Any San Antonio Spurs fans hoping to see Tim Duncan or Tony Parker starting for the Western Conference in this year’s All-Star game will be a little disappointed by the results. The starters for both conferences were announced last night.
For the West, it will be Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Dwight Howard and Kevin Durant. For the East, it’s Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett.
Remember, the starters are chosen by fan votes. Bryant was the leading vote getter at 977,444 followed closely by LeBron with 970,314.
Duncan finished with 299,434 votes, good enough for fourth in West for frontcourt players. Parker got 111,032 votes, finishing in seventh for Western Conference backcourt players.
Since Duncan was just one spot away from being a starter, I’d say he’s pretty much a shoe in to be named a reserve. Even though Tony was way down the list, I’m also predicting he’ll make it because he finished behind Steve Nash, who missed most of the first half of the season with injury and Jeremy Lin, which is just a joke.
As usual, these results show the bias of fans towards the big market teams. Four of the five Western Conference starters play in Los Angeles. We all know Duncan deserves to be ahead of both Griffin and Howard, but since they play in L.A. and Griffin can dunk like crazy and does all those silly Kia commercials, they get a good portion of the votes.
Spurs fans are used to their big players being undervalued and underappreciated, but they know it’s not the All-Star game that matters. It’s who’s holding the trophy at the end of the year. No amount of votes gets you a trip to the NBA Finals.