The latest round of All-Star voting returns are in and, at the very top of each conference, nothing has changed.
LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo lead the fan voting in their respective conferences and seem to be the favorites to earn All-Star captaincy for this year’s draft — although fan votes only count 50 percent with 25 percent to come from both the media and players. Antetokounmpo seems all but a lock and LeBron will undoubtedly field votes, but others like James Harden figure to play prominently in media and player voting out West.
Harden’s problem for captaincy is that he’s currently seventh in fan voting, trailing the likes of Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Paul George, Steph Curry, and Luka Doncic. This round of voting returns revealed that Doncic has actually passed Curry in a fairly stunning move to become the second leading vote-getter in the Western Conference. In the East, Kyrie Irving and Kawhi Leonard are the only two above 2 million votes behind Giannis, but Dwyane Wade has 1.9 million votes as the fourth-leading vote-getter out East.
The second returns of #NBAAllStar Voting 2019 presented by @Google!
Vote on https://t.co/R6fBO5LSAS, the NBA App or by searching for your favorite player or team on Google.
Vote now! https://t.co/7WGNCNxnJB pic.twitter.com/akz3wREzFM— #NBAAllStar (@NBAAllStar) January 10, 2019
It will be interesting to see how player and media voting effect the fan votes as far as determining the All-Star starters. Doncic at second in the West now seems like all but a lock — as his season warrants at least some votes from the media and players — but the real questions will be how Wade and Rose fare in the other two categories that make up the other half of the voting. Both are second in guard voting with fans and could very well find themselves headed to Charlotte.
