The Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo currently leads the NBA All-Star Game fan vote, according to the official NBA website. “The Greek Freak” leads the Eastern Conference and most overall with 1,710,630 votes as of January 2, 2025. Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets is second with 1,422,121, leading the Western Conference.
The NBA’s public relations X (formerly known as Twitter) account announced the results on January 2.
Antetokounmpo’s season hampered by injuries
Antetokounmpo has had a fairly successful season, despite early problems. He and the Greek men’s basketball team failed to medal at the 2024 Olympics, losing to Germany in the Quarterfinal. Things haven’t quite gone Giannis and the Bucks’ way, either. They currently have a 17-14 record, sitting third in the Eastern Conference overall.
Giannis remains the team’s superstar and backbone. As of writing, he’s played in 25 games, averaging 35 minutes. He leads the club in scoring, averaging 32.6 points per game, 11.6 rebounds per game, and a 61 percent field goal percentage in shooting. In total, he’s played 875 minutes with 815 total points this season.
But Antetokounmpo recently missed 4 games due to injury and illness. He suffered right patella tendinopathy, returning to action on New Year’s Day. Although he only scored 4 points and looked winded in the first half against the Indiana Pacers. The Bucks won the game, even after trailing the Pacers by 19 points. He wasn’t the only Bucks star to suffer that, as Damian Lillard has missed time due to injury. He returned to action on Saturday, December 28 2024.
Despite the struggles, the Bucks won the NBA Cup. Giannis had a triple-double (three offensive stats in double-digits), scoring 26 points, and was named NBA Cup Final MVP.
Veteran stars falling behind.
The other big story from the current vote tallies for LeBron James and Steph Curry. The two players have been the league’s faces for the past decade-and-a-half. James, who turned 40 this year, is third in Western Conference voting with 1,167,661 votes and trails Phoenix Suns’ Kevin Durant. Curry, most surprisingly, only has 810,357 as of writing. He has the third-most votes out of all guards, behind Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic, who are in first and second place, respectively.
It’s perhaps an indication that there’s a changing of the guard in the NBA. LeBron and Curry dominated the league in the 2010s. Lebron’s teams made the NBA Finals 8 straight years from 2011 to 2018, facing Curry’s Golden State Warriors in the latter 4.
Although both men have won championships since 2018 (LeBron and the Lakers in the 2020 COVID season and Curry in 2022), the NBA’s next generation of stars appears to be taking over. And Giannis Antetokounmpo is helping to lead this new generation.
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