Fans vote for their own All-Star starters, which looks great and can make the NBA and fans win-win, so the league has been using this voting method to select All-Star starters before, and also launched online voting in the 2002-03 season to include fans from all over the world in the voting system.

This move is to promote the globalization of the NBA, but because of this so-called online voting, there is a slight mistake in the fans' vote for All-Star starters.

Here, there are two people to talk about, one is Yao Ming, and the other is Jordan

The year the NBA introduced the online voting mechanism was Yao Ming's rookie season, and they also set up a Huaxia voting system in order to attract the Chinese market.

They obviously didn't expect the enthusiasm of the Chinese fans, otherwise they would definitely not dare to do it!

As a result, Yao Ming got 1.286 million votes as a rookie, ranked fifth in the league, second only to Kobe Bryant in the West, and even squeezed O'Neal, the dominant center who led the Lakers to complete three consecutive championships, to the All-Star bench, which instantly "detonated" the American media, and the fairness and objectivity of the All-Star voting were questioned. In the eyes of basketball reporters in the United States, even if Yao Ming is really good and has great potential in the future, it is really counterintuitive to beat O'Neal in the All-Star starting battle as an NBA rookie.

At the same time, in this year's NBA voting session, another major event happened, that is, Jordan, the first person in NBA history, failed to make an All-Star start!

The result angered NBA coaches and many veteran basketball journalists, who criticized fans for being "ungrateful." The coaches later included Jordan in the All-Star bench lineup, Iverson and Maddy offered to give up the starting position to Jordan, Carter initially insisted that the starter was given to him by the fans, and it would be disrespectful to the fans if he gave it away, but before the start of the 2003 All-Star Game, Carter suddenly changed his mind and gave up the starter to Jordan, which made the "Flyers" able to start the last All-Star Game.

They pointed out that the main reason for this situation is that the decision of All-Star voting is all in the hands of fans, especially after the rise of online voting, most of the fans who participated in the voting are relatively young, and may not have seen Jordan play at all, and they do not understand Jordan's achievements and contributions, so there is a situation where Jordan is not voted for, and there is an unreasonable place for fans to vote for All-Stars, and the league should make improvements.

Speaking of which, it is necessary to talk about how this fan vote came about in the first place!

The first NBA All-Star Game was held from the beginning of the 1951-52 season. But it wasn't until the 1974-75 season that NBA All-Star starters were selected by fans, and before that, All-Star teams were selected by the media and coaches. The rules are for the media to vote for eight players, who will then be supplemented by the coach, and there is a rule that at least one player from each team will be selected.

It is worth mentioning that there were only nine teams in the NBA at that time.

In the 1974-75 season, the All-Star voting for the first time had a major change, the starters were voted for by the fans, the reason why BA made the change, the emergence of BA made the NBA no longer monopolize the basketball market, ABA attracted fans with a gorgeous style of play, "Dr. J" Irving and other stars who played very much in the ABA, which made the NBA feel great market pressure.

The NBA's strategy was to expand from nine teams to 18 teams in eight years, which was completed in 1974 with the addition of the New Orleans Jazz, later known as the Utah Jazz.

With more teams, there are naturally more games, which is a means for the NBA to attract the attention of fans.

After the expansion in 1974, the NBA's next move was to reform the All-Star voting rules so that the All-Star starters were decided by the fans. This is an important marketing tool for the league, and the All-Star is designed to be a basketball gift for fans, which is a game for fans, and it is natural for fans to decide who starts. This innovation has successfully brought the NBA closer to its fans, allowing the league to have a more intimate interaction with fans by voting for All-Stars.

For the first time, fans voted for an All-Star, and center Bob McAdoo from the Buffalo Braves became the vote winner. At that time, McAdoo was only a "third-year student" in the NBA, and he was still young, but he averaged 34.5 points, 14.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game in the 1974-75 season, and was the league's leading scorer. Fans love to watch McAdoo play, so they selected him as an All-Star starter, and things like qualifications are not considered by fans at all, which is the effect of the NBA's reform of the voting system, and fans can choose what they like.

All-Star starters are decided by the fans, which is an important "tactic" of the NBA in competition with the ABA, and this style of play has proven to work, and the NBA has gained wider fan support, laying the foundation for the eventual annexation of the ABA.

In other words, fan voting is a wonderful move that the NBA could survive that year, and without this move, the NBA would probably not exist a long time ago!

But these two things happened in the 2003 All-Star ticket, which made the media, coaches and players complain about it. The crux of the matter is that fan voting is entirely based on personal likes and dislikes, and the starting point is "vote for whoever I like", not "vote for whoever plays well". In addition, fan voting can also be influenced by team and player exposure, and some players who perform very well can easily be overlooked by fans due to their lack of opportunities to appear on TV and online broadcasts due to their lack of popularity.

"It's not fair, you can't let the fans vote anymore, you can't pick whoever has been on TV a lot," Cousins, a center who was still with the Kings at the time, once said, "Of course, the players who win the most games should be selected, and the most popular players should be selected, but teams like the Bucks and the Kings have players who have good performances and they don't get noticed, I think that's unfair." ”

It was also because of so many protests that the league finally made some rule changes to reduce the original 100% decision power of fans to 50%, and increased the voting power of players and media. This change is a three-way balance, the league must maintain the voice of fans in the vote, if it is completely canceled, it will hurt the feelings of fans, this is something that the NBA will never do, fans are food and clothing for professional leagues.

In terms of voting rights for players and the media, the league is split in two, with 25% for each side, guaranteeing that both have the right to speak.

This is how voting is now done in 2018.