Players are tough crowd to impress

NBA players are apparently not easily impressed — even by other NBA players.

LeBron James and Kevin Durant were the only two players to appear on more than 50% of the ballots cast by their playing peers in All-Star Game starter balloting this season, based on a review of the numbers released by the league.

James appeared on 56% of the ballots, Durant on 55%.

They wound up as the leading vote getters from fans as well for this year’s game, which is set for March 7 in Atlanta.

As the fan-vote leaders, James and Durant were picked to serve as the playing captains in the game and draft teams that will be unveiled March 4.

The other eight starters — Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Kawhi Leonard, Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo — were announced Thursday as well, along with James and Durant.

The 14 reserve spots will be announced Tuesday after NBA head coaches cast ballots.

Antetokounmpo appeared on 47% of player ballots, Curry on 45%, Embiid and Jokic both on 44% and Beal on 42%.

Leonard got 28% support from players, Irving 26% and Doncic just 15%.

Doncic got the second guard spot from the Western Conference over Portland’s Damian Lillard.

The NBA’s weighted system — where fan voting counts for 50%, media voting 25% and player voting the remaining 25% — had them both tied for second behind Curry.

Doncic got the nod because he got more fan votes; Lillard, however, more than doubled his support among players and media.

Lillard got 34% support from players, and 64% of the media voters chose

Lillard compared with 30% for Doncic.

This year, a record 310 players got at least one vote to be a starter, either from themselves or another NBA player.

That’s 18 more than the previous record, set last year, and 21 more than the player total from 2019.