National Basketball Association

Time to end NBA All-Star voting sham

Published Jan. 18, 2010 5:46 p.m. ET

foxsports

Warm up your mouse and let’s get Magic, Bird and Michael Jordan voted onto the 2010 All-Star teams.

Ridiculous, you say? Why, I ask?

Because they don’t deserve it? Because starting in the All-Star game’s not supposed to be a lifetime achievement award?

Clearly, you have not paid any attention to voting for this year’s game.

Even given that Magic and Bird are in their 50s and their bones creak, I’d be willing to bet that either of them -- not to mention MJ, who’s only 46 -- in six NBA games could accidentally match this season’s “production” of Tracy McGrady.

That would be 3.2 points per game.

And yet, the man Houston’s trying to light a rocket under is probably going to start the All-Star game. And so is Allen Iverson. What year is this again?

If they had any integrity, they’d both respectfully decline, thereby forcing the NBA to rethink its stupid popularity contest and do as Charles Barkley and Ray Allen, among others, have suggested in recent days: split the vote between fans, media, players and coaches.

I’d go even further. I’d cut the fans out altogether and let the players choose the teams.

I know it’s a pointless spectacle of a game but let’s at least have the best players on the court.

That means no T-Mac or A-I and, mercifully, no Shaq, who last averaged a double-double five years ago. I love the Big Aristotle, but time to draw the curtain. Kevin Garnett shouldn‘t start, either, based on this season.

Instead, let’s get deserving players like Brandon Roy, Kevin Durant, Steve Nash, Chris Bosh and Josh Smith on the floor.

As the great Ben Wallace said last year when Mo Williams didn’t even get to sit on the bench at the All-Star game, “It’s a travesty and a sham and a mockery: a shammockery.”

The Blame Game

How much is Norv Turner to blame for Sunday’s capitulation against the Jets?

Turner won one playoff game in seven season with the Redskins, led the Oakland Raiders to two fourth-place finishes in the AFC West (9-23) but against the Jets had his chance to exorcise some of those demons by taking the Chargers into the AFC title game.

They were an eight-point favorite playing at home with the advantage of a bye week.

They had to win that game, irrespective of the fact that the Jets were feisty and played hard, as you’d expect from a Rex Ryan-coached team. Ryan, by the way, is proving to be a chip off his Old Man's block.

I know Turner wasn’t the one who gagged on those three field goals but he did not have his team ready and couldn’t turn the ship around.

Some coaches are black cats; they just can’t get their team across the line when it counts. The question now becomes whether Turner will get another chance at redemption.

NFL Head Scratcher

On the subject of popularity contests and NFL coaches, how does Marvin Lewis win the Associated Press coach of the year award?

I know he’s a good guy and he turned the Bengals (10-6) around this season but are we not forgetting he was at the helm last year when they went 4-11-1? And that he followed the promise of 2005’s breakthrough 11-win season by going 15-17 over the next two seasons?

I would’ve thought there was a guy in New Orleans who deserved that award. He proved it on Saturday and might just prove it again in the last game of the season.

Down and Out

Maria Sharapova was knocked out in the first round of the Australian Open in Melbourne. It was the first time in seven years that the Siberian princess had lost in the opening match of a major and yet another indication that all is not well with Sharapova.

Although she's had to battle shoulder problems, I'm starting to wonder whether her game just isn't consistently good enough to be the player many believe her to be.

She serves far too many double faults and makes far too many unforced errors. On her best days, she can be a world beater -- she has three Grand Slam titles and plays with great heart and determination -- but the greats don’t lose to the Maria Kirilenkos of the world on centre court in the first round of a major.

A Career 'Hangover'

I had to laugh when I saw Mike Tyson at the Golden Globes Sunday.

Last time I saw the self-proclaimed baddest man on the planet at a swank Bevery Hills hotel, he’d just finished kicking the crap out of Don King. Turns out Tyson doesn’t read the contracts he signs and King, as you’d expect, was generous to himself when dividing up Tyson’s hundreds of millions.

These were happier times for Iron Mike, who may be flat broke but at least got to celebrate when "The Hangover," which features Tyson as himself, was the surprise winner for best comedy.

More good news for Tiger Woods: The Hangover’s director, Todd Phillips, still wants to cast him in the “What Happens in Vegas (sometimes) Stays in Vegas” sequel.