The second round of fan voting for the 2024 NBA All-Star Game is in, and at the top of the leaderboard, nothing has changed: Giannis Antetokounmpo is the leading vote-getter in the East (and overall), LeBron James got the most votes of anyone in the West.
But we have one new starter — Atlanta’s Trae Young has moved just ahead of Damian Lillard in fan voting for the second guard spot in the East. If the voting were finished today, here’s who would be starting:
EAST: Tyrese Haliburton, Trae Young, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum.
WEST: Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Nikola Jokic
The second EAST returns for #NBAAllStar 2024! Who in the top 10 stands out to you? 👀#NBAAllStar Voting presented by @ATT continues through January 20 on the NBA App and https://t.co/Pqxh2EPubW!
— NBA (@NBA) January 11, 2024
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The second WEST returns for #NBAAllStar 2024! Who do you think should be in Indy? 🤔#NBAAllStar Voting presented by @ATT continues through January 20 on the NBA App and https://t.co/Pqxh2EPubW!
— NBA (@NBA) January 11, 2024
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There are two races worth watching — and both could be dramatically impacted by the media and player voting.
The East guards race is the closest in the fan voting. Tyrese Haliburton clear and away has the most votes, and while he is sidelined for a few weeks due to a hamstring strain that likely doesn’t knock him down enough to cost him a starting spot in a game played in his home arena (and he should be healthy in time for the All-Star Game itself in more than a month).
The second guard spot is where it gets interesting. Young is ahead of Lillard by just 35,363 votes — that is incredibly close and could come right down to the Jan. 20 voting cut off date. Lillard led by a little more than 81,000 votes a week ago before Young fans started voting in force, now Lillard needs to rally his supporters.
This is where the media and NBA player votes come in — particularly the player vote in this case. As a refresher, the system the NBA has set up has the fan voting counting for 50% of a player’s total (and the tiebreaker), with selected media members making up 25% of the total, and a vote of the players counting for the final 25%.
Trae Young historically has been much lower in the player voting than the fan or media voting (last year he was 12th in the player vote, but fifth for fans and sixth for media). If that happens again, it could be enough to knock him below Lillard in a tight race. Whichever one of those two is not a starter unquestionably be in Indianapolis for the All-Star Game as a reserve.
The other race to watch is in the West guard spot, where Luka Doncic seems a lock starter, and right now the fans have voted Stephen Curry in ahead of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (by more than 300,000 votes). It will be interesting to see if the media and player votes are enough to move Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ahead of Curry in the final tally.
As a reminder, fans can vote between now and Jan. 20, and ballots can be cast on the NBA App or at NBA.com.
The All-Star Game takes place Sunday, Feb. 18 at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The game will air on TNT, as will the All-Star Saturday Night Dunk Contest and 3-point Contest, as well as the Friday night Rising Stars games.
