Quartet of All-Stars among NBA's most underrated
February 18, 2006
By Chris Bernucca
SportsTicker Pro Basketball Editor
HOUSTON (Ticker) - If you're an All-Star, can you be underrated?
Gilbert Arenas says yes. But Chauncey Billups and Elton Brand say no.
In a poll of 248 players conducted by Sports Illustrated and published in this week's issue, Arenas, Billups, Brand and Chris Bosh - All-Stars all - were the top four vote-getters for the NBA's most underrated player.
"I'm not on TV as much as everybody else, so nobody gets to see me play," said Arenas, the point guard of the Washington Wizards making his second straight All-Star appearance. "All they get to watch is the stats."
Arenas received 3 percent of the vote, fourth-most among all players. Bosh, the third-year power forward of the Toronto Raptors making his All-Star debut, received 5 percent.
Billups, the point guard of the Detroit Pistons, received 14 percent of the vote. Brand, the power forward of the Los Angeles Clippers, received 12 percent.
"That might have been for the past, for teams that weren't winning," said Brand, a two-time All-Star who never has played in the postseason. "I guess Chauncey and I might have to eliminate ourselves from that poll."
Brand admitted he was polled and voted for Billups, who is receiving strong consideration as an MVP candidate. Now that he has been chosen as one of the game's top two dozen players, he does not feel he can be regarded as underrated.
"Being on this stage now, being an All-Star, people gotta look at you as one of the best," he said. "I don't know when they took that poll. Maybe that I'm still not the player that people think they should be talking about me like. But that's a great honor."
Arenas is fourth in the NBA in scoring at better than 28 points per game but was only chosen as an All-Star as an injury replacement for Indiana Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal. He does not mind that he gets overlooked.
"It doesn't bother me," he said. "I'm not on TV, I don't have commercials, so people don't know who I am. I'm just a regular person. Real basketball fans know me."
The poll also asked who was the most overrrated player in the NBA. Atop that list was New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury with 12 percent.
However, running a strong second with 10 percent was Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, who has been an All-Star in each of his four seasons. The 7-5 pivot is averaging 19.6 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocks this season, but his team is in last place in the Southwest Division.
Sidelined by toe surgery earlier this season, Yao was coming off Thursday's awful showing at Phoenix in which he had no points or rebounds in the first half. He was surprised by the survey but undeterred.
"I cannot make everybody happy," he said. "If they want to have a different voice, we can live with that. I have to live with that and play my game."
Updated on Saturday, Feb 18, 2006 11:32 am EST
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