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LA Lakers second-year shooting guard Austin Reaves has proven to be a very valuable member of the Lakers’ rotation over his first two seasons. This season, Reaves is averaging 10.8 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game on a 48.8/36.0/89.6 shooting split.
Most would agree that these are very solid role-player numbers, especially for a player who went undrafted. However, to the surprise and dismay of many, Reaves’ solid play has earned him a spot in the latest NBA All-Star fan voting update. Reaves is even ahead of multiple stars, including Zach LaVine, De’Aaron Fox and Anthony Edwards, among others.
Naturally, NBA fans had some pretty strong reactions to the voting update.
“Arrest the entire state of California,” one fan said.
“Love AR, but that’s kinda disgusting,” another fan said.
“There are too many laker simps worldwide,” another added.
“Absolute Joke. Couldn’t clean (Darius) Garlands’ sneakers,” another added.
Many then used Reaves’ ranking as an argument for why fans should not be allowed to vote for who makes the All-Star teams.
“This is why they should limit fan votes lol,” one fan said.
“Need to not let fans vote 😂,” another added.
However, some fans weren’t as surprised. Instead, they just attributed Reaves’ high ranking to the fact that he plays in LA for one of the most popular franchises in the NBA. They also compared his popularity to former Lakers fan favorite guard Alex Caruso.
“Why are people surprised, he plays for the Lakers. the media talks about the Lakers every 5 seconds, they hardly mention most of these other dudes,” one fan said.
“Power of LA. (Alex) Caruso got the same love,” another fan said.
“Twas the same when Alex Caruso played for them,” another added.
A large number of Lakers fans on the other side of the aisle, albeit jokingly, defended Austin Reaves.
“Deserved,” one fan said.
“He’s better than all of them,” another fan said.
“I mean… he’s just as good as half of the players on this list,” another said.
“That just goes to show how much he has improved this year. So proud of him being better than all of these players🟪🟨🟪🟨,” another added.
Finally, some also joked that they have been voting for Austin Reaves relentlessly and that their hard work has finally paid off.
“Me after voting for Reaves on my 386th account,” one fan captioned an old meme of NBA legend Vince Carter announcing his return for his 22nd season.
“Me after voting for him with 75 different accounts,” another captioned an old meme of Lakers star forward LeBron James saying he wasn’t going to sleep until winning the NBA Finals.
Does Austin Reaves have a real shot at getting voted into the NBA All-Star game?
As fun as it is for Lakers fans to imagine Austin Reaves getting voted into the NBA All-Star Game, it almost surely won’t happen. Reaves is still millions of votes behind NBA superstars Steph Curry and Luka Doncic for the two starting backcourt spots in the Western Conference.
Plus, fan voting only accounts for 50.0% of the vote for All-Star starters, with the other 50.0% being decided by players and the media. Nonetheless, it’s always an entertaining annual tradition to see fans overreact to the voting updates.
Also read: Fans merciless as LeBron James said he listens to Beethoven before games: “Ludacris Van beethomie”
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