Why was this man in the all-star game?

 Chris Kaman, otherwise known as the big goofy white guy on the Western Conference Team

Not even the most hardcore of NBA fans may know who Chris Kaman is, but he still managed to make this past sunday's all-star game as a Center for the West. Although he certainly lacks recognition, Kaman makes up for it with his stats, as he has the highest Points Per Game for Centers in the league thus far this season with 20. This of course does not mean that Kaman deserves a spot in the All-Star game though, since the event is made for the best of the best in the entire league. That being said though, Kaman does have rank #1 for Pts/Rbs/Asts in the Western Conference, though that's not nearly as impressive as it sounds considering that the West does not hold the amount of great centers that the East does. In ranking Pts/Rbs/Asts for all Centers, only 3 out of the Top 10 ranking players are from the Western Conference.

Because of their lack of talent at center, Kaman was the only real center on the West's All-Star team, as their only other listed center was Tim Duncan, who regularly plays the position of Power-Forward. This lack of real Center stardom in the west was eclipsed by the East who had Dwight Howard, David Lee and Al Hoford on their roster, each of who has a higher efficiency rating than Kaman. Apart from this statistic, the eastern players also boasted higher ratings in rebounds, steals, double-doubles. Both Hoford and Lee have higher assist percentages than Kaman, and Dwight absolutely surmounts over Kaman (as well as the rest of the leauge) in Blocks with 2.7 Blocks Per Game and 146 Blocks in the season thus far (the second highest being 112).

In the All-Star game itself, Kaman scored only 4 points and had 3 rebounds despite playing for 11 minutes, which was about as well as David Lee performed. As for Hoford, though did not have an amazing game by any means he still manged to score double of what Kaman did, and outperformed him in every stat despite only playing 3 more minutes than he did. Of course, Dwight Howard overshadows all with his 17 points, 3 blocks and 3 rebounds, but that is to be expected of Superman (Sorry Shaq). 

Overall, what can be learned from this experience is that the Western Conference does not have nearly the amount of talent that the East does when it comes to the position of center. Because of this, it can be well argued that Chris Kaman is the best Center in the West, and the most deserved of representing their conference in the All-Star game. At the end of the day though, Kaman is nowhere near the level of skill that players such as David Lee, Al Hoford, and of course Dwight Howard are.