DeMarcus Cousins had the game of his life Monday night, but he’s not exactly a happy camper.
The Kings center says the NBA’s All-Star voting system is not only unfair to the league's big men, it’s "disrespectful."
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“It’s not really fair. But that’s how it is," Cousins told Yahoo Sports.
Cousins scored a career-high 56 points in a double-overtime loss to the Hornets on Monday. That came after he was named the Western Conference’s Player of the Week. Despite his 27.6-point, 11.4-rebound average so far this season, Cousins wasn’t voted as a starter by fans and will have to be selected as a reserve by Western Conference coaches.
The former Kentucky star compared the voting system to a popularity contest.
“There definitely wouldn’t be fan voting,” Cousins said when asked how he would change the process. “You can’t base it off of who is on TNT and ESPN every night. Of course, it’s going to be most winning teams’ (players), the most popular players (selected). The other guys that play for the Milwaukee Bucks, and in our case the Sacramento Kings, who are playing just as good basketball, will never be seen. I don’t think it’s fair.”
He has a good point. Fans selected Kobe Bryant to the NBA All-Star Game as a frontcourt player despite his averaging 15.8 points on 34.7 percent shooting.