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It’s reasonable to think that Chet Holmgren will be an NBA All-Star one day. It was great enough for He’s an obvious talent, a tremendous talent.
And it’s terrifying that Holmgren will miss all of this season’s games due to an injury he suffered last summer.
But apparently his rehab is going very well – four NBA players say he should start next month’s All-Star Game.
That is correct. In recent weeks, when the NBA player was asked which All-Star he should start his game on Feb. 19 in Salt Lake City, the four said Holmgren is yet to make his NBA debut. , replied that it should.
Congratulations to all involved. This is a new record. 330 different NBA players voted from themselves or his peers who should be the All-Star starters. This puts him 20 more votes than in 2021.
Only 10 players can start the All-Star Game. There could be at most 20 legitimate candidates to initiate a nod. Well, let’s say 30 players. That’s 300 fewer votes than he got.
I mean, a lot of votes were wasted and it wasn’t serious, it was a joke.
This all started seven years ago. With about 800,000 people cramming into the ballot box, Zaza Her Pachulia nearly became an All-Star starter. So the NBA changed the rules and moved to a weighted system. 50% will be decided by fan votes, 25% by media votes and 25% by player votes.
As always, fans got pretty much who they wanted. He was in the top 7 votes. They were all announced as starters when the list was revealed Thursday night. So did No. 9 Kyrie Irving, No. 10 Donovan Mitchell and No. 12 Zion Williamson.
Neither No. 7 Joel Embiid nor No. 11 Anthony Davis could participate.
A big reason Davis didn’t start was the player vote. Western He was the only frontcourt player in the conference to vote for Davis, he was 30, and he was 80 for Williamson. That made the difference.
However, many of the 375 votes returned by players were puzzling.
Chicago’s Lonzo Ball received four votes. Miami’s Omer Yurtseven got his three votes. Jae Crowder, who is still with the Phoenix Suns, received two votes. Denver’s Colin Gillespie and Portland’s Ibou Bhaji each received one vote.
Here’s what they have in common: Like Holmgren, no one has played this season.
There were other interesting — in this case, to put it oddly — trends in the data. Only Jokic (58.7%), Antetokounmpo (58.7%) and James (51.5%) voted in more than half of the All-Star votes by NBA players this year.
The Phoenix Suns wanted guard Devin Booker to be considered a starter. He didn’t come close, probably in large part because he’s been sidelined with injury this season.
“We know, we know the league, we know the players,” Phoenix coach Monty Williams said. I’m one of the players.”
Players probably don’t know: Only 8.5% said Booker should be the starter.
Milwaukee’s Grayson Allen received four votes. That’s one more vote for him than Boston’s Marcus Smart earned his NBA Defensive Player of the Year. Yes, Allen has contributed to what the Bucks have accomplished so far this year. he had his moment. he hit a big one. But it’s more of a crater than a fine line between solid player and All-Star starter.
There could certainly be a year when irresponsible voting really displaces someone…not this year. Certainly, other players such as Embiid, Domantas Sabonis, Ja Morant, Lauri Markkanen and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could be mentioned as starting candidates.
Either way, they’ll probably be All-Stars.
Coaches determine reserves. Voting for the starter no longer means anything. Only coach votes count for his final seven All-Stars elected in each conference. Also, if someone has to withdraw from a match due to injury, Commissioner Adam Silver will pick a replacement.
But I hope the time will soon come when players will take their votes more seriously. If not, the NBA may need to consider revoking the vote.
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Tim Reynolds is a National Basketball Writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at treynolds(at)ap.org
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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