The NBA All-Star voting process was changed this season to give players and the media a say in selecting the All-Star starters along with the fan vote. The general idea was to keep fans from storming Twitter and voting in, say, Zaza Pachulia.
It was a good idea in theory, but the NBA forgot one key thing when implementing it. The players are as bad as, if not worse than, the fans when it comes to playing favorites and also could care less about All-Star voting. We saw it firsthand when Tony Allen posted video of himself voting for his ridiculous ballot of All-Stars.
If you thought that was just Tony Allen being Tony Allen, then I invite you to take a stroll through the player voting with me (you can see the full breakdown here) as we look at 10 players that got All-Star votes in real life from their peers.
1. Brice Johnson (LAC): Has not played an NBA game.
2. Mo Williams (Most recently DEN): Has been on 3 teams and waived, yet to play a game this season.
3. Ben Simmons (PHI): Has not played an NBA game.
4. Michael Gbinije (DET): -2.3 PER, 29 minutes played, 4 points, 2 fouls, 2 assists, 3 rebounds, 10% FG
5. Georgios Papagiannis (SAC): -1.2 PER, 9 minutes played, 2 points, 3 fouls, 1 turnover, 1 rebound, 100% FG
6. Bryn Forbes (SAS): 1.8 PER, 62 minutes played, 12 points, 8 fouls, 1 steal, 1 assist, 5 rebounds, 33% FG
7. Daniel Ochefu (WAS): 2.7 PER, 42 minutes played, 12 points, 10 fouls, 3 turnovers, 1 steal, 1 assist, 13 rebounds, 46% FG
8. Tyler Ennis (HOU): 3.2 PER, 175 minutes played 51 points, 26 fouls, 20 turnovers, 5 steals, 27 assists, 16 rebounds, 37% FG
9. Alan Anderson (LAC): 4.4 PER, 184 minutes played, 49 points, 22 fouls, 5 turnovers, 2 steals, 8 assists, 16 rebounds, 37% FG
10. Pierre Jackson (DAL): 6.6 PER, 29 minutes played, 12 points, 3 fouls, 3 turnovers, 1 steal, 7 assists, 2 rebounds, 21% FG
Those are all players that got actual All-Star votes. This is fine, players should do what they want, but we have to stop pretending like the player vote fixes the issues with fan voting.
