NBA All-Star 2015 Votes: LeBron James & Step Curry Lead Poll
There's still no stopping the King when it comes to basketball, as he currently leads the poll for starrers in the 2015 NBA All-Star Game, two weeks after the voting began.
The basketball league's Hang Time reported that LeBron James, despite the offseason hoopla he has gone through, gathered 552,967 votes, enough to give him the No. 1 spot in the initial list of players to see the action in the yearly grand spectacle of the sport.
The Cleveland Cavaliers figurehead was last season's leading vote-getter, still with the powerhouse Miami Heat.
Fans should not rest however, since close behind -- too close for comfort, in fact -- is a registry of 549,095 votes for Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, the report said. He currently leads the Western Conference's possible delegation.
"It comes as no surprise that LeBron James leads all players in votes thus far, but it's slightly the opposite to see Golden State's Stephen Curry nipping at his heels," said the Bleacher Report.
In the Eastern Conference, John Wall of the Washington Wizards has a distant 299,209 overall vote total to take the second spot as Dwyane Wade, who stuck with Miami Heat, is third with 265,917 points, ESPN Go noted. Carmelo Anthony and Pau Gasol round out the theoretical First Five.
In the Western Conference, Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans has 524,623 votes, just a couple thousand votes lagging behind to wrestle for the top spot, the report added. Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers follows with 521,542 votes. Blake Griffin and Marc Gasol take the next two slots.
It would be the second appearance in the All-Star action for Curry, Wall and Davis if the ranking holds true when voting ends, the Hang Time report said. It would be Bryant's 16th appearance and Wade's 10th.
Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today, in a tweet, revealed the whole ranking.
The fan voting will go on until January 19, or about three weeks from now, and the final lineups for the Eastern and Western Conferences will be announced three days after, on January 22, according to ESPN Go. There's a new online ballot, Hang Time said.
"Given how well James, a perennial MVP candidate, is playing this year (and has played every year), fans should expect him to continue to lead the way in voting," the Bleacher Report noted.
It explained, however, that Curry might end up in No. 2 if he can keep up his good record in assists, steals and three-point conversions.
The 64th edition of the game is scheduled for February 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York, which would excite New York even as no one among the New York Knicks and Nets might go through. Other games will be at Barclays Center.