The Toronto Raptors have made up a bit of ground, but not quite enough yet, the second round of NBA fan voting returns suggest.
DeMar DeRozan remains in third among Eastern Conference guards, but he continues to be only narrowly behind Dwyane Wade of the Chicago Bulls. Raptors fans have pushed Kyle Lowry into the starting lineup during the closing days of voting in each of the last two seasons, and Wade is the only player DeRozan could knock off – Kyrie Irving is simply way too far ahead in votes.
Kyle Lowry, meanwhile, jumped Derrick Rose to move into fifth place, but the gap is significant enough that it seems unlikely he’ll be able to catch Isaiah Thomas for fourth.
Eastern Conference
Frontcourt
1 LeBron James (CLE) 1,066,147
2 Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIL) 963,110
3 Kevin Love (CLE) 473,328
4 Joel Embiid (PHI) 457,300
5 Jimmy Butler (CHI) 400,448
6 Carmelo Anthony (NY) 327,716
7 Kristaps Porzingis (NY) 324,106
8 Paul George (IND) 249,484
9 Jabari Parker (MIL) 120,022
10 Tristan Thompson (CLE) 114,759Guards
1 Kyrie Irving (CLE) 971,362
2 Dwyane Wade (CHI) 514,866
3 DeMar DeRozan (TOR) 453,538
4 Isaiah Thomas (BOS) 401,671
5 Kyle Lowry (TOR) 256,668
6 Derrick Rose (NY) 223,804
7 John Wall (WAS) 173,148
8 Jeremy Lin (BKN) 109,088
9 Kemba Walker (CHA) 105,637
10 Avery Bradley (BOS) 64,157
As a reminder, fans can vote on NBA.com/vote, via the NBA app, on Facebook, via Google search, or, as you’re surely aware if you’ve watched a Raptors broadcast of late, tweeting the player’s name with the hashtag #NBAVote.
Luckily for the Raptors, fan voting only makes up 50 percent of what goes into the starters this year, and the gap between players doesn’t matter. So not only can you not hurt one Raptor by voting for the other, as some still seem to think, but there’s a strong incentive to continue voting to try to push each player a spot higher in the rankings. Don’t let Irving’s gargantuan lead turn you off from voting for either star, should you feel they deserve to be in the All-Star Game.
The process is a little clunky to explain, but basically, the players are ranked as fans vote them, then ranked as media vote them, then ranked as players vote them. It is the rank (“3rd among East guards”) that matters, not the total number of votes. The ranks are then weighted and put together for a cumulative score. It’s unclear if the NBA will release player and media voting publicly, so we may be left to guess the exact way in which a player makes or misses the starting lineup.
Fans have until the end of Monday, January 16 to vote. The starters will be announced on Thursday, January 19.
