Giannis Antetokounmpo should be, by any objective measure, a lock to reach the 2017 NBA All-Star Game. The 22-year-old, do-everything forward is averaging 24.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game this season while leading the Milwaukee Bucks to a record above .500 and a likely trip to the playoffs. With that said, he might have a tiny problem when it comes to fan voting for the All-Star game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo on all-star votes: "imagine how many votes didn't count… if they could spell my name I would have a million votes" 😲
— Michele Steele (@MicheleSteele) January 6, 2017
Antetokounmpo’s assertion that he would have a million votes if not for misspellings might be slightly off-base, if only because he already has more than 500,000 votes at this early stage. That figure trails only LeBron James among Eastern Conference frontcourt players, but while he might be exaggerating, Antetokounmpo could have a point.
In fact, Kyle Lowry could be encountering a similar issue with a common misspelling of his own name.
Oh boy pic.twitter.com/olYG49XMDR
— Zach Harper (@talkhoops) January 5, 2017
Lowry’s plight has been documented by FanSided’s The Step Back, with Antetokounmpo’s issue being tracked by NBC’s Pro Basketball Talk. Hopefully, fans will not be deprived of their favorite players (and deserving players, in these cases) because of the inability to spell their last names and, fortunately, it seems as if their might be a fix.
BTW I asked about NBA All-Star fan Twitter votes being misspelled and was told the system would pick those up (Isiah/Isaiah) (Dwayne/Dwyane)
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) January 6, 2017
It remains to be seen if Antetokounmpo and Lowry (currently sixth among East guards) can gather enough support to start the All-Star game. If not, both would almost assuredly be selected by the league’s coaches as reserve options. In this case, though, an injustice could be avoided if fans of both players took the time to even copy and paste the correct spelling or even just used their favorite player’s Twitter handle instead.
There are numerous examples of players in which this could become a problem, ranging from Dwyane Wade to Isaiah Thomas. In the case of Lowry and Antetokounmpo, there is very little doubt about their inclusion. Let’s clean this up, shall we?
