Portland Trail Blazers’ guard Damian Lillard has faced difficulties in recent weeks, largely due to a nagging abdominal injury, and that struggle is reflected in the first NBA All-Star voting returns, which place Lillard firmly in the 8th position amongst guards in the Western Conference. Shams Charania of the Athletic announced the first returns via Twitter.
As noted by Blazer’s Edge man-of-all-work Timmay, “Damian Lillard actually has more votes than last year’s initial results (211K this year vs 202K in 2020) but fell from third to eighth.”
Currently, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks lead the way among guards in the West, but there is a wide gulf in votes between the two, as Curry has over 2.