2010 NBA All-Stars: Where They From?

Hello, folks, it's All-Star time, so as we did last year, we wanted to do some quick, simple analysis on the backgrounds of this year's All-Stars - where they came from, how much college ball they played, when they were drafted, how they got to their current teams. Here we go:

EAST	HOMETOWN	NCAA	DRAFT	ACQUIRED
Dwyane Wade	Chicago, IL	3	5	Draft
Allen Iverson	Hampton, VA	2	1	FA
Dwight Howard	Atlanta, GA	0	1	Draft
LeBron James	Akron, OH	0	1	Draft
Kevin Garnett	Mauldin, SC	0	5	Trade
Paul Pierce	Inglewood, CA (L.A.)	3	10	Draft
Chris Bosh	Dallas, TX	1	4	Draft
Joe Johnson	Little Rock, AR	2	10	RFA/Trade
Derrick Rose	Chicago, IL	1	1	Draft
Rajon Rondo	Louisville, KY	2	24	Draft/Trade
Gerald Wallace	Childersburg, AL	1	25	Exp. Draft
Al Horford	Puerto Plata, DR	3	3	Draft
David Lee	St. Louis, MO	4	30	Draft

WEST	HOMETOWN	NCAA	DRAFT	ACQUIRED
Steve Nash	Victoria, BC	4	15	FA
Kobe Bryant	L. Merion, PA (Philly)	0	13	Draft/Trade
Tim Duncan	St. Croix, US V.I.	4	1	Draft
Amar'e Stoudemire	Orlando, FL	0	9	Draft
Carmelo Anthony	Baltimore, MD	1	3	Draft
Dirk Nowitzki	Wurzburg, Germany	0	9	Draft
Pau Gasol	Barcelona, Spain	0	3	Trade
Chauncey Billups	Denver, CO	2	3	Trade
Deron Williams	The Colony, TX (Dallas)	3	3	Draft
Brandon Roy	Seattle, WA	4	6	Draft
Kevin Durant	Rockville, MD (DC)	1	2	Draft
Zach Randolph	Marion, IN	1	19	Trade
Chris Paul	Winston-Salem, NC	2	4	Draft
Jason Kidd	Oakland, CA	2	2	Trade
Chris Kaman	Grand Rapids, MI	3	6	Draft

Let's also include the following players as "Near All-Stars" - these are guys who were selected as All-Stars by some of our preferred analysts, such as John Hollinger, Kelly Dwyer, and Kevin Pelton.

Note that the coaches really seemed to do a good job with their selections this year. Josh Smith was the only egregious snub, and it seems like a good possibility that he'll get a nod as an injury replacement one way or another. And if you take into account that Kaman and Lopez were only selected because the rules require a center be chosen, there really wasn't much quibbling this year:

NEAR ALL-STARS
Josh Smith	Atlanta, GA
David Lee	St. Louis, MO
Andre Iguodala	Springfield, IL
Brook Lopez	Fresno, CA
Chris Kaman	Grand Rapids, MI

[Feb. 11 Note: Kaman and Lee have been upgraded from near All-Star to All-Star.]

First, we plotted all of these guys onto a Google map to quickly examine the question: Where do the best basketball players in the world come from? (All-Stars in blue, "near All-Stars" in red - click + and - for different views)


View 2010 NBA All-Stars - Where They're From in a larger map

A few thoughts on this year's geography:
- The metropolitan areas which win the award for multiple All-Stars this year are the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (Chris Bosh and Deron Williams) and the Chicagoland area (Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose), thanks to first-time appearances for PGs D-Will and D-Rose.

Atlanta could be joining them soon if Josh Smith gets a replacement call-up nod. This would earn a special citation for the ATLiens because of the legendary Atlanta Celtics AAU team a few years ago which featured *both* Howard and Smith, as well as Javaris Crittenton and Randolph Morris. Two NBA All-Stars would help their case to be regarded as the best AAU team ever assembled.

- We discussed the topic "What Happened to the NYC Ballplayer?" at length in last year's post. Once again, there are zero New York-bred NBA All-Stars, and there hasn't been one since 2004.

- This season, the Deep South has seemed to fare disproportionately well once again, with the addition of Alabama kid Gerald Wallace. Also, it's a good year for the Midwest, with young PGs Rose and Rondo, and season surprise Zach Randolph, stepping up to join superstars LeBron and D-Wade on the All-Star stage.

- Hit "-" a few times to back the map out, and there's one of the interesting stories of the All-Star year: only two players (Dirk and Pau) from outside North America. Certainly, Yao's injury is a factor, but also, guys like Ginobili, Parker, and Nene have fallen off the list of All-Stars/near All-Stars from last year's map. Of course, this isn't definitive, as the two Spurs have been hampered by injury, and Nene has still played well (as has Marc Gasol and Aussie Andrew Bogut and others), but it still seems like you might want to hold your horses on a U.S. vs. the World All-Star game for just a bit....

- One last homer note from the 206: Seattle once again has produced an All-Star in Brandon Roy, but of greater note is that, with the call-up of Will Conroy to the Rockets, there are 13 NBA players who played high school ball in the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area. With a population of about 4 million, and considering there are 360 American players in the league, the probabilities are such that there should be about 4-5 area players in the NBA. Hey, throw me a bone, it's all we've got up here.

Couple other general thoughts on the backgrounds of this year's All-Stars:
- Once again, this should serve as a reminder that All-Stars are guys who were selected high in the draft almost as a rule, and they are guys who get acquired through the draft. Make those lottery picks count.

Steve Nash is really the only high-impact guy on the list who was acquired as a free agent - it'll be interesting to see if the events of this summer change that paradigm next year.

- Average college experience - East: 1.5, West: 1.7, Overall: 1.6 (down from last year's number of 1.8). [Note: as of Feb. 11, those numbers are now East: 1.7, West: 1.8, Overall: 1.75.] Once again, let's just note that the best players in the world these days do not play much college basketball, which is why the quality of play is so much lower than it was a generation ago.