Zhang Yang, who barely counts as middle generation, veteran Yao Ming; veteran Kobe, barely counts as veteran James; the new generation Rose, Durant, Harden, the league arranged all the most popular players from the old, middle, and new generations during the offseason schedule.
Zhang Yao Ke Zhan have been All-Star starters for many years, each having been vote king at least once.
Rose and Durant are in small markets, and their popularity purely stems from their performance.
Harden is quite special; in terms of personal ability, he currently can only be considered fourth in the 2004 class. Mayo, Rose, and Westbrook are all better than him, and even Billis purely from a personal ability standpoint is still not inferior to him right now, yet he is the most popular from the 2008 class because he's a genius from the Big Apple City, his exposure is just unmatched.
