LeBron James, Stephen Curry lead 2nd NBA All-Star voting returns

The NBA All-Star’s second voting returns are in, and LeBron James has overtaken Giannis Antetokounmpo as the top overall vote getter in the NBA, while Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant are neck-and-neck to lead the West. Antetokounmpo held a narrow margin over LeBron in the first returns, but The King’s current 1.62 million votes are 150,000 more than The Greek Freak’s, and nearly 300,000 more than both Curry and Durant since voting opened on Dec. 21.

Kyrie Irving barely edges Curry out for third in All-Star fan votes with 1.37 million to Curry’s 1.369 million, creating a top-five in the second voting returns of James, Antetokounmpo, Irving, Curry and Durant, in that order.

And yes, the top-three overall vote-getters are in the Eastern Conference.

Here are the total votes for each conference.

Under the NBA’s new voting process, the two top vote getters in each conference — currently LeBron and Steph — will select rosters from a player pool. The fan vote, measured above, is worth 50 percent of the voting, while players and certain media members will also submit ballots, which will be worth 25 percent each. So each team’s captain must still pick players who would be All-Stars under the old format, but there are no longer conference restrictions.

Because the fan vote is diluted, it’s fairly unlikely that we will see players like Manu Ginobili (fifth among Western Conference guards in the fan vote), Lonzo Ball (seventh among West guards), Kyle Kuzma (eighth among the West frontcourt), or Enes Kanter (ninth among the East frontcourt). Still, this shows which players have the most passionate fans — or, at least, who has led the best social media campaigns.

Antetokounmpo being in the lead is also surprising, and it shows how much of a household name he has turned into. He’s only ahead by 7,000 votes, but after a week and a half, he’s beating LeBron James!