Mitchell Drops One Spot In NBA All-Star Voting

SALT LAKE CITY – Donovan Mitchell dropped one spot in the second round returns for NBA All-Star voting.

The Utah Jazz guard was ranked seventh among Western Conference guards in the first round of voting that came out last week but has since dropped to eighth in the last few days.

Los Angeles Lakers guard Russell Westbrook leapfrogged Mitchell, Phoenix Suns star Chris Paul, and Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard climbing from tenth place in the West up to sixth.

Donovan Mitchell drops from seventh to eighth in the West.

Rudy Gobert holding strong in ninth place. pic.twitter.com/Pn3W90W4ut

— Ben Anderson (@BensHoops) January 13, 2022

Paul dropped to seventh, Mitchell dropped to eighth while Lillard now sits in ninth.

Mitchell did more than double his votes since last week, climbing from 217,546 to 441,247, but sits more than 120,000 votes back of Paul for seventh place.

During the first round of voting, Mitchell was coming off of his first-ever Western Conference Player of the Month award and the Jazz had won 10 straight road games.

However, with coronavirus running rampant through the team’s locker room, the Jazz have lost four straight games, their longest losing streak in more than a season.

It's a 2-for-1 vote day and we've got some work to do …

1 RT = 2 Votes 🌟#NBAAllStar | @spidadmitchell pic.twitter.com/jUS8jAXl49

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) January 13, 2022

Rudy Gobert held strong in voting maintaining his ninth place standings among Western Conference frontcourt players.

However, the three-time Defensive Player of the Year didn’t add as many votes as his Jazz teammate.

Gobert initially led Mitchell in raw voting recording more than 1,000 additional votes in the first All-Star returns. Mitchell is now the team’s leading vote-getter by a significant margin, recording 20,000 more votes than Gobert since the last returns.

The Jazz center has been sidelined by COVID-19 since the middle of last week.

Mike Conley, who made his All-Star debut last season is not among the league’s top-ten vote-getters in the West.

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry leads all players with nearly 4.5 million votes. Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James leads Western Conference frontcourt players with 4.3 million votes.

Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, and Mike Conley did not get the respect they deserved in the first #NBAAllStar voting returns.#takenote | @utahjazz https://t.co/PCExGOlIiG

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) January 6, 2022

Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant leads the East with more than four million votes while Chicago Bulls star DeMar DeRozan leads all Eastern Conference backcourt players.

The league will name All-Star starters using a combination of fan voting and voting from current NBA players and media. The vote is split evenly to name two backcourt starters and three court starters.

The league’s coaches then pick the reserves for each roster.

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