LaMelo Ball an All-Star Game starter? Fans say yes with latest voting totals

NBA fans want to see LaMelo Ball. And Stephen Curry, but we already know that part.

The second round of NBA All-Star Game fan voting has been released, and Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo remain the two top vote-getters. Based on the voting, the starters would be:

Eastern Conference

LaMelo Ball (Hornets)
Donovan Mitchell (Cavaliers)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
Jayson Tatum (Celtics)
Karl-Anthony Towns (Knicks)

Western Conference

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder)
Stephen Curry (Warriors)
Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
Kevin Durant (Suns)
LeBron James (Lakers)

The only change in the starting five from the first week of voting was Stephen Curry jumping over Luka Doncic for the second starting guard spot in the West. Remember, these votes go towards the starters, the reserves for the All-Star Game are chosen by a vote of the coaches.

Here are a few thoughts on these results:

• LaMelo Ball as a starter? That fan vote likely doesn’t hold up once the player and media votes are added (more on that below). To be fair, Ball has been relatively healthy this season and is averaging 29.9 points and 7.3 assists a game. And his brother released a new song, no other player can say that. However, let’s be honest, Ball is a social media sensation — his highlights dazzle — but he is an inefficient volume scorer on a bad team where someone has to get points, so why not him?

The All-Star Game is an exhibition not a competition — a concept Adam Silver and others struggle with, apparently — and if the fans want LaMelo, they may get him. But when we talk about a player’s legacy, part of that is “he was an X time All-Star,” and to rob someone more deserving isn’t right. We’ll see if Ball gets enough backing from the media/players to make it in.

• Note: Fan votes — which can be cast through Jan. 20 at NBA.com — will count for 50% of picking the starters, with votes from the players (25%) and media (25%) added to that mix (the fan vote is the tiebreaker). While the fans help choose the starters, a vote of the coaches will select the seven reserves for each conference.

• Could LeBron’s streak of All-Star starts end at 20? It will be interesting to see if those player/media votes bump Victor Wembanyama in front of LeBron James for a starting frontcourt spot in the West. Wemby is close behind LeBron for the final starting spot in the fan vote, but the players and media could lean into Wembanyama, who, in his second season, is already starting to look dominant.

It’s hard to imagine LeBron not starting just because we’ve seen it for two decades, but it could happen.

• How is Jalen Brunson fourth in East guard voting? That’s too low.

• The East frontcourt starters — Antetokounmpo, Tatum and Towns — seem like locks to be the ultimate starters.

• Gilgeous-Alexander is a lock to have one of the West guard starting spots, but who gets the second one will be interesting. Curry passed Doncic in fan voting, but Doncic was having a better season (and was in the Finals, which sticks in people’s minds) before his injury. Will he get voted in by players and media over Curry?

• This year’s All-Star Game is set for Feb. 16 at the Chase Center in San Francisco, home of the Golden State Warriors.

The NBA has changed the All-Star Game format in an attempt to spark competition in what has been a dud headline event for a few years. The 12 All-Stars from each conference (24 players in total) will be divided into three teams of eight players each, with those teams drafted by the former players on TNT’s Inside the NBA: Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kenny “the Jet” Smith.

Those three teams, plus the winning team from Friday night’s Rising Star Challenge (a game of rookies and second-year-players), will enter into a four-team knockout-style tournament with games to 40. It’s a mini-tournament of shorter games that the league hopes will motivate players to play a little defense.

We’ll see. It didn’t take long for players such as Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis to knock the new format, saying they wished it were still East vs. West. The problem is that’s exactly what the league did last year and the players showed no competitive spirit in the game — including Durant and Davis. The players had their chance to have the old-style game, but they didn’t take it. Now, the league is trying something new.