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By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
Yi Over Bosh, Pierce? No Way
All-Star balloting results came out this week and they show the Nets' Yi Jianlian in third place among Eastern Conference forwards, just behind LeBron James and Kevin Garnett and ahead of Chris Bosh and Paul Pierce. This is something of an embarrassment for the league and its encouragement of international voting over the Internet, as Yi rather clearly doesn't belong in an All-Star Game -- he's averaging 11 points and six rebounds.
I'm sure the league will spin it positive and say, "Look, it's working -- the two best players are leading the vote." I take the opposite viewpoint -- it demonstrates someday soon the international vote will put a player in the All-Star Game who has absolutely, positively no business being there. We're not talking about marginal choices like we've seen from other fan votes in recent years, we're talking about a player you wouldn't consider even if they doubled the roster size. The fact Yi even has a chance of making it threatens to make a mockery of the entire fan-voting process.
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