Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believes the NBA should get rid of fan voting for the All-Star Game, saying the system is “absolutely, positively broken.”
The starters for this years All Star game were announced Thursday night, with Stephen Curry being the top vote getter. Kobe Bryant, who is most likely done for the year, was voted in as a starter for the west as was Carmelo Anthony for the east. Melo has also battled through injuries this season that have kept him sidelined.
Cuban believes that the All-Star rosters should be expanded a couple of spots for each conference and suggests allowing coaches or general managers to vote for starters and the reserves.
Cuban’s issue isn’t as much the results of the fan voting, even though he did ask if Yao Ming or Tracy McGrady were All-Star starters this year. His concern is the relative lack of interest in the balloting as there were only 1.5 million votes for the all-star balloting.
“In context of everything, that’s no votes,” Cuban said. “That’s such a small number considering all the different options you have to vote that it’s almost embarrassing. It’s just no one’s really looked at it that way. I mean, think about it. Of all the people who go to games, all the people who watch games globally, to have 1.5 million means that system’s broken. Absolutely, positively broken.”
Cuban would continue to say, “if we were getting 20, 30, 50 million votes, which shows that fans just love it and wanted to participate, that’d be one thing. Then the fans have spoken. When the number of voters isn’t enough to even get anybody to notice , that means basically .01 percent of NBA fans cared enough to vote, and that’s saying every fan voted just once. Probably, if you include global, that means .00001 percent of fans thought enough to vote. That just shows nobody cares.”
Cuban’s comments come on the same day when Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle made a public statement saying that Mavs guard Monta Ellis deserves to get an invite to New York to be a member of the Western Conference squad.
“Each year with us, his defense is a bigger factor. He’s become a leader, the evidence is all there. Monta Ellis deserves to be an All-Star. Tweet that.”
Ellis has been the Mavs best player all season, leading the team in points per game with 20, and minutes, playing almost 34 a game.
A loaded west however could halt a trip for Ellis to the big apple, as guys like Damian Lillard, James, Harden, Klay Thompson, Russell Westbrook, Mike Conely, and Chris Paul are all in the running for a spot on the roster.
