LaMelo Ball Isn’t All-Star Lock Despite Leading Fan Voting

The third round of All-Star fan voting was released by the NBA on Thursday, the last update before the starters are officially unveiled on January 23 on TNT. In it, there was some movement, with LeBron James vaulting to second in the West frontcourt as the most notable change from the last update. But for the most part, things have held in place at the top of each group.

For the most part, there are few surprises in the fan vote. The three frontcourt starters for both conferences, per the fans, and the West backcourt are all locks to make the team no matter what happens with the media and player vote that make up 25 percent of the starter vote each. However, the East backcourt features one particularly fascinating case in LaMelo Ball, who is tops in fan voting but is not an absolute lock to make the All-Star roster.

Ball, to be clear, is putting up incredible numbers in Charlotte, averaging 29.6 points, 7.5 assists, and 5.5 rebounds per game, which are unquestionably All-Star worthy stats. He is also one of the most creative offensive players in the league, and I’d argue he’s the kind of player that the All-Star Game needs, which is a big part of why he leads the fan vote. But, he has only played in 26 of the team’s 37 games, has not shot the ball efficiently, and the Hornets have the NBA’s second-worst record. Fair or not, team success has always played a significant role in All-Star voting, particularly when it comes to the reserve selections by the coaches and the media’s starter vote. This year, the East backcourt is the hardest group to narrow down the All-Star list, as there are nine or 10 guards with a legitimate case (including Ball) and many of them play big roles with strong statistical profiles on teams that are exceeding expectations, which always helps in All-Star and awards voting.

How Ball fares in the player and media voting will likely determine whether he ends up on the All-Star roster, because I think he’ll have a hard time beating out four of Damian Lillard, Trae Young, Darius Garland, Cade Cunningham, Tyler Herro, and Tyrese Maxey in the coaches voting. His top competition for the starting spots are Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Brunson, who I expect to be near the top of both the player and media voting lists.

Beyond the battle on those two ballots, it also will be crucial where Brunson, in particular, finishes in fan voting. Right now, Mitchell is second in fan voting by a healthy margin and feels like a guy you can write down in pen as a starter this year because he’ll end up high on both the player and media list (I’d be surprised if he isn’t first on both lists). Brunson, on the other hand, is fourth in fan voting, but closed the gap on Lillard significantly for third, and if he can close down that last 27,000 votes to pass Lillard for third in fan voting by next Thursday, that could determine Ball’s fate. Brunson is, I would guess, going to finish second in media voting. There are some talking themselves into Cunningham in that spot, but ultimately, I think it’ll be Brunson. He’s also well respected around the league, and I think he has a good shot to be second in player voting (a year ago he finished third with players).

However, even if he is second in both, finishing fourth in fan voting (which is the tie-breaker) would mean his average would make him the third guard. That means LaMelo could finish third in player voting and seventh in media voting and tie Brunson, with fan voting giving him the second spot — it’s not dissimilar to how Brunson and Lillard tied last year, with Lillard getting the spot thanks to a higher fan vote finish.

If Brunson can pick off that third spot in fan voting, though, a second-place finish in one and no lower than a third-place finish in the other would give him a floor of 2.75, which would make Ball’s path to a spot much trickier. To get to where he’d need to finish so that he’s guaranteed a starting spot (a finish of 2.5), Ball would need a combined average finish of fourth in player and media voting — for example, second place in one and sixth place in the other — which is unlikely. To get to 2.75, he’d need an average of 4.5 (third and sixth or second and seventh), which is more doable, but still not a guarantee.

Ball is seemingly well-liked around the league, and I don’t think he’ll deal with Trae Young’s issue in recent years of getting buried in the player voting. I don’t think anyone can feel particularly solid about predicting anything with the always chaotic player vote, but when Ball was mostly hurt last year, he still got 29 votes and finished seventh in player voting. If the players vote Ball at No. 1, this all is moot, but anything else will make things interesting. Ball will likely need to be high in player voting to offset a low finish on the media ballot, as I have a hard time seeing Ball finishing higher than sixth in media voting given the names also on the board. Last year, only six guards got votes from the media, meaning everyone got seventh that didn’t receive a vote. But this year, I expect it to be seven or even eight that get votes.

Ball earning a starting spot or not will have a considerable impact on the roster crunch for reserve guards. If he is a starter alongside Mitchell, then you only have two guaranteed spots and two wild cards for the rest of the group. That means there are, at most, four spots for Brunson, Lillard, Garland, Cunningham, and Young, all of whom have extremely strong candidacies. If Ball doesn’t get a starting spot, he could become an extremely rare fan voting winner to not even make the All-Star team, because Brunson likely gets the second spot and then it’s the four other names above and Ball competing for the last four spots. Given how coaches have voted in the past, I would make Ball an underdog to get one of those spots.

That would lead to plenty of discourse about the voting process, Ball’s candidacy, and what the All-Star Game is meant to be. Either way the next week of voting goes, LaMelo is going to be the pivot point for the East when starters are announced, and he may be in a position of being a starter or being left off the roster entirely.