Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry. Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Steph Curry, Kevin Durant lead NBA All-Star fan voting in first returns

The NBA gave its first update on fan voting for the 2022 All-Star Game and leading the way is the Golden State Warriors' Steph Curry with 2,584,623 votes. Not far behind are the Brooklyn Nets' Kevin Durant, Milwaukee Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James, in that order, who each had more than two million votes.

Fan voting will continue until Jan. 22, ending about a month before the 2022 NBA All-Star Game scheduled for Feb. 20 in Cleveland, Ohio. The 10 starters in the game will be determined by a combination of fan voting (50 percent), current NBA players voting (25 percent), and NBA media members voting (25 percent). The 14 reserves will be determined by a vote among the 30 NBA head coaches.

Maybe the most surprising player on the list of 40 who are leading vote-getters is Warriors guard Klay Thompson. While his return to the court appears imminent, Thompson hasn't played a game since June 2019 due to ACL and Achilles injuries.

Also on the list is Nets point guard Kyrie Irving, who made his season debut Wednesday night after missing the first 35 games due to his hardline stance against getting vaccinated for COVID-19.

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