The NBA’s newly formatted All-Star Game is just over a month away, and Tyrese Maxey continues to receive strong turnout on the ballots. That is, not quite as strong as Jalen Brunson, as the Knicks’ faithful propelled him to the top Eastern Conference guard vote-getter, and dropped the Sixers star to fifth overall in the NBA.
Both guards have had themselves a strong week since the first returns. Brunson averaged 27.4
points (on 44.6% shooting), 5.4 assists and 3.2 rebounds in five games. He received 875,896 votes since the first returns.
In the same week, Maxey averaged 33.0 points (on 57% shooting), 8.0 assists and 6.5 rebounds through four games. He received 836,529 votes since the first return, almost 40k less than his New York counterpart.
Due to his dominant week, Maxey earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors, but Brunson recently earned Player of the Month honors for his performance in December. Knicks fans showed out in the second returns in wake of the voting, and Sixers fans should follow suit, considering the gap of 8k votes is not insurmountable.
Sixers big man Joel Embiid remains at the bottom of the returns despite a strong week of play. He more than doubled his votes from the first return, but it does not appear to be enough momentum to overtake the other bigs in the East like Pascal Siakam or Karl-Anthony Towns, both of whom had much smoother starts to the season than Embiid.
There are a couple other interesting developments in these returns. After his message-sending performance against the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, Celtics guard Jaylen Brown has closed the gap significantly on Donovan Mitchell since the first batch of votes — a 43k vote gap now down to a 16k vote gap. Do not be surprised if a leapfrog occurs considering their respective teams’ success, or lack thereof, compared to preseason expectations.
Deni Avdija continues his impressive development in Portland, and the Blazers fans rewarded him with a large swath of votes in both returns. He is averaging a career-high 25.9 points per game which is a full nine-point increase from his mark last season. He is putting up five more attempts per game, and making them at a similar rate as last season (46.8% this season, 47.6% last season).
He is also averaging a career-high in assists (7.1), three-pointers made (2.4), free throws (7.8), and minutes per game (35.2).
The difference between Avdija and the next highest vote-getter in the Western Conference during the first return was just under 60k votes (Kevin Durant), now it is over 160k votes (LeBron James).
The Toronto Raptors have won three of their last four due to strong play from both Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes. Ingram leaped over LaMelo Ball since the first returns, and Scottie Barnes knocked Paolo Banchero out of the top-20 Eastern Conference vote-getters.
What else in these returns surprise you? Let us know in the comments.
