Antetokounmpo Leads LeBron in NBA All-Star Voting

After just 12 days of fan voting, Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks leads LeBron James. The Milwaukee Bucks star is ahead the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar James by almost 7,500 votes and is leading Kyrie Irving the third place voter getter by over 50,000 votes. This is just the first tabulation of fan voting released by the NBA

The next two on the list are Golden State’s Kevin Durant followed teammate Stephen Curry. The Golden State stars have more votes thus far than any other players in the Western Conference.

The voting is a reflection of how remarkable of a start to this NBA season Antetokounmpo has had with Milwaukee. The 23-year old is second in scoring in the NBA at 29.1 points per game. He is in the top 20 in rebound, blocks and steals.

Under a new format for the All-Star game, the player receiving the most votes on both the Eastern and Western Conference will serve as the team captain for their respective conference and choose teams from pools of different players that were voted in as starters and reserves.

The starters, as with previous seasons, will be decided by the fan voting. This is in addition to a vote amongst the media and current players. Fan will represent 50% of the vote, while the media and current players will represent 25% apiece.

Players are to be sorted by position and conference. The players will be in two groups – guards and frontcourt. The top two guards will be chosen with the top three frontcourt players will also be the starters.

The reserves will be selected by the head coaches in the league, and the two captains will draft a team that is based upon that pool of players.

The three top frontcourt players in the Eastern Conference after the first round of fan voting were Antetokounmpo, James and Joel Embiid from the Philadelphia 76ers. The top two guards were Irving and DeMar DeRozan from the Toronto Raptors.

The top three frontcourt players from the Western Conference were Durant and New Orleans Pelicans’ Anthony Davis and teammate DeMarcus Cousins. Though the top two guards were Curry and James Hardens with the Houston Rockets.

The starters as well as captains will the revealed January 18, the reserves on January 23, with complete team rosters released on January 25. The 2018 All-Star Game will be played in Los Angeles on February 18.

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