Chapter 78 He is the All-Star Voting King
The All-Star voting results will be announced in three batches.

1月5日是首次公布，此后在1月12日和1月19日还将公布两次投票结果。

Before the voting results came out, no matter which player in the league you asked who they thought was most likely to get the most votes, the answer would most likely be Vince Carter.

This player, famous for his dunks, became a favorite among fans after Jordan retired.

After retiring in 98, he first won the All-Star voting title four times. Neither Jordan, who made his second comeback, nor the OK combination that established the Lakers dynasty could take this honor away from him.

In 03, he only played in 43 regular season games due to injury, and his popularity declined, but in the All-Star voting, he still ranked third in the league.

In 04, he won the All-Star vote king again and created his own glory.

So why is he so popular among fans?
Throughout his career, he has had very few honors. He has never won a championship, an MVP, or a scoring title. Apart from the All-Star Game, he has only been selected to the All-NBA Second Team once and the All-NBA Third Team once. He didn't even make the 75th All-Star team.

Among the four great shooting guards, he doesn't have Kobe's "picturesque" fadeaway jump shot, McGrady's textbook pull-up jump shot, or Iverson's butterfly-like dribbling through flowers. His scoring ability is the weakest among the four.

But his fame and popularity are the highest among the four, at least for now.

There are two reasons. One is that he has the support of the entire country of Canada, and the other is his dunks.

When Carter's dunks were not so famous, he was able to win the vote for the first time thanks to the support of Canadian fans.

At that time, he was playing for the Toronto Raptors and was loved by countless Canadian fans. With their support, Carter successfully won the first vote title.

The reason why he won the remaining votes was because of his dunks.

Carter's dunk first became famous due to his outstanding performance in the 00 All-Star Slam Dunk Contest.

That year, he used a 360-degree windmill slam dunk, a 180-degree turn after hitting the backboard, a dunk with a switch of hands under the crotch assisted by McGrady, a signature dunk with an elbow into the basket, and a two-handed dunk with a step before the free throw line to beat Francis, Stackhouse, McGrady, Larry Hughes, and Ricky Davis to win the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest championship.

His extremely strong sense of visual impact left a deep impression on the fans.

His dunking style is completely different from that of other players. He combines jumping height, air time, smooth stretching and violence into a unique style of "demigod" dunking.

Then at the Olympics that summer, he leapt over 2.18-meter-tall French center Frederick and completed a dunk that amazed the world.

Not long after that, the French center retired. Some people said that it was because Carter's dunk left him with a huge psychological trauma.

These two events directly pushed his popularity to the top, and he won the All-Star vote lead for three consecutive years, becoming the first person in history after Jordan.

Judging from his popularity this year, he still has a great chance of winning the vote king!
But when the results of the first phase of voting were announced on January 1, the results exceeded the expectations of countless people.

The number one ranked player is Zheng, the second-year rookie from the Dallas Mavericks!

And in second place is Yao Ming, the center of the Houston Rockets!

The third one is the demigod Carter!
He only ranked third!
This was a result that no one expected.

What surprised them even more was that the difference in votes between Carter and Yao Ming was only 30,000, but the gap between him and Zheng Yang was a full 300,000.

That sophomore rookie actually took the lead directly.

Everyone was wondering if there was something wrong with Zheng Yang’s votes. After all, how could that be possible?
But the alliance quickly issued an announcement stating that all votes were authentic and there was no fraud.

Everyone gradually accepted that the sophomore rookie had made rapid progress this year not only in terms of strength but also in popularity.

……

David Stern, who was sitting in the office, looked at the report handed over by his secretary and breathed a sigh of relief.

If the contents of this report were leaked, it would definitely cause an uproar in the outside world!
This report is the specific vote count for the first phase of this year's All-Star Game. The ranking is the same as what has been rumored by the outside world, but Zheng Yang, who ranks first, is leading by more than just 300,000.

It was 600,000! It was twice as much!
The reason why we dare not release this real data is that we are worried that the disturbance it will cause will be too big.

According to David Stern's expectations, it was reasonable for Zheng Yang to get the most votes. After all, there are so many fans in China who support Zheng Yang and Yao Ming, which is enough to make them into the All-Star team.

But he really didn't expect Zheng Yang to be so far ahead. He took a look at the voting details and knew the reason.

Because Zheng Yang is not only popular among Chinese fans, but also many American fans voted for him. Even if only the votes of American fans are counted, he can still rank among the top five in the league.

Although David Stern has been pushing media resources to Zheng Yang, he really has no clear idea of ​​the number of American fans Zheng Yang has. He thought that fans would not like him because of his skin color, which is why he wanted to support James instead of Zheng Yang first.

After all, James is a Chinese and a black man, so he is more likely to be liked by fans than the yellow-skinned Zheng Yang.

Having said that, in fact, Zheng Yang, who plays in a flamboyant style, is very popular among fans. Many of his cool goals have been watched repeatedly by fans and imitated on the basketball court.

If there were short videos these days, simply imitating Zheng Yang's goals or editing his goal videos would be enough to attract a lot of fans.

In addition, the perfect personality that Zheng Yang has created in front of the media, that is self-disciplined, hard-working, gentle yet courageous, has made the fans love him even more.

After all, there are many people who are good at playing basketball, so why not pick a high-quality idol to like?
Therefore, it is reasonable that Zheng Yang is loved by so many fans.

After trying hard to adjust his mood, David Stern suddenly started laughing again, and was laughing foolishly by himself.

No, how come Zheng Yang was promoted so easily? It seems like he didn’t put in much effort, and he’s about to get the All-Star vote king!
If I had known this last year, I would have directly supported Zheng Yang and wasted a year on LeBron.

……

At this moment, James, who was far away in Cleveland, was sitting in his room staring at the All-Star votes.

He received quite a few votes this year, ranking second among his fellow rookies and second among Eastern Conference backcourt players, higher than Wade, who was third.

Since the Eastern Conference is not as star-studded as the Western Conference, he is likely to be an All-Star starter this year.

But looking at Zheng Yang, who ranked first in the league in votes, he couldn't be happy at all.

He was suppressed by his opponent again. He was still ranked second among rookies. After meeting Zheng Yang, he was ranked second in all awards. He was destined to be the "eternal runner-up"!
Is this his fate?
Vince Carter, who was traded to the Nets just half a month ago, was also stunned when he saw the number of All-Star votes this year. Although his support from Canadian fans has declined due to his departure from the team, with his huge American fan base, he should be at least second if not first.

Who would have thought that he would be surpassed by two yellow men, and Zheng, who was ranked first, was actually ahead of him.

This surprised him greatly!
Although it was hard to accept in his heart, the alliance said that the votes were not falsified, so he naturally had no reason to doubt the other party.

As for blasting Zheng in front of the media?
If it was last season, he would definitely do so, but this season... he is currently ranked first in the scoring list and the team is ranked third in the Western Conference.

He had also played against him and knew that the guy was indeed a very capable player. In this case, what could he criticize him for?

If an NBA player wants to be respected by others, the most important thing is to have personal strength.

As long as you become stronger, no one will dare to offend you, because everyone knows that whoever offends you will have to pay the price.

The voting results in the first phase also exceeded Zheng Yang’s expectations. After all, his rise was too fast. In this era when the Internet was not very developed, he didn’t know how many fans he had accumulated.

After the game against the SuperSonics on the 17th, Zheng Yang also expressed his gratitude to the fans in front of the media, and said that he would work hard in the future to provide fans with more exciting games.

He scored 40 points again in this game, consolidating his position as the leading scorer while also helping the team maintain its third place in the Western Conference.

Since we mentioned the Seattle SuperSonics, let's talk about them.

If we talk about the dark horse teams in the Western Conference this year, the Suns are one, and the Supersonics can also be considered one.

They were ranked only third from the bottom in the Western Conference last year, but are now fourth in the Western Conference. In the original history, they were even ranked third in the Western Conference.

The core of the team is the twin stars of Ray Allen and Lewis. Both of them averaged more than 20 points per game this season. In the original history, they were also selected as All-Stars this year.

The reason why this team has made such great progress this season can only be attributed to the growth and improvement of the players this year. However, in fact, their excellent performance this season was only a flash in the pan.

By the next year, they had fallen to 11th in the Western Conference and didn't even make the playoffs.

……

On January 1 and January 12, the alliance announced the results of the second and third phases of voting.

Zheng Yang still leads the league in votes and was ultimately elected this year's All-Star vote leader.

Everyone once again strongly realized that this young man was really going to rise!
Maybe, he can really become the next Michael Jordan!

(End of this chapter)