The NBA has a history of awarding its biggest stars, but the current rules often hinder them from doing so. What are realistic changes the league can make to better reward deserving players?
Voting for the 2017 NBA All-Star starters began on Christmas Day and fans can daily give their input on who should start for the big game. There are plenty to choose from, although those deserving of the nod are mostly clear-cut.
Those fans will only be a slice of a pie deciding the starters, however, as the NBA announced last week a change in how the starters will be chosen. The fan vote will now comprise 50 percent of the vote, as opposed to the full 100 percent of years past.
The NBA players and select media will now each comprise 25 percent of the vote.
This change was a welcome one for those desiring that the league’s best players make it every season.
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In years past, surges of support for players such as Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade have propelled players into the starting lineup whose popularity far outpaced their production.
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Often this is not an issue, as fans love to see Bryant play in the All-Star Game regardless of how well he played that season. But last year Zaza Pachulia came within a few thousand votes of starting in the All-Star Game.
The league’s near-miss has been realized in other major sports league, most prominently the NHL.
The NBA still wants its fans engaged and a major part of the decision-making process, but they also wanted to balance against the worst-case scenarios.
They have worked out what they hope becomes a happy medium that will satisfy everyone involved (except, of course, Pachulia’s Georgian supporters).
In light of that change from the NBA, what other aspects of their award recognition need to be tweaked? From the All-Star Game to end-of-the-year awards, the league could take a few more steps to make that angle of the league the best it can be.
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