Lakers News: Four Los Angeles Players Lead All-Star Fan Voting
The first wave of 2023 NBA All-Star Game fan voting returns are in, per Shams Charania of The Athletic. Four 2022-23 Los Angeles Lakers players have made the cut -- and two are reserves!
18-time All-Star forward LeBron James leads all vote-getters across the board with 3,168,694 fan votes. Assuming he becomes an All-Star yet again this year (which feels... pretty likely), he will tie Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time record of 19 All-Star appearances. Brooklyn Nets MVP candidate Kevin Durant is leading the Eastern Conference frontcourt vote tally with 3,118,545, good for second overall among all players in both conferences behind The Chosen One.
Eight-time All-Star Anthony Davis, who may not play another game until at least All-Star Weekend as he battles a right foot stress injury, somehow is still in third place among Western Conference frontcourt players with 2,063,325, behind reigning two-time Denver Nuggets MVP center Nikola Jokic in the conference (and sixth overall among frontcourt players).
Jokic is having a considerably better season than either James or Davis, on a considerably better team (one of the top seeds in the West, as opposed to the Lakers, who wouldn't even make the play-in tournament if the regular season ended today) and it is somewhat stunning to see him sandwiched between this LA duo.
The fact that Davis is still polling ahead of New Orleans Pelicans power forward Zion Williamson (1,924,222 votes) is pretty rich, too, considering Williamson has been way better and healthier while playing for another legit West contender.
The generous Davis returns are not the craziest Lakers vote-getting results, however. Two back-up LA guards are both frontrunners for inclusion.
Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry (2,715,520) and Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic (2,388,502) lead all vote-getters among Western Conference, with Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant (915,507) and Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (911,774) trailing far behind. But two other Lakers players number among the top 10 vote-getters in this department, too.
Russell Westbrook, a former nine-time All-Star who has reinvented himself as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate this season, received the sixth-most votes among West guards with 448,224, just behind Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson's 514,104 but ahead of Portland Trail Blazers superstar Damian Lillard's 314,158 or Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker's 224,961. Granted, Booker is going to miss the next month's worth of games with a groin strain and will probably fade from consideration, but he had been enjoying an All-NBA season prior to the ailment.
Even more shockingly, second-year Los Angeles shooting guard Austin Reaves, who was inked as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Oklahoma in 2021, makes an appearance on the West's top 10 guards receiving the most votes with 144,520. Reaves, who at most might be the third- or fourth-best guard on his own team behind at least Westbrook and Lonnie Walker IV (he's jockeying for the honor with Dennis Schröder), has become a fan favorite thanks to his humble journey to major rotation minutes on a bad team. He is averaging a pretty modest 10.8 points on a pretty efficient .488/.360/896 shooting splits, plus 3.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 28.9 minutes a night. The 6'5" swingman has become a real NBA player in his sophomore season, in line for a massive raise this summer, but he's not an All-Star.
Reaves received more votes than Cleveland Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen, Warriors shooting guard Jordan Poole, Cavaliers point guard Darius Garland, Minnesota Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards (who's not even in the West's top 10 as his Timberwolves struggle), Phoenix Suns point guard Chris Paul, Chicago Bulls shooting guard Zach LaVine, and New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson (somehow deep-bench backup Derrick Rose is New York's leading vote-getter with an insane 220,229 votes), and Atlanta Hawks shooting guard Dejounte Murray.
Here are the top 10 vote-getters across the frontcourt and guard categories in each conference thus far:
Keep in mind, the 10 starting spots in the All-Star Game will be decided only in part by fan voting, which will be weighed for 50% of the total vote value. The other 50% will be split between select sports media members and players themselves. Fan and player voting occasionally leads to some very silly results, when fans vote for their favorite players despite (hopefully) being aware they are not playing at an All-Star level, as has happened with the robust Westbrook and Reaves votes in these first returns, and/or players vote for their friends.
You can vote for the All-Star game on the NBA app or the league's official website. Voting closes Saturday, January 21st.
