When the first round of fan votes for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game came back on December 29, it was great to see a diverse mix of talents across the league, each with their own set of tallies. There was a good mix of established stars and some underrated names that most wouldn’t necessarily consider NBA ‘superstars’ per se.
Out East, you had guys like Michael Porter Jr., Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, and OG Anunoby, while out West, it was reigning Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle. All very talented guys in their own right — in fact, I’m a huge fan of that Knicks trio right there. From the Raptors' perspective, it was good to see newly minted star Brandon Ingram firmly in the mix at the twelfth spot. Still, there was a glaring name missing that no Raptors fan could overlook: Scottie Barnes was absent from that initial list.
Scottie Barnes' All-Star campaign got off to a rough note in first fan vote return
To think the last spot went to Franz Wagner with a total of 98,834 votes, while in the West, Kawhi Leonard was last with 85,325 votes, it was definitely a bit of a shock to me that Barnes couldn’t even crack the top twenty. Likewise, Raptors commentators, analysts, and I’m sure many others in the fanbase, felt the same. But at the same time, it almost seemed like the fans had themselves to blame for the result.
Head coach Darko Rajakovic was certainly not satisfied with his star’s lack of recognition, as we heard in a recent post-game presser. He boldly called out the Raptors fanbase and the country of Canada as a whole to do better to help get their “generational” talent to the LA festivities.
On the flip side, Scottie Barnes didn’t seem too fazed by the result, whether he was just keeping things PR or whatever. He was asked about it in a recent post-practice interview, and Barnes' response emphasized what he truly cares about from a team construct: “I'm just trying to win basketball games.”
Sure, it's not only the fan vote that gets the job done (it's 50% responsible, 25% to NBA players and a media panel, respectively) — if that were the case, we'd have seen guys like Tacko Fall, Zaza Pachulia, and Alex Caruso in the All-Star game by now. And wouldn’t you know it, after the second set of fan returns was released — and perhaps that call to action from Coach Darko, along with Raptors fans noticing their star was notably missing — Scottie Barnes made a huge leap, going from unranked all the way up to the 14th spot with a total of 232,072 votes.
Scottie Barnes joins the second All-Star fan voting list
Even if it's just a small thought in Barnes' mind, it's still important to give proper recognition to your team's star. It's only right to turn that fandom into accolades that could help establish a talent as esteemed. The fan voting officially closes on January 14, giving Raptors Nation just over a week to help their driver skyrocket up the leaderboard once more.