LeBron James, Kevin Durant lead early NBA All-Star starter voting

(AP Photo/Emil T. Lippe)

Early NBA All-Star voting has a couple of familiar faces leading the pack.

LeBron James and Kevin Durant are leading the way in their respective conferences.

James, the overall leading vote-getter, had 3,168,694 votes entering Thursday, topping the list of Western Conference frontcourt players. Denver’s Nikola Jokic is second (2,237,768) and the Lakers’ Anthony Davis is third (2,063,325).

Durant leads Eastern Conference frontcourt players with 3,118,545 votes. That’s just ahead of Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (2,998,327) and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (2,226,712).

Fan voting counts for 50% of the starters balloting, a media ballot counts for 25% and the ballots turned in by NBA players count for the other 25%.

James has been a captain in all five previous uses of that process, going 5-0 in All-Star Games. His team beat a Durant-picked team in 2020 and 2021, beat teams picked by Antetokounmpo in 2018 and 2019, and beat a team picked by Curry in 2017.

The Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard is currently seventh in Western Conference backcourt voting: