Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler ranks high among All-Star Game candidates, but he’s outside the starting group looking in. Does he have a chance to start?
The second round of NBA All-Star Game fan voting returns are in, and the Miami Heat are represented in the Eastern Conference, primarily in the front court. Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebaoyo both appear in the list, with Adebayo sitting in seventh and Butler at fourth behind Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam.
Siakam has actually extended his lead over Butler in the past week. A week ago Siakam had just over 544,000 votes, while Butler had over 431,000. Now Siakam has over 1.7 million votes and Butler has over 1.4 million. Adebayo’s vote count has gone up, but not to the tune of the nearly one million votes Butler received in the past seven days. He’s gone from 104,000 to 349,000.
The top three front court players will be All-Star Game starters and the top two back court players will start. The fan vote is important, but also incorporates media and player votes to even out some of the… irrationality, shall we say, of fan voting.
This fan vote accounts for 50 percent of the final tally, while 25 percent goes to both the players and media.
That means that while Butler currently sits well outside the top three, there are factors which could lead to him creeping in and usurping a starting role.
First off, Siakam is recovering from a groin injury suffered in December and is still out with no timetable for return. While it’s likely he’ll return sometime before the All-Star Game in February, Jimmy Butler is almost certain to surge on the floor as long as his Miami Heat keep winning and stay front of mind for the league.
So Siakam can’t propel himself on the floor, but Butler is sure to gain traction as the season goes on.
Jimmy Butler also has the benefit of not only being the fringe guy among the front court players, but if he was classified as a guard (as he was through most of his career, and frequently plays as a two-guard in effect for the Heat), he would be the top vote getter among guards.
Butler’s 1.4 million is just ahead of Trae Young‘s guard-leading 1.389 million votes in the Eastern Conference. It’s hard to overlook the fourth-highest vote getter when he’s qualified to be the top among guards, and the media and player votes may well factor that into their equation.
The Western Conference fan vote is led by LeBron James with 3.359 million in the front court, and Luka Doncic with 3.277 million in the back court.