I can’t believe this is the case. I mean he played 3 games off the bench for the Grizzlies before complaining to the team and media, going on a leave of absence, retiring, and finally being resigned by the 76ers in December.

His numbers for the season are 14.6 PPG, 2.7 RPG, 4.3 APG, 0.6 SPG, and 2.5 TO per game while shooting 45.3% from the field, 37.5% from three, and 80.2% from the free throw line. An all-star? I don’t think so.

From a Fantasy Basketball perspective, according to Yahoo! Fantasy Basketball rankings he is not even a top 50 point guard in the NBA. He is ranked 236 overall and 182 overall when looking at his per game averages.

All three reserve guards easily could have started over him, and several guards that are not even on the All-Star team, including Bucks’ rookie Brandon Jennings, Toronto guard Jose Calderon, and Bobcats’ guard Raymond Felton. If Iverson was not voted in by the fans, I am confident that he would not even be on the team.

This situation brings to light several flaws with the All-Star balloting (not just the NBA, the MLB has the same problem). There needs to be some sort of rule to determine who can be on the ballot. For instance, if you retire from the NBA, your name should be removed (Iverson). Also, more practically, you should only be an all-star if you played in more than half of your teams’ games. It is an all-star game, not a popularity contest, there is no way that Iverson should have received more than 1.2 millions votes. This number tells me that people either don’t care and just want Iverson in the game, or they don’t pay attention to the NBA at all and just go by the names they know from past success.

Iverson was not the only player receiving abnormally high votes that should not have. Tracy McGrady was almost voted into the game, and he only played in 6 games (none as a starter).

What are your thoughts? Do you think Iverson deserves to be in the All-Star game?