NBA to account for misspelled players’ names in social media All-Star votes

Despite his meteoric rise to fame this season, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s name remains difficult to pronounce, let alone to spell for casual NBA fans. (AP/Jeffrey Phelps)

Giannis Antetokounmpo believes his All-Star votes might be doubled if only fans knew how to spell his name right, and the league thinks that he may have a point.

“Imagine how many votes didn’t count. If they could spell my name I would have a million votes,” the lanky-young Buck told ESPN’s Michelle Steel over the weekend.

Giannis Antetokounmpo on all-star votes: “imagine how many votes didn’t count… if they could spell my name I would have a million votes” 😲

— Michele Steele (@ESPNMichele) January 6, 2017

Just a few days after the Greek standout’s statement, the NBA has announced that they will now take into account the spelling errors for their social media All-Star balloting practice.

The fan-friendly move, which has taken effect for the first time this season, has given fans the power to vote on different social media platforms by simply posting a player’s name along with the hashtag “NBAVOTE”.

The premiere basketball outfit confirmed to both The Boston Globe and NBC News on Sunday (Monday in Manila) that there will be a prescribed system in place that will pick up the incorrectly spelled versions of player names—with Giannis’ being the primary casualty.

Aside from ‘The Greak Freak’, the Toronto Raptors’ star point guard Kyle Lowry’s stock has also taken a hit, as some fans mistakenly posted his name as ‘Kyle Lowery’, while the correct spelling of ‘Dwyane Wade’ has continued to puzzle most vote-casters.

The overall balloting, meanwhile, will also take in account votes from players and select members of the press, which will compromise 50 percent of the total count.

READ: NBA adds players, media vote to All-Star Game selections

After the voting deadline on January 18, the numbers will then be computed using a slightly complicated mathematical formula.

Reached out to the NBA offices for clarification on how exactly All-Star voting will work this year, and here’s what they shared: pic.twitter.com/c6U42s7Xgt

— Andrew Lynch (@AndrewLynch) January 5, 2017

There is no limit as to how many times fans and players alike can vote for their preferred choices through Twitter.

On Monday, the league’s premiere superstar LeBron James also exercised his privilege and voted for his three closest friends in the league—Wade, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony. Khristian Ibarrola 

Screen grab from Twitter/@KingJames