The starters for the 2021 NBA All-Star Game were announced on Thursday. As expected, no players on the OKC Thunder made the cut.
That’s not a slight of the young talent on the Resiliency Thunder. Rather, it’s more of a testament to how much talent is in the Western Conference in particular.
The five starters are headlined by the top vote-getter in the West — LeBron James. He’s joined by guards Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic in the backcourt plus Kawhi Leonard and Nikola Jokic in the frontcourt.
In the East, Kevin Durant collected the most votes. The backcourt features Bradley Beal and Kyrie Irving while the other frontcourt starters are Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid.
This portion of the voting includes fans, players, and media voting with the fans’ vote weighted at 50 percent and players/media at 25 percent.
Diving into each of the three ballots, fan votes ranked Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 11th in the West backcourt.
Players vote OKC Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 7th on All-Star ballots
SGA’s peers paid him respect ranking him seventh in a tie with his mentor Chris Paul. Here’s the top 10 West backcourt as per the player ranking:
To wit, players voted him seventh:
- Stephen Curry
- Damian Lillard
- Luka Doncic
- Devin Booker
- Donovan Mitchell
- De’Aaron Fox
- Gilgeous-Alexander | Chris Paul
- (see above tie)
- Ja Morant
- DeMar DeRozan
SGA received votes from 26 players while three players also voted for Luguentz Dort.
In the media voting, only four players received more than 10 votes and the placement was similar to the players with the top three identical and Mitchell ranking fourth.
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The East backcourt voting was wildly different between fans and players particularly after the top five.
For example, Trae Young and Russell Westbrook finished sixth and seventh on fan ballots but the players ranked them 11th and 12th. Ben Simmons and Fred VanVleet were voted 11th and 10th by fans but the players voted them sixth and seventh.
On Tuesday, February 23rd the coach’s votes will be announced, and determine the other seven players who’ll make the cut in each conference. The captain’s draft will take place with LeBron and KD selecting their teams.
The All-Star Game will take place on March 7th in Atlanta and the typical Saturday Night events will still occur. Prior to the All-Star Game tipping off the Skills Challenge and 3-point competition will take place while the Slam Dunk competition will occur at halftime.