The J-Notes
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Utah Jazz: NBA All-Star Voting Has Begun

By Jared Woodcox

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With NBA All-Star voting in full swing, Utah Jazz fans should make sure to get out and vote for the team’s leading duo of Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert.

We’re quickly nearing that time of year again when the best of the best NBA players take the court in the NBA All-Star Game in mid-February. While the game is usually nothing more than an offensive spectacle and in my humble opinion, not even the highlight of All-Star weekend, it still remains an incredible honor for players to be named to the NBA All-Star team.

While the coaches’ selections may in reality be the more accurate picks as they tend to select the NBA All-Star reserves based on who they truly feel is deserving of the nod after having witnessed firsthand how the players have played against their own team, it is indeed the fans who have the power to select the starting lineups.

And there are several ways that fans can get out and vote for the players that they feel are the most deserving. Not only is their easy access to a ballot at NBA.com/vote and on the NBA App, but it’s also possible to turn to social media, utilizing the selected player’s first and last name followed by the hashtag #NBAVOTE on Facebook or Twitter.

Of course fans can only post votes on social media for 10 unique players per day, but if you’re attempting to send the entire Jazz 10-man rotation to the NBA All-Star game, that’s really all you need anyway! I know some of you are laughing about the thought of the injury-riddled Jazz actually having a 10-man rotation, but you get the gist.

Nevertheless, while in all brutal honesty it would be an incredible long shot for any small market Jazz player to receive enough votes in the popularity contest that is the All-Star voting to qualify as a starter, there’s really only two Jazzmen who have even an outside chance of being voted in and that’s Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert.

Sorry Shelvin Mack and Joe Ingles. We see you out there, but unfortunately the rest of the league and their fans probably aren’t paying close attention.

George Hill looked like he could be a dark horse All-Star contender in the early part of the season, but his endless bouts with injury have essentially derailed that train.

So it’s indeed Hayward and Gobert who are leading the charge as the front runners of being potential All-Stars and they’re the two who are being pushed the most as the ones Jazz fans should vote for.

If you want a real simple way to cast your vote for both of these Jazz studs, you can simply retweet the two Utah Jazz tweets below.

And if you’re really serious about this, go ahead and set a calendar invite that will remind you to reply to that tweet with the players’ names and #NBAVOTE every day until voting closes. If all of us work together, it could happen right?

OK, so while seeing Hayward and Gobert end up as All-Star starters may be a long shot, the way both of them have been playing, they do have a legitimate shot at being voted in by the coaches or serving as an alternate should any of the originally selected All-Stars fall to injury.

On the season, Hayward is averaging a career high 22.4 points and 6.2 rebounds while also logging 3.8 assists per game. Rudy Gobert has turned into a double-double machine and averages 12.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game (all career highs) all while leading the league in field goal percentage at 69.7 percent.

Of course the West is stacked with All-Star caliber players that will likely leave limited space for these Jazz up and comers. Yet, both of them boast impressive stat lines and if Utah can make a push over the next month and a half leading up to the All-Star break and elevate themselves to at least the top five in the West, it will be hard to ignore the Jazz’s two most dominant players.

If either of them gets the nod, they would be the first Jazz All-Star since Deron Williams in 2011.

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So without further ado, be sure to get the vote out and start casting your ballot, using #NBAVOTE along with the names Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert (or heck, any other Jazz player you’d like for that matter) or simply by finding qualifying posts to retweet like there’s no tomorrow.

While it may be a long shot that our beloved Jazzmen get in purely on fan votes, that shouldn’t deter us Jazz faithful from at least giving it our best effort.

All stats courtesy of NBA.com

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