Congratulations to Allen Iverson for being named a starter for the Western Conference in the 2008 All Star Game. But my question, and I’m certainly not alone, is how did Iverson manage to walk T-Mac down?
Two weeks ago, with the fourth returns posted on NBA.com, McGrady had a pretty substantial lead:
Tracy McGrady (Hou) 907,639
Allen Iverson (Den) 827,273
And when the finals were announced yesterday, Iverson had utterly walked him down, winning the second Western guard spot by a decent margin
Allen Iverson (Den) 1,203,152
Tracy McGrady (Hou) 1,192,742
Now, I’m not one to go all crappy Mel Gibson movie on anyone here, but the NBA is nothing if not the shadiest of all the leagues when it comes to things like roster moves, referrees and star treatment. And in all fairness, T-Mac came out and said he wanted nothing to do with the All Star Game, at least in terms of being a starter – he usually locks the spot up based on the cross-concurrent China-man-love for Yao Ming that gets dispersed amongst the rest of the Rockets. He’s very good, and having a great season. When healthy. So maybe all of these “real people” that voted (nearly 400,000 of them over the past two weeks) for Allen Iverson heard T-Mac’s plea to not be voted in. Or maybe they’re just not real.
How the hell else can you explain the fact that 350,000 plus people voted for Allen Iverson over the past two weeks, but only 563,525 people for Chris Paul over the course of the entire voting process? See, that’s what wrong with letting the fans vote for the starters. Yeah, I get that it’s their game and you want to give something back to the fans. But wouldn’t it be better to give the players performing the best the starting gig and then fill the last four roster spots with fan choices that didn’t already make the team? Prolly not gonna happen. And Paul is prolly gonna make the team this year anyway. Right? Right??? But who gets left out? Steve Nash? Baron Davis? Sure it’s an imperfect process, and someone in these things always gets screwed, but this year if it’s Paul, I’m really going to throw a hissy. Or maybe just vote only for T-Mac next year.
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Ya, AI is my guy but, it was a little Florida electionish how he beat T-Mac.