Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball currently leads all Eastern Conference guards in All Star voting after the league released it’s first report of vote counts.
Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo lead their respective conferences in the first fan returns of #NBAAllStar Voting presented by AT&T.
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) January 2, 2025
Fans account for 50% of the vote to decide All-Star starters. NBA players and a media panel account for 25% each.
Next fan update: 1/9. pic.twitter.com/OoIIa3S3fn
Ball is ninth in total votes, but there apparently aren’t many appealing guards attracting votes in the East. He has a pretty commanding lead over second highest vote getter Donovan Mitchell.
Our pal Josh Eberley gets a shoutout for reviving this terrible Chandler Parsons take from a few weeks ago. In case you forgot, Parsons lamented Ball’s presence in Charlotte, saying the average fan doesn’t know who he is like they would if he were on a team like the Clippers.
First in All-Star voting with the average person not knowing who he is!?? Quite the feat https://t.co/ol5ZpfuteN
— Josh Eberley 🇨🇦 (@JoshEberley) January 2, 2025
Remember, the fan vote now only accounts for 50% of the selection process for starters. It’s the other Zaza Pachulia rule after he was tracking to be an All Star game starter in 2017. The league had tolerated old and no longer deserving players getting named as starters for years, but Zaza starting an All Star game was too much to tolerate. Now a player and media vote each count as 25% of the selection process.
Ball has been in and out of the lineup, but his stat line has been more than deserving of an all star nod. He’s averaged 30.1 points and 7.4 assists per game while leading the league in 3-pointers made per game. Assuming he can hold onto his lead in the fan vote and is able to come back and make some noise in the last few weeks before the all star break, he has a real chance to actually make the team as a starter.
You can help the cause by voting for Ball. It’s 3-for-1 votes today. If Ball doesn’t make the team as a starter, he’ll hope to get named as a reserve by the Eastern Conference head coach.
