CBA officials today announced the 2022 CBA All-Star first week voting, the north and south districts of the starters were won by Guangdong and Liaoning teams, Yi Jianlian, who won 390259 votes, led all the players with a clear advantage (the second place Zhang Zhenlin 338819 votes). After showing such a high popularity in the first week of voting, this also gave Yi Jianlian the opportunity to be crowned the all-star vote king again.
CBA All-Stars have been held since 1996, the first year of the CBA, but the original All-Stars were designated by the Chinese Basketball Association. It wasn't until 1999 that the CBA decided that fans would participate in the all-star player list, and the "ticket king" officially appeared from this year. In the past 23 years, the CBA has given birth to many ticket kings such as Wang Zhizhi, Yao Ming, Liu Yudong, Li Nan, Battle, Zhu Fangyu, Zhang Qingpeng, Maddy, Marbury, Yi Jianlian and so on. Among them, the most numerous times he has won the vote king is the Bayi men's basketball legend Wang Zhizhi, who has been elected as the vote king six times in 1999, 2000, 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012.
After Wang Zhizhi, Yi Jianlian, who won the second most votes. As a benchmark figure in the CBA and even the Chinese men's basketball team, Yi Jianlian has been elected as the all-star vote king 5 times in his career, and he was elected 5 times in the six years from 2015 to 2020. During this period, only Marbury "stole" the ticket king of Yi Jianlian when he announced in 2017 that he was going to play the last year of his career (retiring after playing another season in the 2017-18 season). Other times, no one in the CBA can shake Yi Jianlian's position as the king of votes, whether it is the predecessor who is older than Yi Jianlian or the up-and-comer who is younger than him.
2015 was the time when Yi Jianlian was first elected as the king of votes, at that time, he won a total of 835263 votes, 17744 more votes than the second place Zhu Fangyu, and he and Zhu Fangyu were also the only two players in the All-Star who received more than 800,000 votes; in 2016, Yi Jianlian won 862361 votes, 16283 more votes than the second place Guo Allen, and this year's All-Stars only had More than 800,000 votes for Yi Jianlian, Guo Allen and Zhu Fangyu; in 2018, Yi Jianlian received 249644 votes; in 2019 Yi Jianlian received 519288 votes, the only player in the All-Star who received more than 500,000 votes; in 2020, Yi Jianlian won 192084 votes, which is the only player in the All-Star with more than 150,000 votes.
Last season, Yi Jianlian was reimbursed for the long rehabilitation season of Achilles tendon rupture, and he did not qualify for the All-Star Selection, and the ticket king failed to continue. In the end, Liaoning guard Guo Allen was eventually elected all-star ticket king. Today, "Big Brother" has returned from injury and returned to the jianghu, and the all-star vote in the first week has once again reflected Yi Jianlian's jianghu status and super popularity among fans. Although there are still two weeks left to vote (the deadline of 12:00 on March 3), based on Yi Jianlian's popularity and the competition he faces, his chances of being elected as the king of all-star votes this year are still not small.
According to this year's All-Star voting rules, the two division starters consist of 3 frontcourts and 2 backcourts. Only from the perspective of popularity, the main people who can create a threat to Yi Jianlian are Zhang Zhenlin, Guo Allen, and Zhao Rui. Compared with the backcourt, which has only 2 options and may be difficult to choose, the front court can choose 3 people and one more option can also give Yi Jianlian more opportunities to get votes.
The results of the first week of voting show the strong appeal of Guangdong and Liaoning, and also reflect the huge fan base of these two teams. But when the fan base of Liaoyue may not be equal, the voting attribution of fans of other teams may be able to open the final gap and determine the attribution of the vote king, in other words, these uncertain votes affect the trend of the vote king to a certain extent. In the entire CBA, there are not many stars that can be recognized or loved by fans of other teams, but Yi Jianlian, who has few controversies and a good image, is definitely one of them, and has a high degree of recognition in many age groups, which is also his advantage.
On the other hand, this year's CBA All-Star Weekend was held in Foshan, which can properly play a "plus" effect for Yi Jianlian. As we all know, although the Guangdong team is not the main team of Foshan, the Foshan team has long moved from Foshan to Guangzhou and renamed guangzhou team, and Foshan actually does not have a real home team (Guangzhou team only has a sub-field in Foshan). As the pride of Guangdong basketball, Yi Jianlian may also get more votes from fans across Guangdong and become the only player required for many Guangdong fans to vote.
In addition, last season too many fans failed to see Yi Jianlian on the all-star field, and now Yi Jianlian is back, from the emotional point of view of "watching one less game", Yi Jianlian is also expected to get more votes.
If re-elected as the All-Star Vote King, the UAE League will tie Wang Zhizhi to become the player with the most votes in CBA history. And this is undoubtedly another great record written by this legend.