All-Star form. © Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports
The Zaza Pachulia wave cannot be stopped. The Powers That Be will not stop Zaza Pachulia from his rightful place this year. Nope. No one can block him from making his All-Star Game debut. The people are speaking and it's loud and it's clear! This is a movement.Pachulia, Georgian basketball hero, the center of the NBA's best team, the Golden State Warriors, is second in All-Star voting for frontcourt players in the Western Conference. Only Kevin Durant is ahead of him. Surely, it is only because Zaza's fans don't want him to dwarf over his teammate and make him feel slighted."Every single Georgian should be proud because their efforts have been felt, right?" Pachulia told The San Francisco Chronicle last week. "I never asked anybody to vote for me last year. That's the beauty of it. That's the special part of it."He already has 439,675 votes—more than Chris Paul and fellow frontcourters Draymond Green, DeMarcus Cousins, and Anthony Davis. Zaza was deprived of his All-Star appearance last year, missing by just 15,000 votes. Not this time…Oh wait, that's right. The NBA changed its voting procedures last year. Now the fans' vote only counts for half and the players and media account for the rest. So Pachulia barely has a shot. He's averaging 5.2 points and 17.7 minutes a night.Damn election is rigged.