NBA All-Star weekend is one of the best times of the season. Besides an awesome and exciting lineup of events, fans get to enjoy playing a role in how Sunday night’s game plays out.
As per tradition, fans get to vote for the All-Star starters, and it’s a process that takes place over several weeks. By the end of it, the starers are named and it gives spectators the unique opportunity of dictating a major component of the game.
While it’s a great system overall, it does lead to some questionable results from time to time.
This season the first All-Star vote returns featured some surprising twists, which included Klay Thompson (who has missed most of the season) and Carmelo Anthony receiving more votes than Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Tweeting about the current vote count, former NBA coach Stan Van Gundy wasn’t afraid to call out the fans.
The NBA All-Star games is for the fans and I am glad they have the vote. But come on folks — Klay Thompson ahead of Booker? Carmelo Anthony ahead of KAT and Gobert? Kyrie Irving & Derrick Rose ahead of Van Vleet and Garland? Do better NBA fans.
https://twitter.com/realStanVG/status/1482705220052398080
For the most part, the 2022 All-Star ballot isn’t all that bad this year, and most of the current vote leaders have a pretty good case for being there. Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and DeMar DeRozan are just some of the names being rightfully rewarded with votes.
Curry has received 4,463,426 votes, followed by LeBron with 4,386,392, and Durant with 4,088,334. DeMar DeRozan leads the Eastern Conference frontcourt votes with 2,973,854 votes, which shows he’s going through a very sweet moment right now.
Golden State Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins ranks 3rd in the Western Conference frontcourt voting, getting 1,829,733 votes, only trailing LeBron James and Nikola Jokic. Klay Thompson ranks 4th in the guards voting with 749,038 votes, behind teammate Curry, Ja Morant and Luka Doncic.
In the Eastern Conference, Giannis Antetokounmpo follows Kevin Durant in the frontcourt voting with a little more than 3 million. Kyrie Irving ranks 6th with more than 550K votes, surpassing up-and-raising stars like Fred VanVleet, Darius Garland and Jaylen Brown.
Of course, it’s impossible to be perfect. Every year, there are some guys who get wronged by falling behind some less deserving players. This time, Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns seem like the biggest snubs.
There’s still time for fans to make it right, but it remains to be seen if they’ll get enough votes to make the lineup. At the very least, those guys can take comfort in knowing they’re a lock to make the roster, even if they probably will not start.
