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Second Round Of All-Star Predictions Look Good, Not Great, For Lillard's Chances

The starters for the 2018 NBA All-Star Game were announced Thursday afternoon, and as expected, no Trail Blazers made the cut. But there's more than one way to make an All-Star Game, and Portland point guard Damian Lillard still stands a chance of making the Western Conference roster via coaches vote, which will be announced Tuesday, January 23.

But until then, here's how various members of the national media would vote for. This is the second round of predictions, Lillard did much better in the first batch of media predictions. Take that as you will...

• Marc Spears of The Undefeated does not have Damian Lillard making the 2018 All-Star Game. Instead, he predicts that Golden State (Draymond Green and Klay Thompson), Oklahoma City (Russell Westbrook and Paul George) and Minnesota (Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns) will each get two reserve spots. By the way, the Thunder and Pelicans, a team that already has two players named to the 2018 All-Star roster in Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins, have basically the same record as the Trail Blazers. Just think of how good they would be if they had three All-Stars! Or four!

• TNT's "Inside The NBA" crew made their reserve picks and only Kenny Smith has Lillard on the All-Star team, and even then, maybe he doesn't?

• Jonathan Tjarks of The Ringer doesn't say one way or another whether he thinks Lillard should/will make the All-Star team, though he does consider the conundrum, and it doesn't sound especially optimistic...

As of January 19 (that's today), the Trail Blazers are actually the sixth seed and are a game behind the Thunder for fifth and a half game above the Pelicans and Clippers for eighth.

• Tim Bontemps at the Washington Post does have Damian Lillard making the All-Star team with his last "wild card" spot...

The reason I'm somewhat optimistic about Lillard's chances is he has the best case of any of the players fighting for the last two spots. Not sure you could say that the last two seasons.

• Sam Amick of USA Today, with an assist from Gary Payton, has Lillard making the All-Star team...

Amick rightly points out that defense was always the one area you could point to when deciding to omit Lillard from the All-Star team, but with how much better both he and the Blazers as a whole have been on that side of the ball this year, that argument goes out the window.

• Steve Silverman at Bleacher Report has Lillard making the All-Star Game and being selected for Stephen Curry's team...

• Alex Wong of Sports On Earth does not have Lillard making the All-Star team, though he also made his picks prior to the announcement of the starters...

I wish some of these guys would just write "I like Paul George and I want to see him IN LOS ANGELES." Save us all some time.