The 2021 All-Star starters were announced on Thursday and as usual, it created a lot of controversies around the league. While a lot of people didn’t like the fact that Damian Lillard wasn’t selected on the Western Conference, the East also had fans asking for another player.
The Brooklyn Nets will have two starters in the upcoming game with Kevin Durant (captain) and Kyrie Irving, but people believed that the other member of the backcourt, James Harden, was more deserving of a starting spot than Kyrie. Moreover, other fans were shocked to see Irving over Jaylen Brown, who is having a great season with the Boston Celtics. Well, the fans picked Irving over the young player but the media didn’t think that way, though.
Clevis Murray of The Athletic Boston reported that the media vote favored Brown over Irving but the fans’ vote counts more and they selected the 2016 NBA champion. Murray said that Brown earned more votes than the 29-year-old star for the ASG, ranking 4th while Kevin Durant ranked 3rd.
The media had Jaylen Brown as an All-Star starter over Kyrie Irving.
Irving finished fourth in the media vote and Durant was third.
— Clevis Murray (@ClevisMurray) February 19, 2021
In the end, Kyrie earned the call and he’s set to play in the ASG again. His relationship with the media has been anything but the best in prior years and this season he took things to the next level refusing to talk with them and calling them ‘pawn’. It’s unclear if this was retaliation for those comments but that didn’t matter in the end.
Ky is a starter, as well as his teammate Durant and probably Harden, who has big chances to be named a reserve in the East. The 2021 All-Star Game is taking place next March 7 in Atlanta, amid a lot of criticism.
