Tom Haberstroh of ESPN makes his case in a recent article on why he believes Shaq should be considered for the allstar team this year.

A link to a copy of his article is below.

http://www.nbadimensions.net/forums/nba-forum/76757-shaq-may-deserve-all-star.html

I must say I agree that Shaq does deserve at least some consideration to make the allstar team with his strong, efficient and steady play so far this year on the defensive end of the court and especially on the offensive end of the court where he has been almost unstoppable offensively in the low post.

Now if you look at Shaq's numbers at 1st glance some may say that they are not that impressive to warrant him being a allstar, but again this is because he plays limited minutes.

If you dig deeper and consider as Haberstroh points out that Shaq plays very efficiently in his limited minutes and that he has the Celtics highest player efficiency rating at 21.2, then the case for Shaq to be considered for the allstar game has some more validity.

Also it would be great to see Shaq make the allstar team for simple sentimental reasons (since it appears this will be his final year or 2 in the NBA) and also just to see the LA crowd reaction  when Shaq enters the allstar game representing not just  the eastern conference but of all teams the Boston Celtics.

Anyone have views on the matter?

Note Update:

The NBA released 1st returns of fan balloting on 12/16/10 (link below)  and Shaq trails only Dwight Howard in votes for the eastern conference center position.

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4678910/rondo-leads-cs-all-star-balloting

The center vote count is currently as follows:

Centers: Dwight Howard (Orl) 611,561; Shaquille O'Neal (Bos) 241,782; Joakim Noah (Chi) 97,163; Andrea Bargnani (Tor) 53,275; Al Horford (Atl) 49,098; Andrew Bogut (Mil) 48,298; Brook Lopez (NJ) 38,103; JaVale McGee (Was) 36,227; Roy Hibbert (Ind) 35,006; Ben Wallace (Det) 21,858.

Lets hope the vote count holds for Shaq's sake as it would be fitting to see him play in the Allstar game to reward him for his fine play so far this year and especially since the game will be played of all places in LA.