ones playing in the mid-year showcase.