Bishop of the Abyss

Chapter 57 57. Four people selected for the All-Star lineup!

When the time came to mid-February, the NBA All-Star voting window was officially closed, and at the same time, the Eastern and Western All-Star lists were completely determined.

In the East, this year's All-Star starters are: Iverson, Carter, Grant Hill, James, and "Shark" O'Neal.

Among them, O'Neill was also successfully elected as the Eastern Conference leader with 240 million votes.

As for the Eastern Conference's seven substitutes, they are: Arenas, Wade, Pierce, Jamison, Ben Wallace, Jermaine O'Neal, and "Big Z" Ilgauskas.

However, since Ben Wallace was reimbursed for the attacking season not long ago, the spot for Ben Wallace will be replaced by Chris Bosh, who has only 20 votes.

It stands to reason that Ben Wallace should be replaced by teammate Rasheed Wallace when Ben Wallace is absent due to injury, but the two brothers are now lying in the same hospital, and they can only watch Chris Bosh pick up a leak .

That is to say, the conflict between the Pistons and the Timberwolves on the court was too eye-catching. Otherwise, before the All-Stars came, the Pistons and Wallace were injured one after another, and people might think it was Chris Bosh who made trouble.

After all, Bosh is the biggest beneficiary of the double Wallace's injury. From this perspective, Chris Bosh should thank Luke!
In the West, this year's All-Star starters are: Kobe, Tracy McGrady, Garnett, Duncan, and Yao Ming.

Naturally, Yao Ming was re-elected as the All-Star vote leader with 250 million votes without any suspense.

Before the reform of the All-Star voting rules, Yao Ming had the support of the entire Chinese fans behind him.

No matter how popular "Shark" O'Neal is in the United States, he must bow his head to Yao Ming when it comes to the All-Star voting!
It is worth mentioning that Kevin Garnett is the player with the third highest votes in this year's All-Star, ranking third only to Yao Ming and O'Neal with nearly 210 million votes.

Even the popular Kobe, Tracy McGrady and Iverson can only eat ashes behind Garnett.

As for the Western All-Star bench, it is somewhat beyond people's expectations. The lineup of the Western Conference bench is: Nash, Madman, Ray Allen, Nehbar, Anthony, Nowitzki, and "Small Overlord" Stoudemire.

In this lineup, Nehbar's name seems a bit out of place compared with others.

As a rookie who just entered the league, Nehbar was sent to the All-Star team by fans in his rookie season. There must be strong support from European fans behind this incident.

Otherwise, even if Nehbar plays well this season, it will be difficult to stand out from the league.

But before the league's reform of the All-Star rules, this year's Nehbar undoubtedly became the beneficiary.

Nehbar's performance this season is indeed very good. As a rookie who just entered the league, Nehbar averaged 17.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 1.4 steals per game.

This comprehensive data can definitely make Nehbar the most shining star this year. After all, this data was obtained by the Timberwolves, which ranks first in the league. Naturally, the gold content of the data is naturally needless to say.

It is surprising that Nehbar was able to overwhelm everyone and enter the All-Stars, but when he thinks that there is half of Europe standing behind Nehbar, others can only watch Nehbar become a new star that is about to rise in the league!
In addition, due to the absence of "Madman" and Anthony due to injuries, they will miss the upcoming All-Star Weekend, so their places will be replaced by "Alien" Cassell and Chris Webber respectively.

In this way, the Timberwolves are equivalent to having four people selected to the All-Star lineup at the same time this year. This is definitely a miracle in the history of the Timberwolves.

Even if you look at the entire history of the NBA, this situation is rare.

So far, a team has four players selected to the All-Star team at the same time, and this has happened four times in total.

分别是1962和1975年的凯尔特人，1983年的76人，以及最近一次97—98赛季的湖人。

The four Lakers All-Stars that season were Eddie Jones, Madman Fan, Kobe Bryant, and O'Neal.

Among them, Kobe also became the first player in NBA history to be selected as an All-Star as a substitute player that year.

This year, the Timberwolves replicated the feat of a team with four All-Stars selected for the fifth time in NBA history.

Even if the "Madman" is absent due to injury and cannot play the game, "Alien" Kassel will replace the Madman.

But according to the All-Star rules set by the NBA, even if a player is unable to play due to injury, this honor will also be written into the player's career resume.

So before you know it, the Timberwolves this season not only broke a number of best records in team history, but now the Timberwolves have officially made history, leaving their own footprints in the long river of history!
"Alien" Cassell was able to be selected entirely because of the credit of the team and teammate "Madman" Sprewell.

Even though Cassel got the same high number of votes in this year's backcourt vote, ranking sixth in the backcourt of the West, but this is because the Timberwolves have an excellent record this season.

In fact, Kassel, who is about to turn 36 years old this year, has already declined. If he hadn't completed the transformation in Luke's tactical system, I am afraid that Kassel's role on the field will further decline.

So far, Cassel has averaged 11.6 points, 2.7 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game, of which 9.1 assists per game is a career high for Cassel.

To put it simply, Kassel has been reducing his offensive shots this season and increasing his passing cooperation with his teammates.

It can be regarded as sacrificing scoring to increase assists, and sacrificing offensive shots to increase organization ratio.

For a veteran who is about to turn 36 years old, this transition can be regarded as a career crisis.

Once Kassel sacrifices personal data but fails to bring an excellent overall record to the team, then Kassel's career may come to an early end.

But for now, Cassell is obviously at home under Luke's tactical system. Not to mention the second spring of his career, at least Cassell has kept his star worth.

At the age of 36, he can still be sent to the sixth position in the backcourt of the Western Conference by fans. Until now, he has replaced his teammate "Madman" and was selected to the All-Star team for the second time in his career. This is definitely Kassel's biggest gain this season.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the head coach Luke made Kassel perfect, even though Kassel's career was already very successful.

Two NBA championship trophies, one best second team, one All-Star substitute, this is Kassel's previous career resume.

Compared with most players, "Alien" has a very successful career, and it is no problem to say that he is a winner in life.

But no matter how successful a player is, he will face the troubles brought by his age, and what Luke helps Cassel do is to break through the limitations brought by age.

Transformation at the end of his career, from the road that should have gradually become mediocre, to the All-Star team at the age of 36, this is the major change that Luke has brought to the players!
This year's All-Star Weekend will be officially held in Denver on February 2, local time in the United States.

At that time, if the Timberwolves can keep their No. [-] position in the Western Conference, head coach Luke will join hands with Garnett, Madman, Cassel, and Nehbar to appear on the annual All-Star Weekend.

Of course, unlike the others, the "madman" could only sit down the field and drooling to cheer for everyone.

This may sound a bit tragic, but compared with the two "Singular God" and "Fracture God" who can only lie on the hospital bed, the madman may wake up laughing even from a dream...

(End of this chapter)