Fran Session: Teammates bask in limelight of Yao Effect

Everybody knows the old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice, practice, practice.

But if your goal is to rack up big vote totals for the NBA All-Star Game, there's another answer: Be a Houston Rocket.

Call it the Yao Ming Effect, a phenomenon where the towering Rockets' center and his deserving All-Star credentials pull along a freight train filled with his, uh, less-than-glittering teammates.

When the final totals for the All-Star Game were released, Yao led all Western Conference centers, more than 700,000 votes ahead of Shaquille O'Neal. Yao's performance this season would certainly back up his selection for a seventh straight trip as a starter (a broken leg kept him out of the game in 2007). He is averaging 19.9 points, 9.6 rebounds, shooting 54.4 percent from the field and has led the Rockets to six wins in their last seven games while Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest have been on the sidelines.

But as much as Yao has carried the Rockets on the court this season, his influence in the All-Star voting is even more impressive.

For much of the voting period, McGrady was holding down the No. 2 spot among Western Conference guards, trailing Kobe Bryant but ahead of Chris Paul. He finished third, behind Paul, but consider that McGrady missed 15 of the Rockets' first 43 games due to assorted injury and conditioning issues. Consider that McGrady is averaging just 15.4 points, his lowest output since 1999-2000 and shooting 38.8 percent, the worst of his 12-season NBA career.

McGrady himself called it "crazy" that he has received so many All-Star votes.

"It just shows that a lot of the fans should not be voting for starters," said New Orleans Hornets coach Byron Scott before Paul won out. "It's ridiculous to have the best point guard in the world third in the voting."

Yet it's nothing new in Houston, where Yao's long reach across the Pacific to his homeland in China -- and its population of 1.3 billion -- has had the effect of a panda sitting on one side of the scales of justice.

Officials in the league office will not comment on the fan balloting, particularly about the influence from overseas. Ever since 2003, though, there has been a tsunami in international online ballot voting, when NBA.com began to offer alternate language versions of the ballot.

The online ballot is distributed in 20 languages, but the league office acknowledges that the lion's share of international votes comes from China. Based on last season's figures, 30 percent of the online voting comes from China.

The league says that according to the rules for Internet voting, if NBA.com recognizes the same e-mail address more than once during a 24-hour period, it will count it as only one vote. Yet that has not lessened the Yao Ming Effect.

Every single Rockets game is televised in China. Coverage of Yao and his teammates dominates even in a country where the interest in and knowledge of the game and all of the players on all 30 teams is deep.

In the voting for Western Conference forwards, the Rockets' Ron Artest, Shane Battier and Luis Scola all ranked among the Top 10 in the final voting.

In addition to McGrady's big ballot numbers, Rockets point guard Rafer Alston (11.8 ppg, 37 percent shooting) finished eighth, ahead of Portland's Brandon Roy and Denver's Chauncey Billups.

"It is natural," said a Chinese journalist based in Houston who covers the Rockets. "Yao is still the No. 1 player to Chinese fans and many want to honor his teammates. Is it fair? Maybe not. But it is the system and many of the Rockets benefit."

Is this really an inequity or injustice in the voting procedure or merely an outgrowth of the fans selecting the starters, which has taken place since 1975?

Each of the 30 teams is allotted 250,000 paper ballots, which are distributed at arenas, where fans are strongly encouraged to check the boxes next to the names of the home team players. Some teams hold ballot-punching parties. Some hold contests at each home game to award the individual fan who punches out the most ballots.

How many teams are telling their fans to study the performances from around the league, examine the statistics and make informed choices? And how many are just saying, "Vote for our guys?"

The Rockets know all about the long reach of China and how the Yao Ming Effect can have an impact. Four of Yao's teammates -- Artest, Battier, Scola and Dikembe Mutombo -- have shoe endorsement deals with Chinese brands Peak and Anta.

"Of course, we know that Yao is big everywhere and he's just huge in China and part of being a Rocket is being able to bathe in some of that light with him," said a grinning Battier.

"Hey, I clip those voting results out of the newspaper. I'll save them for my kids and someday I'll pull them out and say, 'Hey, look here. Your old man was once a pretty good ballplayer. Look at all the votes he got for the All-Star Game.'"

That's the Yao Ming Effect.

Fran Blinebury covers the NBA for the Houston Chronicle.