Steph Curry third in first All-Star voting returns

The Warriors’ 10-time All-Star trails Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic in the first voting results for February’s Chase Center game

When the Golden State Warriors host the NBA All-Star Game in February, they’re hoping Steph Curry will be in the starting lineup. He’ll need to make up some ground for that to happen.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks both lead the Baby-Faced Assassin in the first round of All-Star voting. Curry is almost a quarter of a million votes behind SGA, but Doncic is within his reach with a lead of 59,714 votes.

At the front court positions, where there are three starters, Nikola Jokic leads all Western Conference players, followed by former Warriors Finals MVP and All-Star social media troll Kevin Durant. LeBron James is third, followed by Los Angeles Lakers teammate Anthony Davis and San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama, who may make up some ground once the European polls close.

The fan voting is not the only thing that determines the All-Star starters. That’s only 50%, with 25% determined by a player vote, and 25% by a media panel.

Curry probably needs to improve in the fan vote to get in the starting lineup, since Gilgeous-Alexander is an MVP candidate. But Doncic will be out for a while with a a calf strain, and there’s not another guard who is having a clearly superior season to Curry. You could make an argument for Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves, but Curry leads Edwards in win shares and PER, and he’s way head in advanced stats like box score plus/minus.

It may not be as significant to be one of the five All-Star starters, given the game’s new format. The 24 All-Stars from both conferences will be drafted onto three teams of eight, by Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal. Technically they’re going to have 15 starters, and we can be fairly confident that Curry will make the cut for that one.

The All-Star Game and the voting process only gets more and more complicated every season, complete with “triple voting days” scattered throughout the process. Andrew Wiggins is 8th among front court players, in part thanks to his popularity in the K-Pop community, but don’t expect to see Wiggins during All-Star Weekend, unless he’s throwing lobs to Jonathan Kuminga in the dunk contest.

So vote early, vote often, and vote Curry. Or don’t. Shaq will probably start him anyway.