Lakers News: All-Star Voting Commences

Hanukkah and Christmas are upon us, pals. Accordingly, that also typically means it's time to sharpen your pencils and starting filling in your ballot for --

Oh wait, it's totally digital. Never mind, then.

Ahem.

All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah, might actually feature a Jazz player this year, despite the team supposedly being in the midst of a teardown/rebuild!

Now that all clubs have hit the 30-game mark, the NBA has opened the floodgates for fans to vote for their selections to the 2023 All-Star Game's starting fives in the Eastern and Western Conferences. Fans can vote using the NBA App on their phones or by going to this page on the NBA website.

Your Los Angeles Lakers have two very viable candidates who would almost certainly make the grade were the All-Star Game to kick off soon, in 18-time All-Star forward LeBron James and eight-time All-Star center/power forward Anthony Davis.

However, this year's game will kick off in mid-February, and, as we discovered this morning, it is a distinct possibility that Anthony Davis will be out at least until then as he recovers from a major right foot injury, the exact diagnosis of it we have yet to discover.

Though incredibly productive when healthy, this could be AD's second consecutive All-Star opportunity missed due to injury. The 29-year-old has struggled to stay on the court since helping James lead the Lakers to their 17th championship in 2020, having missed at least half of his team's regular season contests since that victory in the Orlando Magic "bubble" during the pre-vaccine days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Does James deserve to start, as he has for the past 18 seasons? Given that the Lakers currently stand at a middling 13-17 record, good for just 12th in the Western Conference, in large part because James and Davis advocated for the team to trade away a lot of its depth to add Russell Westbrook in 2021, it feels like starting honors may deserve to go elsewhere. James definitely deserves to make his record-tying 19th career All-Star game this season, but he should probably come off the bench this time.

Here are this writer's picks for the 10 starters at this point in 2022-23:

Western Conference

Guards: Devin Booker (Phoenix Suns), Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies)

Frontcourt: Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets), Zion Williamson (New Orleans Pelicans), Paul George (Los Angeles Clippers)

Eastern Conference

Guards: Donovan Mitchell (Cleveland Cavaliers), Jrue Holiday (Milwaukee Bucks)

Frontcourt: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks), Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics), Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets)

One note: the Miami Heat's Jimmy Butler used to be listed as both a guard and a frontcourt player, but now that he is mostly a full-time small forward, he has been moved out of the backcourt in All-Star voting. He's a better player than Holiday, and would have gotten the nod over the Bucks point guard were he still eligible for a guard spot.