The very strange, but true story of Zaza Pachulia's All-Star uprising

Dallas Mavericks center Zaza Pachulia came within fewer than 15,000 votes of one of the greatest All-Star upsets of all-time.

The 13-year veteran who has mostly come off the bench until this season when he became a desperation acquisition by Dallas following DeAndre Jordan's summer jilt-job, fell just short of being voted into the 2016 All-Star Game as a Western Conference starter.

Pachulia tallied 768,112 All-Star votes to place fourth among West frontcourt players, more votes than this season's triple-double leader Draymond Green, and more than Blake Griffin, Anthony Davis, Tim Duncan and DeMarcus Cousins. Pachulia, who is indeed having a solid season averaging a double-double (10.5 points and 10.8 rebonds) received nearly 600,000 more votes than teammate Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavs' leading scorer who also happens to rank sixth on the NBA's all-time scoring list.

Had another 14,228 votes come in for Pachulia, he would have finished ahead of San Antonio's do-everything forward Kawhi Leonard and become a first-time All-Star -- and starter alongside Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant.

So how did this this Georgian-born, steady, but hardly spectacular center nearly cause an All-Star uprising?

Tim Cato of Mavs MoneyBall traced Pachulia's votes to one expected source, but also two totally unexpected ones. Pachulia was doing well in the voting all along, but between the second and final returns, he made a significant jump for the near-takeover.

As the lone NBA player hailing from the small country of Georgia, a former Soviet republic at the intersection of Europe and Asia, the citizenry backed their basketball star and clearly stuffed the cyber-ballot boxes, with encouragement from their president.

Then there was the song that Grammy winner Wyclef Jean decided, for some reason, to sing in Pachulia's honor.

Lastly, Vine star Hayes Grier, who has 3.23 million Twitter followers jumped on the Pachullia All-Star bandwagon. 

After the final All-Star votes were tallied and released Thursday night, Pachulia was blown away by the support he received from all corners of the world. He said, via ESPN:

So that's the very strange, but true story of Zaza Pachulia's All-Star uprising.