nba all star evaluations

I wasn't surprised to see Iverson sneak in as a starter, given his immense popularity with fans. But ESPN did a wider poll with almost 30 players from each conference and I thought to look over some discrepancies with my own analysis of the top 15 or so (plus a few people who weren't included in the polls at all).

Since I'm a Boston guy right now, I'll start with the East

The top 5 players in the East for the first half by my reckoning have been LeBron, Wade, Howard, Bosh, and Garnett, in that order. The fans seem to have figured that out (though they had Howard ahead of Wade and Bosh 5th, because Toronto has sucked this year). Things weren't too shocking after that, except for Devin Harris coming in as 8th (I have him around 11). Then Iverson and Ray Allen show up in the top 12. Allen is a middle range, around the 15-20 point, outside looking in. Iverson has been routinely worse this year (22nd on my list). The biggest fan snubs were Antawn Jamieson, routinely good on a terrible team (I had him 9th, the fans at 19). And Emeka Okafor, a rebounding and blocks machine on another bad team (14/25).

Two other overrated players were the potential RoY, Derrick Rose (23/15), and Josh Smith (who suffered an injury and hasn't really been the fantasy league monster of his usual self, I have him at 28/17). Smith's a dunking machine, but the second player listed from Atlanta should have been Mike Bibby by a mile (having his best season). Unsurprisingly Andre Miller and Gerald Wallace didn't show up at all on the ESPN list (but Chris Duhon did, Dukie playing in NY putting up inflated numbers, you bet he made the cut). I was a bit surprised that Tayshaun Prince didn't make their cut either, as the actual best player of the Pistons this year, preferably over Richard Jefferson since Detroit is better than Milwaukee anyway.

The West offered some more unusual rankings. Again the top 5 was in some reasonable shape: Paul, Duncan, Bryant, Dirk and Yao (followed closely by Roy). Still all of the following players have submitted injury limited seasons (McGrady, Deron, Melo) or down years: Carmelo, Nash, McGrady, Baron Davis, and Deron Williams. All of them were in the top 18 for fans, not one of them was outside of the bottom 12 of my list (McGrady as the worst player on it). Marcus Camby, defensive extraordinaire and rebounding machine finished behind Baron Davis from his own terrible team. Only Camby should have been on the list, particularly since the Clippers suck as usual. Nene wasn't on the list from Denver. Again, an interior presence (like Okafor and Camby). Biedrins was at 28th on the fans list. 18 on mine. Again. Rebounder (trend of boring fundamentally productive players being overlooked for flashy and inefficient scorers, check). Andrew Bynum: not listed. Al Jefferson, on a crappy team (7/16). Other than the fact that nobody actually goes to Hornets games in Narleans, I'm not sure what West's problem is either (11/18).

I think we can make a case from this that NBA fans seem to have a good grasp of the top 5 players of each conference and should be allowed to vote for the starters (though this is sometimes constrained by the way the ballots are set up for F/G/C, and China very nearly got Yi in over Garnett in the actual All-Star balloting). But fans don't have the attention span to determine things after the actual superstars of the league, ie the All-Star caliber bench players. Perhaps their interest in seeing exciting players in an exhibition is important. But the carrot dangled out for the end bench players who get into All-Star play is also to reward good basketball players: ie people who can do other things besides score and help their teams win while the LeBrons of the world soak up all the glory. We're getting there with players like Paul or Nash getting votes as exciting point guards (ie passing). Shot blocking or rebounding beasts however are lagging way behind and this probably explains the relative lack of good interior play of late in both our international teams and the trend toward small-ball play of both pro and college teams because there is little developed interest in solid players who can bang around inside.