NBA All-Star Game 2012: Los Angeles' Dominance in West Lineup Is Bad for Fans

Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin and Andrew Bynum will all have a starting position for the 2012 Western Conference All-Star team in tonight’s game.

Of the five starters, four of the players come from teams in Los Angeles. All four have vastly different histories with the All-Star Game. For Kobe Bryant, this is his 14th time representing the city of Los Angeles in the All-Star Game so the excitement is nothing new to him.

His teammate, Andrew Bynum, is being featured in his first game. For the city rival, the Clippers are sending Blake Griffin to his second consecutive All-Star Game. His teammate, Chris Paul, has been selected for the fifth consecutive game.

This is, however, his first time representing L.A. in the showdown.

While the selections are varying in reasons for each of the four superstars, I would argue that having 80 percent of the starters hailing from the same city is a dangerous path for the NBA.

The All-Star Game is in place to showcase the most impressive, exciting and captivating players and teams in the NBA. A selection to the All-Star team, in theory, is major publicity for your franchise and gives casual NBA fans an incentive to become introduced to the league’s talent.

Coming away from the All-Star Game, the lesser-informed fan is supposed to learn of the flash of the NBA and pick favorites to watch for the second half of the season. As an introduction, 2012 fans will be shown “The Best of L.A.” and that’s really cool. But it makes the rest of the product of the league a lot less appetizing.

It’d be like going to a supermarket and being offered four different Coke products and four different Coke products, Coca-Cola (the classically beloved Kobe Bryant), Coke Zero (his young and emerging teammate Andrew Bynum), Diet Coke (the very popular and talented Chris Paul) and Vanilla Coke (the flashy and different Blake Griffin).

I’m from L.A., and I also happen to love Coca-Cola. But what if I was more of a Pepsi guy and hailed from Portland, hoping to watch LaMarcus Aldridge? Or what if I wanted to try Orange Crush, something entirely unfamiliar like John Wall?

The analogy is a slight stretch, but when you isolate a television market to predominantly Los Angeles basketball players (usually located in Los Angeles), you give the rest of the country fewer reasons to tune in.

While many argue that talent is what should denote who plays in the All-Star Game, at the end of the day the match is a meaningless scrimmage that decides nothing. It’s essentially a glorified television broadcast with an added weighted significance being only that it’s on TV.

Why not market it accordingly?

In the marque advertising promo photo on the cover of ESPN this morning, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul were the two athletes featured together on the lead story. Those are the two biggest stars in Los Angeles.

Kobe is the leading scorer in the NBA and should rightfully be starting, but why would Griffin get the nod over someone like Kevin Love?

Love is averaging 25.0 PPG, more than Griffin’s 21.4 PPG, and leads the West in rebounds with 14.0 RPG, significantly more than Griffin’s 11.4 RPG. Love is also coming off of winning the three-point contest on Saturday evening.

Even Chris Paul may not be as impressive of a candidate as Steve Nash, who is averaging over two more assists a game (10.9 vs. 8.6) than Paul.

Bynum, Griffin, Bryant and Paul are doing fantastic things for Los Angeles, and as a Los Angeles citizen and as an even more prideful Los Angeles sports fan, seeing the four players gain so much fame and respect makes me thrilled.

The “All-Star” game, however, should be exactly that. It should feature all of the stars: not just the ones that hail from Los Angeles.

Click here to Follow @BryanKalbrosky.