Source: NBA saw 28 percent increase in fan balloting

DALLAS – In response to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban saying the NBA should no longer allow fans to vote for who starts in the All-Star game, the league has revealed information that indicates the voting system is blossoming.

"The NBA confirmed All-Star balloting saw a 28% increase in fan voting this year with more than 25 million votes cast,’’ a league source said. "The NBA, unlike MLB, is a digital-only program with no paper ballot in arenas.

"This year, for the first time, the NBA made every player eligible to be voted for, so that obviously spread the votes out more than ever before amongst many more players. Also, the NBA started balloting later this year, so the voting window was 27 days shorter this year (67 to 40 days) and the numbers were still up by 28%.’’

Cuban was unimpressed that Golden State’s Stephen Curry finished as the top vote-getter this year with only 1,513,324 votes in the fan balloting.

"In context of everything, that’s no votes,’’ Cuban said. "That’s such a small number considering all the different options you have to vote that it’s almost embarrassing.

"If you think it of all the people who go to games, all the people who watch games globally, to have (the top vote-getter have) 1.5 million means the system is broken. Absolutely, positively broken.’’

The NBA, though, plans to keep the fans voting for the All-Star starters.

"I think its time to do away with it because we’re just not getting the response that matters,’’ Cuban said. "Shoot, no one even tried to hack it.

"That’s how bored they are.’’

This story was originally published January 26, 2015 at 9:39 PM with the headline "Source: NBA saw 28 percent increase in fan balloting."