| Mourning Glory Authored by Andrew Friedman - January 10, 2007 - 12:07 am
The NBA must get its All-Star voting procedures from Florida because the ballot simply isn’t working. The league has failed to adapt to recent trends in both the league and the voters. And the victims of the NBA’s current All-Star ballot are the players who deserve the accolade, especially the league’s few remaining centers. Recent rule changes that cater toward the success of perimeter-oriented players may eventually force the league to change the name of the center position to dinosaur. But that doesn’t mean effective traditional centers are extinct. The Miami Heat has two of the best remaining centers in the league in Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning.
O’Neal has played only four games this season, yet he leads all Eastern Conference centers in voting. All-Star starters are voted solely by fans. Most NBA fans tend to vote on glamour and prestige rather than actual results and statistics, resulting in players getting voted in as starters who don’t deserve the recognition for that season, such as O’Neal. When undeserving players are voted in, coaches (who vote for All-Star reserves) are forced to make impossible decisions among the remaining choices.
Mourning, on the other hand, appears to be a victim of the voting system this season. As one of a handful of effective traditional centers left, he has made his presence felt defensively, leading the NBA in total blocks (93) as of January 8 while playing about 12 minutes less per game than the league’s second-best blocker, Pacers forward Jermaine O’Neal. Mourning also has the second-best field goal percentage (58%) among Eastern Conference centers while averaging a shade less than 10 points per contest. Both statistically and intangibly Mourning has asserted himself as one of the league’s best centers, despite health and age concerns. He turns 37 in February.
In addition to Mourning, Bulls center Ben Wallace has also played well enough to earn an All-Star bid as a center with his rebounding ability and defensive skill. No other center in the conference dominates any particular statistical category like Mourning and Wallace do with blocking and rebounding, respectively.
But this hasn’t stopped the league from concealing its depleted center section on the All-Star ballot by converting its power forwards to centers. Dwight Howard, for instance, is among the league’s best young power forwards and is having the best season of his young career. In 2005 and 2006 he was listed as a power forward on the All-Star ballot. This season he is listed as a center on the ballot despite starting alongside true center Tony Battie for all 35 games thus far this season. Fans are forced to choose between a power forward and center for one spot when both deserve spots that they both should be able to have.
The league’s shady balloting policy and ability of fans to have the lone input in choosing the starters forces coaches to choose only one player out of a pool of many deserving players to be the reserve All-Star center. Either Mourning or Wallace should be the starter with the other as the reserve. O’Neal hasn’t played enough this season to warrant any consideration, let alone be the starter. And Howard is a power forward. Between the controversy surrounding fan voting in the NHL (where Rory Fitzpatrick was almost voted a starter by fans despite recording zero points) and the fact that Shaquille O’Neal is the likely starter this season (despite having played only four games) is enough to warrant immediate change.
The NBA needs to remove positional constraints on the All-Star ballot and give coaches most (if not all) of the say in choosing the All-Stars. The current system takes credit away from players who are having remarkable seasons like Mourning. |
