Observations from the Polls

I'm still working on that Shawn Marion post I mentioned in the comments to Nob's diary. I got distracted with something else, so it's running a bit behind. I should have it up either tomorrow or maybe late this evening. In the meantime, I noticed a few interesting things in the polls I have running on the home page and in the last two entries. First, the most recent: Which player is closest to perfection? The choices were Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Shaquille O'Neal, and Dwyane Wade. Of the results received so far as of this writing, exactly one vote was cast for a player from the Eastern Conference. That vote went to Shaquille O'Neal. Even our nemesis, Kobe Bryant, managed to get four votes. Tim Duncan has 11, Dirk Nowitzki has five, and not surprisingly on a Suns blog, Steve Nash leads the pack with 22. Nobody so far has shown any love at all for LeBron James or Dwyane Wade. Other than the obvious observation that this board is dominated by Suns fans, it also appears that the non-Suns fans who visit here are overwhelmingly fans of teams in the Western Conference.

Next, the two Amare polls: Will Amare win the MVP award someday? on the home page and When should the Suns become Amare's team? attached to Friday's post. At the moment, the votes clearly indicate that readers think Amare will indeed win an MVP award--33 say "yes" and only eight say "no". But, at the same time, on the question of when the Suns should become Amare's team, more people voted "never" than for any other option. Of the votes collected so far, 20 people voted for the "never" option, 16 said after Nash retires, four said "in another year or two", and another four think that Amare should already be the face of the team. I find this result a bit curious, since being the official team leader would seem to be a prerequisite for serious MVP consideration. I wonder if it indicates a difference between fans who visit the home page of this site versus those who just go straight to individual entries turned up by Google News searches or links from other places? But maybe that's reading too much into it. Perhaps it just means that a sample size of 40-50 votes isn't sufficient to draw a conclusion. What do ya'll think?