Boston’s early All-Star voting surprises, Tacko Fall 6th in frontcourt

With Tacko Mania sweeping the NBA, could Boston have FOUR players in the 2020 All-Star game? If Celtics fans shore up the bids of Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum, it’s not out of the question.

This is…not how most of us envision the Boston Celtics landing three players in the NBA’s 2020 All-Star game.

Boston’s dynamic duo of guard Jaylen Brown and swingman Jayson Tatum seemed poised to secure their first bids to the February contest in light of their recent success.

Driving their team to the league’s third best record behind All-NBA point guard Kemba Walker’s leadership, many presumed the trio of Boston starters would be representing the East.

But as have many thus far, analysts may have underestimated Tacko Mania, with the rookie two-way center recording the sixth-most votes behind teammate Tatum’s 364,137 votes among frontcourt players.

The drop-off after the Duke product is a sharp one, though, with Fall taking 110,269 votes.

There’s still plenty of time for a crowded field of players with much more NBA playing time to overtake the first-year big man spending most of his minutes with the Maine Red Claws as part of his two way assignment with Boston’s G League affiliate.

The Celtics’ Gordon Hayward made a respectable showing among frontcourt candidates with 75,420 votes, enough for eighth among his frontcourt peers,

On the other side of the voting divide, Walker sits in third place with 432,031 votes, a few hundred behind the Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving in third, and not far behind first-place Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks with his 443,412 votes.

Fourth-year shooting guard Jaylen Brown came in a few thousand votes behind the Philadelphia 76ers’ Ben Simmons with 156,537 votes to take seventh place in the guard race.

With only 20,000 or so votes separating he and fifth-place holder Zach Lavine, the Cal-Berkeley product could make his way to a reserve slot by the time voting ends.

Should Tacko Mania persevere, having four All-Stars in 2020 would not be out of the question, even if very unlikely considering the impact of media and player voting.

Given the Senegalese center’s sparse experience at the NBA level, it would — by a long, long way — be one of the weirdest teams sent to play a game that probably has a bigger real-world impact on player salaries and Hall-of-Fame bids than it should.

Now, go vote!