After the starting lineups for this year’s NBA All-Star Game were announced on Thursday, some analysts think the votes from players, which accounted for 25% of the overall vote count, should be removed from the equation in the future.
In a bit of a strange twist, Alex Kennedy, who is the Managing Editor for Basketball Insiders, reports that a large number of players did not vote for two of the NBA’s premier stars.
As Kennedy reports, there were 128 players who didn’t vote for LeBron James – quite a high number for the greatest basketball player on the planet. Also questionable is the fact that 154 players elected to leave Kevin Durant, who’s a four-time scoring champion and eight-time All-Star, off their ballot.
It seems loads of players chose to cast their single vote for themselves. Furthermore, some players who haven’t logged a single minute this season, including former Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Mo Williams, received a vote, as Tom Haberstroh of ESPN recently tweeted.
Have not played this season but still received player votes: Ben Simmons, Brice Johnson, Mo Williams, Khris Middleton and Quincy Pondexter. https://t.co/9P3FtXWjr7
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) January 20, 2017
My favorite part of the NBA All-Star voting: the players that voted for themselves … err… players that got one player vote! pic.twitter.com/euBCdae9Hj
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) January 20, 2017
Maybe some of these players received votes from their teammates, but there has to be a line drawn in the sand at some point, especially since their vote accounts for one quarter of the final tally
