Zaza Pachulia Is No All-Star, but His Value to Golden State Warriors Is Clear

Twitter can be a deplorable place where fun suffers a slow death as you’re bombarded with a never-ending cascade of news ranging from simply bad to positively soul-crushing.

And then Zaza Pachulia comes along.

More precisely, Pachulia and his hilariously high All-Star Game vote totals. Suddenly, the sun is shining a little brighter and there’s a spring in your step. With the announcement that Pachulia received the second-most votes for any Western Conference frontcourt player, the internet lost its mind for a few hours on Thursday, and it was glorious.

Also…ZAZA!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/ItEJF1GAoO

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 5, 2017

Of course, nothing good can ever stay as such. There was a contingent ready to pounce on the significance of Pachulia’s voting bloc, what it all means and how we can’t let this turn the All-Star Game into a mockery.

It’s true, the NBA has made significant changes to the way All-Star Game votes are counted, and it’s largely because of Pachulia’s unexpected ascendance last season that almost proved successful. Now, the fan vote for starters only counts for 50 percent, with players and media making up the rest.

That’s perfectly understandable. It also likely sinks any chance Pachulia will get to start his first All-Star Game. Again, fine. No one is going to mount any full-throated defense that the big Georgian actually deserves to start over, say, Kawhi Leonard or Anthony Davis (the two players immediately trailing him on the leaderboard).

But the All-Star Game is about fun. It’s not meant to be a historical record of the season’s most dominant players. What you get is a reflection of the most popular players in a given year about two-thirds of the way through a season. That’s it.

If the idea of Pachulia starting an All-Star Game really offends you, then you must’ve had weeks of sleepless nights over Kobe Bryant not only starting last year’s game but ending up as the top vote-getter in the league. Despite ranking 344th of 423 players in ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus metric at season’s end, Bryant eclipsed Stephen Curry (who posted one of the top all-around seasons in NBA history) by more than 250,000 votes.

The idea that the All-Star Game has really ever been about including only the most deserving players is, at best, revisionist history of the highest order.

If you need something to get upset about in these initial All-Star vote totals, don’t pick on Pachulia, who ranks a respectable 42nd this year in overall RPM (just behind Kristaps Porzingis) and ninth in Defensive RPM while starting for the league’s top team.

Instead, look to Dwyane Wade, who ranks 80th in RPM …

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