Damian Lillard Finishes Fifth in All-Star Starter Voting

Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard finished fifth in voting for NBA All-Star Game starters, the NBA announced Thursday evening. Lillard had to finish in the top two in voting among Western Conference guards to be named a starter — instead, those positions are filled by James Harden and Stephen Curry.

Lillard — who’s averaging 26.3 points, 6.2 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game — finished sixth in the fan vote, tied for fourth in the media vote and fifth in the player vote. Each of the three vote results were combined to determine starters, with the fan vote counting for 50 percent of the formula while the media and player votes each counted for 25 percent.

courtesy of the NBA

Lillard has never been selected as an All-Star starter in his career, so the results aren’t worth getting down about. He’s made the game three times as a reserve (one of those times was as an injury replacement), which are voted on by the coaches of each respective conference.

ESPN’s Zach Lowe recently called Lillard a reserve “lock” while The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor selected him as a reserve as well.

2019 All-Star reserves will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 31 on TNT.

LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo will serve as captains for the All-Star draft (since they received the most fan votes), which will be televised this year on Thursday, Feb. 7 on TNT.

The starters for each conference are as follows:

West

G - Stephen Curry
G - James Harden
F - LeBron James (captain)
F - Kevin Durant
F - Paul George

East

G - Kyrie Irving
G - Kemba Walker
F - Giannis Antetokounmpo (captain)
F - Kawhi Leonard
F - Joel Embiid

The NBA All-Star Game is Sunday, Feb. 17 in Charlotte.

You can find the full results for the Western Conference guard voting here. Besides Curry and Harden, Lillard finished below Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook and above players like Klay Thompson and DeMar DeRozan.