Golden State Warriors' Andrew Wiggins was eventually elected as the Western Conference starter for the 2022 Cleveland All-Star Game, causing fierce criticism from the outside world, and many people questioned how fans could vote for Wiggins, which is the result of the Warriors' official canvassing, the result of the whole team's efforts, as if they were the only team to encourage the vote for the players, but also the result of the efforts of some stars who like Wiggins, especially the Korean rappers with 9.6 million followers on social media. Members of the boy band Got7 even openly appealed to fans to vote for Wiggins.
Wiggins ranked fifth among Western Conference frontcourt players in the player voting process and sixth among Western Conference frontcourt players in the media voting, which shows that both players and the media believe that he deserves the title of All-Star this season, but only as a substitute, but because he was finally ranked third among Western Conference frontcourt players in the fan voting process, he was lucky enough to become a starter when he was first selected as an All-Star in his career.
But people have overreacted to it, as if they hadn't seen a time when fan votes were so crazy before, and Wiggins is certainly doing better this season than B.J. Armstrong did in 1994 (averaging 15.8 points per game) or A.C Green in the 1990 All-Star starters (averaging 13.3 points and nine rebounds per game). Like these two predecessors, Wiggins played on a very popular team that often gets the opportunity to broadcast TNT live, which affects not only the perception of fans, but also the media and players, who usually watch TNT live every Thursday, and in these all-American live games, the Warriors are usually the winners.
This year has been an overall downturn for The Western Conference forwards, with Kawhi Leonard injured, Zion Williamson never playing, Anthony Davis playing just 29 of all 50 games with the Lakers, and Paul George playing only 26, and fans and players can only pick players they've actually seen on the court.
Maybe the Warriors' voting work is really well done, but if Wiggins has to be blamed for this, then shouldn't the most worthy frontcourt player be his teammate Draymond Green? As for another frontcourt rival, Rudy Gobert, he's a good player, but no fans like Gobert to be on the All-Star floor, including the rest of the Utah Jazz. Do you think who qualifies as a starter if Wiggins isn't worth starting?