The Premise:

The NBA released the all-star ballots yesterday. For those of you unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, every year the NBA releases a list of players that they consider good enough (or popular enough, but let’s not go there) to deserve consideration for the All-Star Game. The fans fill out the ballots, and the players with the most votes for each position are named starters. Last year no Blazer was even close to making it.

The Proposal:

This year, I am challenging BlazersEdge to get Brandon Roy one of the starting guard spots. Bill Simmons has said repeatedly that he believes Blazers fans are the most rabid on the Internet. Ball Don’t Lie’s 2v2 tourney last year provided more evidence that Blazers fans are passionate and truly can swing popularity contests. Let’s band together and prove once and for all that we are the best fans on the planet.

The Plan:

To get Roy on the team we are going to need a plan. Simply pledging to vote without a concrete directive in mind won’t get it done. Let’s examine the numbers to figure out exactly how much voting each person will need to do to make this happen. Last year Chris Paul was named the number 2 starting guard in the west with about 2.1 million votes. Let’s assume this year that due to overseas expansion, better marketing, etc. it will take approximately 2.5 million votes to get a starting guard spot in the west. There are about 80 days (82, really, but we’ll see 80 to be safe) until the NBA closes voting in January.  That means Brandon will need 30,125 votes a day to get to 2.5 million by the final date.

Next number to consider: how many times per day could each person vote? I think 50 is a reasonable number. It should take less than 10 minutes at most and one could easily split it up into two or three separate sessions. I have started voting when I arrive to work in the morning and when I get back from lunch. Maybe you will choose to vote every time you log on to BlazersEdge (didn’t Dave say he gets something like 1 million hits a month? So if everyone voted every time they logged on we’d reach our goal). Regardless of when you choose to vote, I STRONGLY recommend creating some kind of personal voting schedule and sticking to it until it’s routine for the next two months.

Assuming 30,125 votes per day and 50 votes per person, how many people will we need to commit? 603. Based on the amount of dedication and sheer volume of visitors to this site I think that is a reasonable goal. Who’s with me? Leave a comment committing to vote if you think you can do it. Also, if you support my plan, please rec this post. And if voting 50 times a day isn’t reasonable for you, but you can do 20 a day, then by all means do it! Every little bit helps.

Finally, tell other people about this. Post on other sites. Vote 100 times instead of 50. Do everything you can to spread word of mouth and try to get other Blazers/Brandon fans to commit to 50 votes a day. Maybe some UW alumni can spread word in those circles?

To Vote:

Visit this Joe Freeman article for details on voting:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/11/four_trail_blazers_selected_to.html

To vote multiple times on the Internet you’ll need to delete cookies after every vote. Anyone know of a faster way to do it?

If you’re in an arena please grab a bunch of ballots and fill them out during the timeouts. I’m going to see the Celtics at the TD Garden tonight and I plan to grab about 100. You can do it too.

Some final incentive:

Consider this a way to say thank you to Brandon for all his hard work in the offseason and on the court. Also, think of it as a way to lure quality players to Portland in the future. Who knows, maybe if we pull this off KP will even use it as part of his sales pitch. “I know we can’t offer as much money, but if you come here you’ll have unconditional support from the fans. Look how they banded together to get Brandon on the AS team a couple years ago…” Unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

In closing, about 6 years ago Portland fans showed Paul Allen whatwe care about by walking away from a team made up of convicts and jerks. Let’s show the NBA how much we appreciate our guys and care about our team now by voting Brandon to the all-star team. I know it sounds difficult and a little crazy, but if we all work together, like our guys on the court, I truly believe it can be done. Who’s with me?