Monday is the last day to submit your votes for 2019’s NBA All-Star starters. Once the fan vote has been closed, the league will also take into account the picks made by players and media members in order to determine this year’s starters.
While the All-Star Game itself no longer pits the Western Conference against the Eastern Conference, the selection format still dictates that five starters must come from each conference. Given a somewhat underwhelming crop of star guards in the East this season, that format ensures that Kyrie Irving will likely be joined by one of Ben Simmons, Bradley Beal, or Kemba Walker in the Eastern backcourt.
Those players are having strong seasons, but there will be reserves in the Western Conference more deserving of a starting nod. Due to the conference and position restrictions, two players out of the five-man Western frontcourt group of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Nikola Jokic, and Anthony Davis won’t crack the starting lineup.
The two frontcourt stars in that group who miss out on starting spots will still end up on the All-Star roster. However, there may be other deserving players who don’t make the cut — even though the rules on positions are less restrictive for the reserves, coaches are still limited to picking seven players in each conference, rather than simply choosing the next 14 best players, regardless of position or conference.
As Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer details in a column on his All-Star picks, he spoke to a number of people around the league – including executives, coaches, and reporters – about their own All-Star selections, and all of them admitted that if they were just asked to pick the NBA’s 24 best players, they wouldn’t get to 12 in the East. According to O’Connor, everyone he polled chose between eight and 11 Eastern players in that hypothetical scenario — the most common response was nine, with the other 15 coming from the West.
Given how many players around the NBA have All-Star bonuses and incentives in their contracts, the league won’t be able to unilaterally alter the selection format without some pushback from the players. Still, it’s an idea worth considering.
If the actual All-Star Game no longer features Eastern Conference players vs. Western Conference players, does it make sense to still require an even number of representatives from each side? And now that we’re in an era of so-called “positionless” basketball, would it make sense to further loosen the restrictions on positions in the selection process?
What do you think? Should the All-Star selection format be changed and modernized to better identify the NBA’s 24 best players, or is it fine as is?
I honestly don’t see any sense in playing the game. Take the mid-season break, give out the awards for “best players of a little more than the first half of the season,” and let everybody have a few days of RnR.
Such an odd system where we reward the best players with less rest AND an additional opportunity to get hurt.
MLB is the same. But they force 1 player per team. I think the idea is merely to hold an event in different cities promoting the league and some up and comers in the rook soph game. The idea that Wade will be an All Star makes it a joke bc it’s a farewell bid, not this years accolades
The format should be changed. Brian Windhorst had a good story about this and what changes he would want. He said the All Star Rosters should go from 12 to 13 players per team (which is the actual size of active rosters for NBA teams and would add another 2 spots to All-Star rosters) and go positionless/don’t have a required amount of frontcourt and backcourt players for each team. He also suggested having a minimum number of players per conference (I think he said 7 per, but I might be wrong) and then filling the rest of the spots with whichever players regardless of conference. Either way the All Star game needs fixing. There are a good amount of players in years past who have been left out of the All Star game because of a stacked (Western) conference or because of frontcourt/backcourt requirements. You’re always going to have snubs but it seems like the NBA’s All Star game has obvious all star players missing the game because of the wonky format.
It makes sense to bump rosters to 13. Then take the 26 best players regardless of position and conference. With All Star selections having actual implications for players, it simply needs to be the 26 best players. Like the article states, players have bonuses/incentives for all star selections. The number of All Star selections a player has is a part of the equation when determining Hall of Fame worthiness as well. This also means that fans should play no role in determining who is an All Star. It’s been proven that fans don’t select the best players all the time. I’m a wolves fan and Rose has had a great first half, but in no way is he one of the top 26 players in the league this year, let alone a starter in the West.
Always is the same, there are more frontcourt quality players than backcourt. That is why you find the situation of 5 must be starters in the west for only 3 spots. But that is the nature of the beast, frontcourt players are always better & more dominant than backcourt.
I would choose by only media, maybe the same guys who choose the All-NBA teams, the 30 best players of the season so far, divide them in the 2 teams, so that way injuries would be covered without a need for Mr Silver to pick himself subs. So that way you can have the 30 best players, positionless, conferenceless…
GMs and assistant coaches should choose the all stars. Give them the vote, and dont allow them to vote for their own players. That would be the best systen in my opinion
so there’s no frauds – fans should be able to select who they want in the three point competition i.e. ben simmons
I think the NBA should add a basketball punting contest to the skills competition on All-Star Weekend. We need some more ‘Luka’ hype! For reals.
I don’t c a problem with the voting system. After all this is entertainment for the fans. Plus it’s always been done midseasonish. Y does everyone just want a platform or reason to complain. It’s literally a meaningless game for your entertainment. Vote for ur favorite players and enjoy the game. Luka got my vote. I don’t care what anyone else says
You’re determining the fate of essentially 10 players. But plenty of players are going to be left out because of roster restrictions. That’s the issue. If contracts didn’t offer bonuses for all star game appearances (or we/the media didn’t use all star appearances to determine a player’s value and legacy) then yeah, no one would care. But those do come into play.