NBA All-Star Voting, Third Return: Kyrie Irving holds his ground as second among East guards.

The third returns of All-Star voting are out with Kyrie Irving (1,814,618 votes) trailing only Atlanta’s Trae Young (2,066,924 votes) among East guards.

Irving continues to hold-off Boston’s Kemba Walker (1,797,633 votes) for second place in the conference.

The voting is incredibly close, so Nets fans need to get out and vote for Kyrie, if they want to see him in Chicago for All-Star Weekend.

Nets’ Spencer Dinwiddie has put up All-Star numbers this season, carrying the Nets without Kyrie Irving and Caris LeVert, but fans haven’t shown him the love so far in the voting. Dinwiddie isn’t even in the top-10 among East guards anymore.

The top vote getters and potential captains for the All-Star draft, just like last year, are currently the Lakers’ LeBron James (4,747,887 votes) and the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo (4,474,107 votes).

Fans of Tacko Fall and Alex Caruso, who continues to rise, are still hijacking the voting, but given the NBA’s “checks and balances” system of sort to prevent any blatantly underserving candidates from eventually starting, it’s very unlikely either player will make it through to the All-Star Game.

In addition to the fan vote (50 percent), there’s a player vote (25 percent) and media vote (25 percent) that goes into determining the starters. From there, the positional group (back-court/front-court) ranking for players from each voting group will then be averaged together to determine a weighted score. The lowest weighted average scores per position group will start.

So, while Kyrie is currently in line to start, it’s probably unlikely that players and media around the league will feel the same way after seeing so little of him on the court this season. Now, though, with Irving now back on the court, there’s some chance he could build a late run to earn himself a spot. And he has a lot of respect from his fellow players.

TNT will reveal the NBA All-Star Game starters, including the two team captains next week, on Thursday, January 23rd, prior to the Nets’ matchup with the Lakers. The network will also announce the reserves on Thursday, Jan. 30th.

The 2020 NBA All-Star Game will take place on Sunday, February 16th in Chicago.