Giannis the early leader in fan-balloting for NBA All-Star game

MIAMI, Florida (AP):

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo is the early leader in fan balloting for the NBA All-Star game, and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers seems well on his way toward extending his record and getting picked for a 21st time.

The first update on All-Star voting for this season’s revised game was released yesterday with Antetokounmpo the overall leader with about 1.7 million votes. Denver’s Nikola Jokic is second overall with about 1.4 million votes, which is tops among all Western Conference players.

The 10 players on pace to be selected as starters, at least based on the fan balloting: Antetokounmpo, Boston’s Jayson Tatum, New York’s Karl-Anthony Towns, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell from the Eastern Conference, and Jokic, Phoenix’s Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Dallas’ Luka Doncic, and James from the West.

But there won’t be 10 starters this year for the All-Star Game, set to take place February 16 in San Francisco. There will be more.

It is the first year of a new All-Star format, one where there will be three games. The 24 All-Stars will be drafted into three teams of eight players apiece by TNT personalities and former NBA greats Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kenny Smith.

Those three teams will be entered into a four-team tournament, with the remaining squad being the team of NBA rookies and second-year players that wins the Rising Stars event on All-Star Friday. There are two semi-final games, followed by the winners meeting in a championship game — with the first team to reach 40 points the winners of all three games.

It will be wildly different than last year when the All-Star Game final score was 211-186 — the highest-scoring one in history.

Voting continues through January 20.

Fan voting makes up 50 per cent of the All-Star starter selection formula, with media voting accounting for another 25 per cent and voting by current NBA players counting for the remaining 25 per cent.

The 10 players designated as starters — even though, technically, there will be at least 15 starters in the All-Star “games” — will be announced on January 23, and the reserves that will be selected by NBA head coaches will be announced on January 30.