Sophia Michaels
NBA All-Star Weekend is right around the corner, as the league will descend on Chicago in just over a month for the midseason festivities. With the calendar flipping over to 2020, that meant it was time for the NBA to release the results from the first round of fan voting, with the usual suspects topping the lists along with the usual fan voting shenanigans going on.
As a reminder, fan voting now only accounts for 50 percent of the input into the All-Star starters, along with the media and player votes that count for 25 percent. The two leading vote getters as of Jan. 2 (which is a double count vote day, for those interested) are Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic, with LeBron James leading the West frontcourt voting and Trae Young leading the East backcourt to round out the leaders at this moment — although Young at 443,000 votes is only good for ninth overall.
Fan voting always leads to some interesting names creeping into the top 10s at each position, and this year is no different. Celtics two-way center Tacko Fall is sixth in the East frontcourt voting, ahead of possible MIP winner and deserving All-Star Bam Adebayo. In the West, Carmelo Anthony is eighth in frontcourt voting, while Alex Caruso sits at eighth in the backcourt voting. Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry, both of whom are injured and missed much of the season, are second and fourth respectively in their backcourt voting.
None of this comes as a tremendous surprise, but it’s part of why the league adjusted the voting structure. Overall, the fans have gotten it pretty right at the top of each list, aside from the injured Irving’s inclusion, and surely the player and media vote will average that out and we should end up with the deserving All-Star starters, with coaches filling out the rest. That is, unless the whole league’s fan base suddenly goes all-in on the Tacko push.
Written by: Uproxx
