Early All-Star voting returns have Canada's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander back in a familiar place.
The Oklahoma City Thunder player leads Western Conference guards with 1,053,683 votes as he seeks his second straight All-Star Game start and third consecutive appearance.
Gilgeous-Alexander, from Hamilton, is averaging 31.3 points, six rebounds and 5.5 assists per game as the Thunder (27-5) hold a five-game lead atop the West.
Golden State's Andrew Wiggins was the only other Canadian listed, placing eighth among West frontcourt players.
There were no Toronto Raptors players among the top 10 for East guards or frontcourt players.
The 2025 All-Star Game is set to take place Feb. 16 at the Warriors' Chase Center in San Francisco.
Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo led all players with 1,710,630 votes, while Denver's Nikola Jokic topped West frontcourt players and Charlotte's LaMelo Ball paced East guards.
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, Ball and Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell from the Eastern Conference, and Jokic, Phoenix's Kevin Durant, Gilgeous-Alexander, Dallas' Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James from the West.
But there won't be 10 starters this year for the All-Star Game. There will be more.
It's 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 semifinal games, followed by the winners meeting in a championship game — with the first team to reach 40 points the winner 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 Jan. 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 there technically will be at least 15 starters in the All-Star “games” — will be announced on Jan. 23, and the reserves that will be selected by NBA head coaches will be announced on Jan. 30.
--with files from The Associated Press
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