During his chat with reporters before Monday’s game against the Miami Heat, the Golden State Warriors’ head coach took players to task for not taking their role in the NBA’s new All-Star voting system — under which fans account for 50 percent of the vote, while current players and a panel of media members each make up 25 percent of the total — very seriously. From Connor Letourneau of the San Francisco Chronicle:
“I am very disappointed in the players,” said Kerr, who cast his ballot Sunday for the reserves. “They asked for the vote and a lot of them just made a mockery of it. … I saw the list. I saw all the guys who got votes. Were you allowed to vote for yourself? I don’t know. Were guys voting for themselves? There were 50 guys on there that had no business getting votes.” […]
Among the eye-popping votes cast by the 324 players who submitted ballots — and, again, remember this was to pick who should start the All-Star Game, not just appear in it:
• Players who haven’t played a single game this season, whether due to injury or being buried on their team’s bench, like Mo Williams, Ben Simmons, Khris Middleton, Brice Johnson and Quincy Pondexter;
• Players who had logged fewer than 100 total NBA minutes this season, like Michael Gbinije, Georgios Papagiannis, Bryn Forbes, Daniel Ochefu, Pierre Jackson, Rakeem Christmas, Thon Maker, Marshall Plumlee, Daniel Ochefu, Adreian Payne, Mike Miller, John Lucas III and Quincy Acy; and
• Players who have gotten more significant spin, but who, um, don’t exactly fit the All-Star mold, like, Ben McLemore, Isaiah Whitehead, Jerian Grant, Jordan McRae, Jarell Martin, Alan Anderson, Matthew Dellavedova, Tomas Satoransky, Cameron Payne and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot.
Despite those “mock” votes, though, the players ultimately wound up with roughly the same starting lineups as the media members they so love to needle. Media members had LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jimmy Butler, Isaiah Thomas and DeMar DeRozan in the East; the player ballot swapped Kyrie Irving in for DeRozan, but was otherwise the same. There wasn’t even that level of disagreement in the West, as media and players alike chose Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
via Yahoo!Sports!