Golden State Warriors

Here's why Warriors' Zaza Pachulia won't be All-Star starter despite his early vote total

Published Jan. 6, 2017 11:01 p.m. ET

Andrew Lynch

The Internet lost its collective mind when the NBA announced the first round of fan voting for the 2017 All-Star Game, all thanks to one man from the country of Georgia.

As of Thursday, Golden State Warriors forward Zaza Pachulia is second on the ballot among Western Conference frontcourt players, trailing only Kevin Durant, thanks in large part to the dedicated support of his compatriots. And in any other season, that might be cause for alarm, since it would mean Pachulia is in position to be an All-Star starter.

However, that nightmare scenario almost certainly won't play out, thanks to a simple rule change the NBA made for this year's All-Star festivities. Rather than relying on the fan vote alone, this year's ballot is weighted between fans, players and members of the media.

Specifically, the fan vote as a whole will count for 50 percent of the final result, with the other 50 percent evenly split between all current NBA players (25 percent) and a select pool of media members (the remaining 25 percent).

Yet the number of votes a player receives is rather inconsequential outside of how he stacks up to his peers, as the NBA league offices explained when reached for comment by FOX Sports on how exactly the ballot will shake out:

After all votes are tallied, players will be ranked in each conference by position (guard and frontcourt) within each of the three voting groups – fan votes, player votes and media votes. Each player’s score will be calculated by averaging his weighted rank from the fan votes, the player votes and the media votes. The five players (two guards and three frontcourt players) with the best score in each conference will be named NBA All-Star Game starters.

For example, Player X finishes 1st in fan voting for guards (50% weight), finishes 4th in player voting for guards (25%), and finishes 6th in media voting for guards (25%).

1+1+4+6=12

12 divided by 4 = 3

Player X’s score is 3.

The two guards that finish with the best overall scores (ie, the lowest numbers) are the starters.

For the sake of argument, let's say that Pachulia becomes the outright leading frontcourt player in the West, just to take this thought exercise to the farthest extreme. If we assume that both players and media believe Pachulia is the 20th-best frontcourt player in the Western Conference (a very generous assumption, at that), his "score" would be:

1+1+20+20 = 42

42 divided by 4 (4, because we have 4 "units" of 25 percent of the vote each, with fans accounting for two of those "units") = 13

Compare that to someone such as Anthony Davis, who's currently fourth in the fan voting. If players and media agree, Davis' "score" would be:

4+4+4+4 = 16

16 divided by 4 = 4

We can do the same with Draymond Green as the fifth best frontcourt player:

5+5+5+5 = 20

20 divided by 4 = 5

Or DeMarcus Cousins:

6+6+6+6 = 24

24 divided by 4 = 6

In each instance, we're likely being conservative with the media's and players' views on the players who actually deserve to be in the All-Star Game; in reality, Pachulia would need to be ranked in the top 10 of frontcourt players by media and players in the Western Conference to even sniff a spot on the roster.

And that's simply not going to happen, with guys like Davis, Green, Cousins, Karl-Anthony Towns, LaMarcus Aldridge, Blake Griffin, Marc Gasol, Rudy Gobert, Gordon Hayward, DeAndre Jordan, and about a dozen other, worthy players in the West.

So don't fret, NBA fans. Pachulia's having his moment in the spotlight now, but that won't extend into February.