LeBron James casts votes for his friends for the All-Star game

LeBron James made some public votes for the NBA All-Star game Monday.

LeBron James tweeted out some All-Star game votes to his 26 million-plus followers and the world Monday, and as with everything LeBron, there’s some level of intrigue here!

James started off tweeting out votes for his teammates Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, then followed up by sending out votes for his friends Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. (Wade, of course, is a former teammate of James’s in Miami.)

Wade and Irving were out in front retweet-wise on the tweets. Each retweet counts as an additional vote for each player, so that’s pretty significant. Melo definitely needs the LeBron bump, after shamelessly using Arron Afflalo for votes Sunday. James also chose not to vote for himself, at least on Twitter.

Obviously, LeBron is omitting most of the NBA here, but it is mildly interesting he is omitting the other member of the Miami Big Three, Chris Bosh. Wade is second only to James in All-Star voting in the East. If Wade, Bosh, James, Irving and Love all make the game, it would be incredible for the East’s coach (likely David Blatt) to play that lineup together at the same time. (As of the NBA’s first vote tally, Wade, Irving and James would be starters for the East.)

Also, Paul, Wade and James would be legends if they remade their famous banana boat photo in Toronto.

UPDATE: I cracked the whole conspiracy.

Wade tweeted out votes for his teamamtes Bosh and Hassan Whiteside earlier Monday. A couple hours later, LeBron followed up with his round of tweets. Then shortly after LeBron, Wade also tweeted votes for James, Paul and Anthony. (But not Love or Irving.) The plot thickens!

UPDATE #2: Now Paul and Anthony have joined in on the tweets. These guys really want to win that weekend getaway in Toronto for a group of four.

- Rohan Nadkarni