All-Star Voting 2006

my votes in the west:
forwards- elton brand and shawn marion
i didn't check the statistics; purely stat-wise i'm sure KG would be a lock for the spot over brand, and it's hard to argue that almost anyone is better than KG at anything. but brand is the engine for the clips, if you watch a game in person all of their success is predicated on his ability to quietly take over and consistently deliver possesion after possesion.

marion does everything well and has the bizarro-shot. nuff said

guards- steve nash and kobe bryant.
nash is killing it statistically and qualitatively, the dude is just awesome to watch. voting for bryant made me die a little inside, but after nash, no west team lives or dies by its guard as much.

center- chris kaman
homer vote plus i want to see a goofy white guy going against shaq. millions of chinese bloggers will ensure yao gets the start despite a sub-par showing thus far. kaman's 20-20 game sealed it for me

in the east:
forwards- chris bosh and lebron james.
bosh and dwight howard, assuming both stay where they are, are gonna usher in the next era of power-forward dominance, this time in the east, in a few years when kg and dunc are ready to pass the torch. lebron, whatever, the kid is blessed

guards- gilbert arenas and chauncey billups.
arenas is just statisically mad right now, and even though kobe-style it's not really making his team great, i love his fire and "eccentricity." chauncey, the man is working his ass off and how can you not vote for the semi-leader of the pistons. he really should be in the mvp chat more seriously if he keeps it up.

center- shaquille o'neal
more or less a vote because i like shaq qua shaq. plus, i figure if i don't vote for him, he'll get me fired as an nba fan and have some old-school fan brought back in in my place. plus, he took orders from bill russell to squash the kobe beef, so that's worth a vote. the cursor hovered over z. ilgauskas' name for a bit, but i'm not THAT into him.

strangely, i voted for a pretty balanced team on each side (PF, SF, PG, SG etc) with the possible exception of arenas, who is really more of a SG anyway. also i think these starters match up against each other really well!

pretty good list, but KAMAN? COME ON!

well who did you vote for big man??

i mean, seriously, i most voted for him just because i had to throw ONE homerist vote in there somewhere

and there's no chance in hell the starting spot will go to anyone other than yao

*who i would have voted for if he wasn't mangled for half the season thus far

I just voted for Dirk and KG, Nash and Kobe and ERICK DAMPIER.

In the East, I voted for LeBron, Sheed (just because he'd rather be sipping margaritas), Billups & AI, and Big Ben.

Doc Rivers thinks Detroit's starting five should all be on the squad, and I think I agree (not all as starters obv).

Western
F: E. Brand
F: D. Nowitski
C: M. Okur
G: K. Bryant
G: B. Davis

Eastern
F: L. Deng
F: L. James
C: B. Wallace
G: K. Hinrich (shut up)
G: A. Iverson

obv I didn't try to make the best teams, but just picked the two best forwards/guards regardless of whether they were both, say, 4s.

Voted for the Pistons starting lineup in the East - I'm a homer but at least you could make an argument they deserve the votes. In the West, I voted:

Garnett, Duncan, Nash, Cassell (can't vote for any Lakers or Spurs!), and Okur

cassell would have had one of my west votes if he hadn't slumped at the same time maggette went down, thus ensuring the clippers a few weeks of mediocrity

okur is a nice call at center! even though i hate him

and i think the great all star snub this year is going to be TAYSHAUN