Voting for All-Star starters gets going
NEW YORK (AFP) – Voting for a potential 2021 NBA All-Star Game tips off Thursday and runs through February 16, giving fans a chance to vote for starters from the Eastern and Western Conferences.
While players will be honored and there will be an NBA All-Star break from March 5-10 in a 2020-21 season shortened by the Covid-19 pandemic, there’s no guarantee the elite lineups will ever assemble on a court against each other due to health and safety concerns.
”Discussions surrounding a potential NBA All-Star Game are ongoing,” the league said in a statement.
Fans can submit one ballot a day through the NBA’s website and NBA app or vote through Twitter. Fan voting will account for half of voting with balloting by a media panel and by current NBA players each counting for 25% of the final total.
Players are ranked in player, media and fan voting and a weighted total scored will decide two guards and three frontcourt players from each conference to be declared starters, with fan voting used as a tiebreaker.
The NBA All-Star starters will be announced on February 18 with All-Star reserves, chosen by NBA head coaches, to be announced on February 23.
Murray fined $25K
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Wednesday for striking Dallas Mavericks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. in the groin.
Murray was ejected after being whistled for a flagrant foul 2 on the play, which came with 4:51 remaining in the third quarter of Denver’s 117-113 victory at Dallas on Monday.
Murray, a 23-year-old Canadian, fell to the court after contact between the two players, then struck Hardaway as he rose to his feet.
The Nuggets were leading 80-73 when Hardaway doubled over and referees examined the incident on replay before throwing out Murray. Hardaway responded by scoring the game’s next seven points in 23 seconds.
In 16 games this season, Murray has averaged 19.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.0 steals a game for the Nuggets, who are on a four-game win streak and rank fourth in the Western Conference at 10-7.
Postponed games sked
The NBA is tweaking its schedule to begin working in games postponed because of coronavirus safety measures, the league said in a statement on Wednesday.
Twenty-two games have been postponed since the season began on December 22 as coronavirus contact tracing left teams unable to field the minimum eight players.
All but one of the postponements have come in January. The league said it will reschedule some of those games before the first half of the season concludes on March 4.
Other games will be made up in the second half of the season, for which no schedule has been announced. That will run from March 11 through May 16.
The league also plans to bring forward some games that would have been played in the second half to the first half ”with a specific focus on the teams with the most postponed games to date.”
That means some games already scheduled in the first half may be moved.
The Memphis Grizzlies and Washington Wizards have both had multiple games postponed.
In the initial schedule changes announced for next week, a Wizards home game against Portland originally targeted for the second half of the season will be played on Tuesday.
