The TRUTH Behind Andrew Wiggins Being An All Star Starter

Written by Lachlan Sherriff

NBA fans are mad. Not at referees this time, but at Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins being an all star starter. I wanna look into this more, did he deserve this, who did deserve it, and what the NBA could do to make fan voting better. But before I go further I want to say that this is not an article hating Andrew Wiggins. I like the guy, I always have. And while many disagree he should be a starter, I think we more or less all agree he should be a reserve at the very least. And in five years time no one cares about whether a player was a starter or a reserve, just if they made the team or not. But while people do care, I thought this was an important video to make. So let's get into it.

Andrew Wiggins is averaging 18.1 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists on a 36-13 win team. Immediately those stick out as decent stats, but not one of an all star starter. His defence is good, he's averaging 0.9 steals and 0.6 blocks a game, with people talking him up for all NBA defence teams. He's also shooting above 40% from three for the first time in his career. There are downsides to his game of course, the fact he only hits 66% from free throws his worrying, and maybe some warriors fans would like to see his 1.5 turnovers per game lowered down. So all in all he's doing well, but you can find many players similar to him who aren't nearly talked about this way. A lot of you may've seen a graphic making it's way around Twitter, in which it shows Wiggins and Jazz forward Bojan Bogdanovic to have practically identical stats. Wiggins had 3.5 million fans votes. Bogdanovic, nowhere to be seen. But another player with more or less identical stats to Wiggins, is Tobias Harris. As we can see, Harris actually has better stats then Wiggins, but since Wiggins is a better defender, we can probably call this one even. But again, Wiggins, 3.5 million votes. Harris, no where to be seen. And while I've been trying to convince myself for years as a Philly fan that Tobias Harris is an all star, he isn't and he's definitely not an all star starter. Andrew Wiggins is though. But who replaces him in the starting lineup?

I wanna point out here that the NBA all star rules for voting are stupid. I'll be looking more into that later. Anyway, as you probably know, players are split into their conferences for voting, and then split again by positions, with guards having their own spot for votes and forwards and centres being voted together. Now how the NBA decides who's a guard and who's a forward is ridiculous, but like I said, we'll get into that later. So if any forward or centre from the Western conference can be voted into Wiggins spot, who are possible replacements.

The one that sticks out to me is Paul George. He was behind Wiggins in fan voting, has better stats, is arguably a better defender, and is keeping a Kawhi-less clippers team in the playoffs. Of course, he's injured and may miss the star game, but Adam silver can always vote in a replacement, like he will for the injured Kevin Durant. But you could also make a case for Wiggins' former teammate, Karl Anthony-Towns. The case for towns to replace Wiggins seems weird considering their about as different as chips and chalk, but it would still work by the NBA's rules. Towns has 23 and 9, has led a young Timberwolves team to a playoff spot, and is definitely capable of being an all star starter. Another player who's fallen a bit off the radar these last couple of years is Brandon Ingram. Now when it comes to the fans, they clearly don't rate Brandon Ingram too highly, as he didn't make the top ten in the final returns, meaning he must've gotten less votes than DeAndre Ayton's 612,000. But I'm not exactly sure why. Not many are noticing it but Ingram's quietly putting up 22, 6 and five this year. Maybe not as good as KAT or PG, but definitely deserves a mention. And then the final potential replacement is Wiggins current teammate Draymond Green. Green has been averaging a triple single this year, which is something people mock him for, but stats don't tell the whole story with Draymond. His willingness on defence, IQ, and playmaking is all levels above other players. It's why Green has three NBA championship rings in his house. So who deserves to be a starter? Well I'm gonna rule out Draymond. With all due respect to Dray, this was easy. Anyone who's been watching the warriors this year knows that Wiggins has been the second best player on that team. Ingram also misses out due to his record. While I don't purely base individual awards off team record, I do also believe it should play a factor when it comes to a decision. Now it's tough coz to me, KAT and PG both deserve a spot in the starting lineup. So let's save time and just make Paul George the starter, who then gets replaced by KAT. But either of those guys deserves this more then Wiggins does.

Above: Paul George and Karl-Anthony Towns, two players who many NBA fans are claiming were robbed from a spot as an all-star starter.

Literally everything is messed up when it comes to NBA all star voting. I mean everything. From the way they give players certain positions to all the times they do double votes on random days. It's just weird. But the worst thing, by far, is that no one, and I mean NO ONE, takes it seriously. The fans have turned it into a popularity contest. Two years ago Tacko Fall and Alex Caruso were the fans top vote-getters. We have made strides from that, but still, many fans vote for a favourite player whether they deserve it or not. Andrew Wiggins is a popular player. Born in Canada, he would’ve had the entire country voting for him. Throw that in with the fact he’s on the Warriors, and that’s gonna equal a lot of votes. The same thing happened last year, even though Wig was nowhere near all star level. And I think a lot of people underestimate the role fans play in the all star voting. While it isn’t 100% anymore, fans still swing half the vote. This might not be enough to make Tacko or Caruso a starter, but if you vote for a player who is good but not all star starter good, such as Andrew Wiggins, that’s gonna be enough to get him in the all star team, since I’m sure some members of the media voted for him as a dark horse. But wait, there’s more.

Everyone knows that 25% of the votes come from players. You would think that these guys would be the best players to vote, the most knowledgeable and take it the most seriously. But they don't

The players voting comes from a range of stupidity. Some are flat out dumb and vote for Ben Simmons and John Wall, some probably vote for themselves or their teammates. Another thing, however, is the fact that there’s gonna be older players who get voted in over younger guys. Guys like Damian Lillard, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, guys who are all time greats but having poor seasons, and are all star reserves at best. Hell, Russ probably won’t make the all star team. Yet he may get votes over a younger guy because half the league played against him for a decade and know how good he is, and the other half watched them when they were a kid. Lemme put it this way. If you tell someone like Jayson Tatum that he can either vote for Russell Westbrook or Brandon Ingram, who do you think he’s voting for? Probably the guy who he watched as a kid.

But if fans don’t take it seriously, and players don’t take it seriously, then the only ones who are taking it seriously are the media. And when the only people who are actually voting properly are Stephen A Smith, Colin Cowherd and God help us all, Ramona Shelburne.

We’re screwed.

In this final part of this I want to look at ways to fix the voting system. Something that has come up recently is the idea of positionless voting. Just the best five players from each conference on the court, simple as. But I don’t like it. Sure, it’d be fine now, in this balanced league where we’ve got elite guards shooting threes and elite big men dropping thirty a night. But times are always changing, and this method might not work down the line. If you tried this in 2015, when the centre position was dying, then Anthony Davis might’ve missed out in favour of someone like Kemba Walker. Similarly, in 1960 when everyone wanted to be a centre, Jerry West might’ve taken a seat on the bench, in favour of a guy like Bob Petitt. A good player sure, but not at the same level. When it’s 2035, Steph and Dame are gone and suddenly the league is run by seven foot guys who can literally play point guard, what’s going to happen when a 6’3 guy drops 25 and 5, but misses out to a 7’1 guy averaging 16, 8 and 8 on a worst team, then that’s not fair at all. What I do like however, is a flex option. It’s simple. Two guards, two forwards or centres, and one guy who despite his position already being filled, can make the starting lineup. If people want to see three guards, they can see three guards. If they want two centres, that can happen too. They can keep it traditional if they want. It just gives the fan more variety. And when a player misses out because his position is wrong, like DeMar DeRozan, who hasn’t been a shooting guard since 2016, that can be fixed by making them the flex option. We’re not trying to build a championship winning team. We just want to see the best players play in a game featuring the best players.

You can read this article in video form here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AC5Kan8TDE