Tyrese Maxey Lands Second Among East Players in First All-Star Fan Voting

Sixers fans aren't the only ones taking notice of Tyrese Maxey's monster season, if All-Star fan voting is any indication.

The NBA released the first round of fan votes Monday, and Maxey landed second among all Eastern Conference players. He was fourth in total votes, trailing only Luka Dončić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokić.

Yes, you read that right. Tyrese Maxey has more All-Star votes than Jalen Brunson, Stephen Curry, Cade Cunningham or reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo lead their conferences in the first fan returns in NBA All-Star Voting 2026.

Fans (50% of the vote) join NBA players (25%) and a media panel (25%) in selecting five players in each conference honored as starters.

Next fan update: 1/6. pic.twitter.com/pHykl9yhTE
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) December 29, 2025

As per usual, a combination of fans, players and media is responsible for selecting the five All-Star starters from each conference, while NBA head coaches will select the seven reserves. The fan vote accounts for 50 percent of the total, while the media (25 percent) and players (25 percent) make up the remaining 50 percent.

In NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's latest annual attempt to save the All-Star Game, the league made a few major changes to this year's edition. First, there are no positional requirements or limits. Each conference theoretically could have as many as five guards or five frontcourt players in its starting lineup, which should give Maxey an advantage even if Brunson and Cunningham eventually surpass him in fan voting.

New format should clinch Maxey's starting nod

The bigger change to this year's All-Star Game is a deviation away from the traditional East vs. West format. Instead, there will be two U.S. teams and one World team, each of which will have at least eight players. If (when?) the voting does not result in exactly 16 U.S. players and eight international players being selected, Silver "will select additional All-Stars to join either group to reach that minimum."

Since there will be three smaller teams for the All-Star Game rather than the traditional two 12-man lineups, there will be 15 starting spots up for grabs. The 10 players voted as starters figure to fill most of those, although it's unclear how the other five will be determined. Either way, Maxey should have a strong case to be a starter.

Although Maxey has cooled off a bit in recent games, he's still averaging career highs in points (30.7), assists (6.9), rebounds (4.4), made three-pointers (3.6), steals (1.8) and blocks (0.9) while shooting 46.1 percent overall and 39.1 percent from deep. He's one of only three players in the NBA this season averaging at least 30 points, six assists and four rebounds, joining SGA and Dončić.

Cunningham is outpacing Maxey in both rebounds and assists per game, but Maxey's combination of volume scoring and efficiency gives him the edge over both Cunningham and Brunson in both box plus/minus and value over replacement player. The Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks are both ahead of the Sixers in the Eastern Conference standings, but that's no fault of Maxey's. In fact, Maxey is the main reason why the Sixers aren't having a repeat of their dismal 2024-25 campaign.

Less than 100,000 votes separate Maxey from Brunson and Cunningham, so there's still plenty of time for these results to change. That trio does have a healthy gap over Donovan Mitchell and Jaylen Brown, and no one else is even close to them, so the five East starting spots figure to come down to some combination of those six.

If it wasn't obvious already, Maxey is heavily favored to land one of them. The first round of All-Star voting only confirmed it.