Shaq was just voted into the All-Star game this year after only playing 8 games this season thus far. What a joke. Here are his "all-star" numbers: 13 points per game and 6 rebounds per game. Woo-hoo. There needs to be some sort of qualification other than just popular vote in order to make the All-Star game. Why don't coaches pick all the All-Stars? It's not like they're going to leave out players who truly deserve to go and are fan favorites. I'm sure LeBron and Kobe would still get picked by coaches.
But back to Shaq. What a big piece of crap this guy is. I can't believe some people think that he has great basketball talent. His talent is being big and exploiting his size advantage over smaller people. I will admit that he has some talent at playing basketball. Obviously there have been people similar in size that totally flopped in the NBA, so clearly he posseses some amount of skill at basketball. His is fairly nimble for his size. Consider this though, Shaq is listed at 7'1" and 325 lbs. If he were 6'9" and 250 lbs would how good would he be? I wonder if he would even be playing in the NBA.
Seriously, I have never seen anyone take advantage of just being bigger or taller than someone as bad as Shaq does. That's all he knows how to do. He takes the easy way out on everything. You can tell he doesn't try at all to better his game either. If he did he would have a better than a 53% lifetime Free Throw percentage. Bill Simmons said it best, if the average 13 year old girl can do something better than you in the sport that you play, maybe you don't deserve to be called a professional. You would think that somewhere along the line Shaq could have bothered to learn how to make a free throw.
If he had any class at all he would decline the All-Star game and let someone more deserving play. But he's basically a 325 pound child so he'll show up and do a funny dance and then play 10 minutes of the game and claim that whatever side he's on always wins the All-Star game even though he had no effect on the outcome whatsoever.
I suppose that's enough hating for one post.
11 comments:
dude i am astounded that you could have that much hatred for one of (if not THE) the best players in the history of the game.
he makes every player on his team way better by drawing the focus in around him, so no matter who you put with him, they are a contender.
and that doesnt even touch on his ever-expanding prowess around the basket. the guy can score on anybody at any time. and also, his defense has gotten worlds better over the last few seasons, which makes him just that much more valuable ( if that is possible ).
just cause he's from china and can't speak english as well as you doesnt mean he has no skills. and furthermore, ... oh wait. you said Shaq?
oh yea that guy sucks crap dude. good call.
You gotta think of all-star weekend as kind of like the NBA's fan appreciation weekend. The fan's don't decide who goes to the game because it was decided they would be the best judges. The fan's decide because NBA office types know fans would enjoy it, thereby helping maintain/increase fan base. Having the coaches decide the whole team would basically go againt the ethos of the weekend event. If the event is for the fans, they should get to see who they want to see. And the compromise seems fair. The coaches may not pick the starters; but. they do chose more players than the fans do.
You already heard me sing Shaq's praises; so, i won't get into that again. Plus, the fans voting is more important than that stuff.
Tom - I agree that fan voting does make the game more fun but maybe there should be some stipulation. Like, oh I don't know, you played more than 19% of your team's games thus far this season. Or maybe that you rank in the top 20 in some statistical category. Maybe it's just me but there are plenty of great players who have played more than 10 games this season that would make the All-Star game better. Sometimes people don't really know what they want. That's why we don't let the Presidential election be decided by popular vote. I think if the coaches picked all the All-Stars the game would still be really fun. They should at least be able to veto dumb picks.
I'm sure the coaches would still have picked LeBron, Kobe, Nash, Timmy, T-Mac, D-Wade, Arenas, AI, etc. That sounds like a fun game to me.
jimi-
Awww, It's refreshing to see someone who thinks our presidential voting system is functional enough that it can easily serve as a foil to weak systems for comparision. ;D
I think fans do know what they want, at least in this respect. All they are saying when they vote is what players they wanna see play the game.
Shaq got 1.1 million votes, and the next center (Ben Wallace) to get on roster (if Shaq is not allowed, and you skip Howard cause he is already on roster.) got 519,000 votes. i think it is safe to say the fans know who they want to see.
At the end of the season, the coaches name 1st and 2nd all-team offenses and defenses. This award, is based directly on who the coaches only, believe to the best players for the season.
The allstar game is not the same. It is a fan event; where the fans say who they want to watch that weekend. I pressume the fans that voted for Shaq (i didn't for him) don't hold the injuries against him; they still want to see him play cause he is their favorite east coast center.
Out of curiousity, where would you draw the line then? Would you let AI play? He's played less than half the games this season. Would you let Bosh play? He's only played 34 games.
Shaq looks to be getting his 10th game tonight; so i'm sure you want to change the cutoff point of 10 you gave. My i suggest X + 1 games? where, X = # of games Shaq has played. (You can use this formula every season to keep out "dumb picks"!!!)
Are you sure this isn't all because you hate Shaq, and not actually the voting system? "they should at least be able to veto dumb picks." How should NBA officials interpet 'dumb' when deciding players? I'm guessing something like, they should just ask you; you'll tell'em:)
Ugh, throw a tarp over me. My last post is ALL wrong.
I, for some reason, thought this weekend was allstar weekend.
I blame NBA.com's 2006-2007 webpage layout.
Dang Tom - you have gotten a little meaner since moving to the East coast. I like it. :) And of course they should ask me. I'm awesome afterall. Seriously though, there's no way they could veto a fan's pick. That afterall is the point of an election. But since the voting is internet based they could just exclude certain players from the voting that didn't meet the decided upon criteria for playing in the All-Star game.
You're right though, it doesn't really matter since the game has no effect on the NBA season.
Personally though, I would think that some players would be a little upset that the starters are elected by popular vote. It seems to me that most players want to be selected to the All-Star game. I think it's a big deal to them. And when someone like Josh Howard (19 ppg, 7 rpg) who has played great all year for 40 games and is on the team with the best record in the league gets snubbed and Shaq (14 ppg, 6 rpg) who is on the ninth best team in the East and has played 11 games this season gets picked because people "like" him more probably upsets Howard a bit. Maybe not, he probably knows that he's played better this year and knows that if his team played Miami again in 7 games they would destroy them (unless Miami starts playing a whole lot better).
I guess I'm just really big on things being fair. I'm sorry if I seem really upset about it. I really don't care that much because as you said the game is for the fans and if they want to see Shaq that's fine. Maybe though they could call the game something else. All-Star implies a certain level of play. Perhaps it could be called the NBA Fan Favorite Game or the NBA Fan Appreciation Game. Then I would be totally fine with the fans voting for all the players. Because the name explicitly implies that the game is solely about the fans and not the players.
By the way, AI has played 35 games this season between Philly and Denver. That is about 70% of the games played thus far (which is far more than Shaq's 22% of games played.) Unless you don't count the Philly games because it's an East team.
I do hate on Shaq a bit, but you have to admit that so far he hasn't had what you would call an "All-Star" caliber season. Maybe it's because he hasn't been healthy or whatever but you and I both know that if Steve Nash stays injured for the rest of the season he will not win MVP. It's unfortunate that players get hurt but you can't exactly just assume that if they were healthy they'd be playing a certain way.
Let me ask you this. Would you still be OK with Shaq getting voted into the All-Star game if he was injured and hadn't played a single game this year? You probably would but it just seems silly because everyone would know that Stern would just pick his replacement anyways. Seems like a wasted vote, like voting for Nader or something. :)
I'm just not good at writing anything but essay papers, like the ones in school. Anything i mean as sarcasm, irony, tongue-in-cheek, hyperbole, etc. usually just comes across as dick-ish. :)
What is with repeatedly comparing this to the US Pres. election, haha! They are soooo different. [Here is just one little way. If i didn't vote 3rd party, i wouldn't vote at all. Unless, someone somewhere somehow finds a completely different kind of republican or democrat, i am not voting an appearent incompetent as our leader.]
If it was known Shaq wouldn't be able to parpicitate in the allstar game, i don't think it would make very much sense to vote for him. If he still got the most votes, i wouldn't care that much. In fact, i have been known to celebrate such occurances.
One of my old favorite NBA memories is Magic's comeback came. He didn't play the whole damn season, didn't even show up to all the practices, games, and shootarounds (like one Shaquile O'Niel does). But he still was voted an all-star starter. "Heck, not an NBA player? No problem!" I guess fans just don't know what they want, voting for someone that is not even on a team, eh?
Almost all elections are just silly pomp and ceremony for a popularity contest. But the allstar vote is one election i don't have a problem with; because, it is intended to, more or less, BE a popularity contest.
Again, it is not a measurement of ones talent. If someone gets 3 million votes, it doesn't mean they are the best player in the NBA, it just means a helluva lot of people live in China (and thats okay!).
I really hope you don't think Heat are the 9th best team in the East. That's not even close. Even if they started now, teams like Orlando, Indiana, New Jersey, and even Washington, cound not beat miami in a best of 7. Besides, team stats should not be the issue when awarding individual honors. Iverson and KG have been on plenty of awful teams.
btw, even coaches don't necessarily follow just current seasons numbers. They say it takes 2,3 seasons of elevated play just to get on the coaches radar for possible selection. 11ish Hall of Fame seasons is probably a large reason Shaq is still on the fan radar when it comes to voting. Just like how fans couldn't stop voting for Magic, after being in the habit for over a decade.
Man, these wouldn't seem like such long post if they weren't scrunched together like that:) I felt like i barely addressed any of the topics i was thinking on--but these posts look massive
I don't buy into you bringing up free throw % into what makes somebody good/great/all star. Wilt Chamberlain had a career ft % of 51%.
true. Whats more, shaq has always had a gimp wrist. He can barely move it back at all; so he can't get that snap that gives the ball nice backspin. Really, he should do granny shots for free-throws. Man is too proud though.
They may look silly, but everyone knows they are easy to do. At least, better than 50% is a damn snap.
Oh yeah, and i saw a guy on letterman like 7 years ago. He was the guiness record holder for freethrows. Yup, granny-sty-lee.
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