NBA All-Star Game 2012: How the NBA Can Make It Mean Something

The NBA All-Star game has become a joke of massive proportions, not for how it's played, but for how the players are chosen. Things need to change, or the All-Star team will have little to no significance for players, and the game will be relegated to the decaying status of the dunk contest.

This year the Western Conference All-Star squad has just one shooting guard and one small forward on a roster comprised of 12 players. The Eastern Conference squad has no Atlanta Hawks players and two players from the Boston Celtics, even though those teams are ranked at fifth and ninth respectively.

Likewise, Monta Ellis, who is widely considered the third-best shooting guard in the league and the second-best in the Western Conference, didn’t even make the All-Star team. This madness needs to be stopped!

Talking heads like TNT’s Charles Barkley can drone on and on about how players from teams with losing records shouldn’t be allowed to play in the All-Star game, but such a stance is absolute idiocy.

Can you imagine if, for example, next year a player like DeMarcus Cousins is averaging 20 points and 20 boards a game, or Andrea Bargnani is leading the league in scoring, but both players fail to make the All-Star team because their teams have losing records?  What a travesty!

An NBA All Star is supposed to be one of the top 12 players in his conference, or at least one of the top two or three at his position, period. Personal excellence should be valued over their team's success.

The NFL gets this point.  Imagine if Barry Sanders, one of the greatest running backs and probably the finest pure runner ever born, never played in more than one or two All-Star games because he played for a horrible team his entire career.  Once again: travesty.

It's good to see a player like Deron Williams get voted onto the Eastern Conference ALL-Star team despite his team’s poor play. Williams is easily one of the top three or four point guards in the league and certainly one of the two best in the East. To see him passed over for a “solid player on a great team,” such as Jrue Holiday, Mario Chalmers, or Jameer Nelson, would be insanity.

Here are three changes I would like to see implemented next season:

The All-Star Game Should Be Played at the End of the Regular Season

To have an All-Star game at the mid-point of a season is completely pointless and ridiculous. An “All-Star” should be player who was excellent for the whole season, not just half.

Some may complain that moving the game in such a fashion will affect the playoffs and that players may even treat the game the way NFL players treat the Pro-Bowl, but since the risk for injury is substantially less, that argument is bogus.  Besides, the teams would probably rather have the extra week to prepare for the playoffs.

Moving the All-Star game to just after the end of the regular season would also make the voting relevant again.

All-Star “Voting” Should be Eliminated Entirely

NBA fans have already witnessed the travesty of watching Yao Ming start in All-Star games he did not deserve to start in. Next year it would not be surprising to see Jeremy Lin be named an Eastern Conference starter over the likes of Derrick Rose, even though he has missed a lot of games due to injury, and his stats pale in comparison to Rose's. 

All-Star Rosters Should Be Comprised of 15 Players, Not 12

NBA team rosters have 15 players on them. Yes, only 13 of those 15 players are allowed to suit up for games (which, by the way, is insane), but that's beside the point. The All-Star roster should have the same number.

Increasing the roster to 15 would allow both teams to feature the three best players at each of the five positions, and bring balance to the roster.  It may also eliminate public outcry over the league supposedly listening to agents and sponsors more than they do to statistics when filling team spots.

All-Star Rosters Should Be Comprised of 1st, 2nd & 3rd Team Conference Stars

I propose that at the end of the season the NBA immediately announces its 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd All-Conference players, and that only those players be named to the Conference All-Star teams.

This would allow the three best players at each position to be named All-Stars, would eliminate the insanity of an All-Star team roster having four point guards and just one shooting guard as the Western Conference has this year, and bring credibility to the game.