Fan Vote: Yay or Nay?

By: Jake

They do it in every sport and we all vote, but is it best for the game?

Every year, the "experts" come out with their "snub list" after the all-star game, which is usually a list of deserving players who were left out of the all-star game because of the biased fans who wanted their team's players in the game. This kind of fan involvement is particularly detrimental to players of small market teams who have a smaller fanbase and cannot compete with markets like New York, Los Angeles, or Dallas. 

This year we got a good taste of this when the Philadelphia fans voted OF Shane Victorino into the game over San Francisco's Pablo Sandoval. Sandoval is hitting .331 and carrying the Giants this year offensively, while Victorino is hitting only .314 and serving as number two batter for the Phillies. Not only does Sandoval have a better batting average, but he also has 8 more HRs and 11 more RBIs.This is definitely not the first time something like this has happened. Last year's NFL Pro Bowl had Brett Favre make the Pro Bowl over Phillip Rivers who had 4 more TDs and 6 less INTs than Favre. Once again showing that a major market like New York can "out-vote" one like San Diego.  

Because of this flawed system, many deserving players that play in smaller markets don't get the recognition they deserve. The only way to fix this is to either have the fan vote count significantly less or just let writers vote for everything. 

Nike’s Censorship: Will it work?

By: Matt

LeBron James has been the most famous and noted player in the NBA since the day he was drafted, and possibly even before then. James, once a high school kid with tremendous talent, has lived up to his pre-draft hype, becoming one of the best players in basketball. The reigning MVP has become a media darling, any time he says the word 2010 an alarm goes off in sports news stations around the country, puppets were made in his honor and he has his own line of shoes. James can do no wrong; he talks about leaving his team in a free agency two years away, argues with future Hall of Famer Charles Barkley about the appropriateness of his actions, and now is un-prohibited from getting posterized in public. At a skills academy hosted by King James in Akron Ohio this Monday, basketball Jesus himself got dunked on, by Jordan Crawford, a college guard from Xavier. Nike, to prevent potential damage to James’ reputation as the greatest athlete in basketball, confiscated all tapes of the dunk and has prevented the footage from being seen. While Nike has successfully prevented the world from seeing James get dunked on, will their China-esque censorship prevent the star from being humiliated? It is hard to imagine that the tape would be even remotely comparable to a classic Shawn Bradley posterization video. Kobe has been dunked on before, Shaq flopped against Dwight Howard, Michael Jordan whiffed a dunk in an All-Star game, but somehow all of these star’s reputations were preserved without Nike being there to prevent the world from seeing their less-than-shining moments. It is hardly unfair to say that LeBron James’ reputation and marketability would be completely unaffected by allowing the world to see the video. What Nike has accomplished with their disappearing act is outrage the basketball loving public. The public’s imagination likely has created a much worse image of James being dunked on than the true event was, and now the whole world is talking about one minor incident in a skills academy that counts for nothing in the Basketball world. Earlier today Jordan Crawford received a segment on Sports Center, countless articles have been written, and now instead of blowing over quickly, the censorship incident has become a black mark on LeBron’s permanent record. Congratulations Nike, I hope you accomplished what you set out to do.