Chances Are That Brandon Roy Has Made a Fool Out Of You, Too

Most of America slept while Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy was busy dropping a career-high 52 points on the Phoenix Suns Thursday night as chants of "M-V-P" rained down from a packed house at the Rose Garden.

Of those who were either sleeping or simply not paying attention, at least 105,345 believe that Dallas' Jason Terry, who doesn't even start for his own team, is more deserving of an All-Star starting spot than Roy. Just ask them: They casted a vote to prove it.

Another 332,222 will tell you that Tracy McGrady deserves it more despite the fact that T-Mac has been in and out of the lineup and is averaging 16.5 points and 4.6 assists to Roy's 22.3 and 5.2, respectively.

Still another 162,286 will tell you that Jason Kidd and his 9.3 points for a terribly underachieving Dallas team deserve it more than the leading scorer for one of the league's biggest surprises this season.

And a batch of 166,981 people who claim to be "fans" will tell you that Manu Ginobili of the fading Spurs deserves it more than Roy despite only playing half the season and averaging seven points and two assists less than the pride of Rip City.

If you're one of these people, do yourself and the rest of the sports fans around you a favor and just stop. Stop watching the games. Stop casting your useless All-Star vote.

And for the love of everything good and worth fighting for in this world, stop calling yourself a basketball fan, because if you casted your vote for the 2009 All-Star Game for one of the guys mentioned above over Roy, then you clearly don't know much—if anything—about what's going on in the NBA this year.

Thursday night's game was a microcosm of what the season has been like for Roy. If the nationally televised contest between Portland and Phoenix was your first exposure to Roy, then good for you—it's a start.

But don't even dare to make the mistake of thinking that the image of Roy carrying the young Blazers on his back almost to the top of the Northwest division was an overnight development.

The 6'6", 211-pounder out of Washington has easily been the league's best-kept secret this year in an NBA season that has been abound by storyline after storyline.

Roy and his Blazers have been buried behind the likes of LeBron's surging Cavaliers, Dwight's torrid Magic, Garnett's record-setting Celtics, and Kobe's championship-level supporting cast in Los Angeles.

But Roy has kept the engine moving in Portland for a team that won 13 straight last season and went .500 with one of the youngest cores in league history.

This year, he has shown the swagger and leadership in clutch situations to the point that many of his teammates just know that they'll pull one off at the end as long as No. 7 is on the court.

That's just what happened Thursday against a Suns team that had won 11 straight against the Blazers coming into the contest. And Roy personally saw to it that he would never have to hear about that streak again.

Portland's burgeoning superstar also hit the most startling buzzer-beater of the year when he sank a 31-footer at the horn in another nationally televised game against Houston. Again, most of America slept as the Rose Garden roared for its new leader.

Yet, most of America kept voting. And they kept voting against Brandon Roy—to the point where Roy is ninth amongst all Western Conference guards in All-Star balloting despite being the unquestioned heart and soul of a team, an organization, and maybe even a city.

Oh, it's OK to get your sleep if you're on the East Coast during Roy's heroics. Nobody wants to be late to work the next day because they were up late watching a regular season NBA game in November or December.

Just don't cast your All-Star vote. Because unless you've heard of the kid affectionately called "B-Roy" by Blazer maniacs, you simply don't deserve one.