Steph Curry dethroned from longtime perch in All-Star fan voting

Jun 13, 2022; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) gestures after defeating the Boston Celtics in game five of the 2022 NBA Finals at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

NBA fans have a sobering message for Steph Curry this year — “the future is now, old man.”

On Thursday, the league released the results of the first batch of fan voting for this year’s NBA All-Star Game. One surprise in the results was that the Golden State Warriors star Curry is no longer leading the vote for Western Conference guards like he usually does. Instead, Curry is now in second place, trailing Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks by nearly 60,000 votes.

Here is the full voting breakdown (with LeBron James leading the overall vote in the West and Giannis Antetokounmpo leading in the East).

Lakers’ LeBron James and Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo lead the NBA’s first 2023-24 All-Star fan voting return: pic.twitter.com/PuLC37lMFN

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 4, 2024

The 35-year-old Curry has been a staple atop the West guard leaderboard. He has led that category virtually every single year since 2014 (with the one exception being in 2020 when he suffered a broken hand in the fourth game of the season that sidelined him through the All-Star Game).

Doncic had slowly been creeping on Curry over the years though, finishing in second place to him last season. The Warriors’ 16-17 start to this season, one that has given Curry a lot of challenges, probably isn’t helping either.

Of course, there is still plenty of time for Curry to retake the lead since there are over two weeks of fan voting remaining. But Thursday’s initial voting returns may indicate that a changing of the guard is near.