When you look at the latest returns for NBA All-Star voting, you'll notice most of the usual suspects. LeBron James is the top vote-getter, Giannis Antetokounmpo is leading all Eastern Conference players, Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry are both pacing guard voting for their respective conferences, Luka Doncic and Derrick Rose are top four vote-getters in the West, and…

Wait…what? Doncic? The Dallas Mavericks rookie? And Rose? This is the year 2019, right?

Yes. Doncic and Rose are both piling up All-Star votes, with the latest returns showing Doncic earning 3.3 million votes—second-most in the Western Conference—and Rose collecting 2.7 million, second among West guards.

Derrick Rose

So, if voting ending right now, both Doncic and Rose would be starting in the All-Star Game, and that is just egregious.

I don't care how much you like Doncic and I don't care what type of fond memories you have of Rose over his first few years in the league; neither of these guys deserve to be All-Stars, much less starting in the All-Star Game. So, what exactly is going on here?

Well, for starters, something similar happened with Zaza Pachulia while he was with the Mavericks back in 2016, when he was almost voted an All-Star Game starter. Now, to be fair, Pachulia was averaging a double-double at the time, but starting the All-Star Game? In the West?

Derrick Rose

Maybe Mavericks fans just know the system and have All-Star voting on lock, because this is the second time this is occurring with a Dallas player in four years.

Of course, Doncic is certainly more deserving than Pachulia, because he is actually, you know, good, but it is incomprehensible that he currently has more All-Star votes than Curry out West.

Now, Doncic is probably getting a whole lot of votes from Europe, as well. I can only imagine how crazy all of Slovenia is going for their beloved 19-year-old, and that's awesome, but man; having the rookie potentially start the All-Star Game is just insane.

As for Derrick Rose? It's obvious that his votes are stemming from 2011 nostalgia, as he is having a legitimately good year for the first time since tearing his ACL during the 2012 playoffs.

For some reason, Rose has a cult following. I guess it's largely because of the fact that he is a point guard, thus making him more relatable because of his more common statute. Same with Allen Iverson back in the late '90s and early '00s. Throw Curry in there, too.

But Rose does not have nearly the longevity nor list of accomplishments that Iverson and Curry do, so the fact that he is on track to be an All-Star starter just because of one decent season is just weird.

Luka Doncic, Mavs
CP

And let's keep in mind that Rose doesn't even start for his own Minnesota Timberwolves team. Yeah, he is averaging 19.3 points per game and is shooting 48.3 percent from the floor and 43.1 percent from three-point range. Admittedly, that is really good, but he is doing it off the bench.

Here is the difference between Pachulia in 2016 and Doncic and Rose this year: Doncic and Rose are actually likely to be All-Star starters. There was never actually a time when Pachulia led All-Star voting that year, and it's entirely possible that the whole thing was a joke.

Remember: Pachulia was also garnering a whole lot of All-Star votes the following season in his first year in Golden State, but that seemed like more of an attempt-to-be-funny callback to 2016 more than anything else.

But this? This is different, and it is making a complete mockery of the All-Star Game.

Look: I get it. All-Star voting is a way of getting the fans involved, but when this type of stuff starts happening, it becomes more of a circus act than an actual tribute to the best players in the league.

Heck, we can even say the same thing about Dwyane Wade.

Dwyane Wade
CP

Wade is currently second among Eastern Conference guards in All-Star votes merely because he is retiring at the end of the year. Now, he doesn't even have close to the amount of votes as Doncic and Rose, as the latest returns have Wade at 1.7 million, but, should that stand, Wade will be starting for the East next month.

Like Rose, Wade is a bench player. Unlike Rose, he is actually not having a good year. The man is averaging 14 points off 43.3 percent shooting. That's solid for a rotation player, but an All-Star is supposed to be an All-Star.

We have had bad All-Stars before. Jamaal Magloire was an All-Star once. So was Wally Szczerbiak.

I get it. It has happened.

But to this extent in the same year? This is something unprecedented. We have never seen this before.

Doncic is a fantastic young talent and will probably go to a ton of All-Star Games over the course of his career just because he is actually very, very good. Rose is having an amazing year for a guy who looked cooked a year ago. Wade still has some pep in his step despite being 37 years old.

I understand all of that.

But you can't help but think that the All-Star process is being cheapened this season. Not that it was ever some prestigious, mistake-free, be-all-end-all event to begin with, but it was never this incompetent.

So I ask, fellow NBA fans: what are you doing?