The third and final round of All-Star ballot returns were released today, and while the race for the overall leading vote getter has narrowed with Stephen CURRYtrailing LeBron James by just 13,285 votes, the top five players in each conference have stayed the same throughout the three rounds of results. And while 11 days of voting remain, the gap between the players that are currently in and the ones next in line is fairly substantial. In the East, Chris Bosh and Kyle Lowry are each over 100,000 votes behind in the frontcourt and guard voting, respectively. Tim Duncan faces a similar deficit to Blake Griffin and Marc Gasol among Western Conference frontcourt players. And James Harden will need to invoke his inner Bob Beamon if he hopes to LEAP past Kobe Bryant and his 172,000-vote lead among the West guards. Eastern Conference Frontcourt: 1. LeBron James (Cle) 971,299 2. Pau Gasol (Chi) 527,582 3. Carmelo Anthony (NY) 456,186 4. Chris Bosh (Mia) 354,609 5. Kevin Love (Cle) 260,269 Guards: 1. John Wall (Was) 564,977 2. Dwyane Wade (Mia) 507,326 3. Kyle Lowry (Tor) 406,974 4. Kyrie Irving (Cle) 372,065 5. Jimmy Butler (Chi) 263,914 Western Conference Frontcourt: 1. Anthony Davis (NO) 922,381 2. Blake Griffin (LAC) 490,786 3. Marc Gasol (Mem) 476,660 4. Tim Duncan (SA) 374,814 5. Kevin Durant (OKC) 330,297 Guards: 1. Stephen CURRY (GS) 958,014 2. Kobe Bryant (LAL) 862,568 3. James Harden (Hou) 690,843 4. Chris Paul (LAC) 401,945 5. Damian Lillard (Por) 210,794 Now that we have a pretty good idea of what the starting lineups will look like next month in New York, we can take a closer look at how they will match up against one another. Using the SAP NBA All-Star 2015 Game Predictor, we can see the West is currently favored by a single point over the East, 138-137, correlating to a 53.1% chance of victory for the West. Of course, the game will not be played in its entirety by the starting five, so well need to await the announcement of the reserves before making any final predictions. But what the game predictor does offer us is a look at how these two five-man squads would match up over 48 minutes. This is not just an accumulation of each players scoring averages per 48 minutes. It takes into account how these particular players would play together, looking at usage rates, assist rates, defensive abilities, scoring tendencies and more. With each vote cast, you can use the game predictor to see how your selections would match up against one another. Make a few key changes to the lineup and see if you can change the outcome of the game predictor. Of course, when it comes to the real game next month, all predictions can be rendered irrelevant by the real-life players on the court. The predictor could not have seen Kyrie Irving exploding for 24 points on 11-of-13 shooting with 7 assists and just 1 turnover in the second half to lead the East to a comeback win and EARN MVP honors. But until the game tips of Feb. 15, we can have some fun using the SAP NBA All-Star 2015 Game Predictor to see how things could play out when the stars meet in NYC.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 05:28:57 +0000
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