NEW YORK – The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Sprint will tip off NBA All-Star Balloting 2015 today in New York City, the official host city of NBA All-Star 2015.  Balloting begins at 2:00 p.m. ET.

This afternoon during rush hour, the NBA and Sprint will celebrate the start of balloting with voting fan stations outside of Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center.  NBA Legends Darryl Dawkins, Earl Monroe, Gary Payton, and Mitch Richmond will greet fans and commuters and encourage them to cast the first votes at the special NBA-themed voting booths.

NBA All-Star Balloting 2015 presented by Sprint gives fans around the world the opportunity to vote daily for their favorite players as starters for NBA All-Star Game 2015.  The official NBA All-Star Ballot presented by Sprint will include all current NBA players for the first time ever.  Fans will continue to select two guards and three frontcourt players when choosing the starters for the 2015 NBA All-Star Game, but can now vote for any current NBA player.

As part of the NBA’s all-digital program, fans can vote on NBA.com, through social media networks including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Sina Weibo and Tencent Microblog in China, via SMS text, and the NBA Game Time and NBA Game Time from Sprint applications.

New to this year’s program is SAP, which will integrate daily stats into the online ballot.  Fans can sort players on the NBA Ballot by their current stats from NBA.com/stats powered by SAP HANA.  SAP will also host a new feature on NBA.com/stats called the SAP NBA All-Star 2015 Game Predictor.  After fans vote, they will be able to see how the East and West starters they picked would match up.  The game predictor will compare player statistics and compute a game score based on the fan’s picks.

How to vote:

• The NBA.com ballot is available in 11 languages on NBA.com/asb.  Voters can fill out one full ballot per day on NBA.com/asb from a desktop or mobile browser.
• Twitter voting allows fans to tweet a vote for 10 unique players each day throughout the All-Star balloting period.  The tweet, retweet, or reply must include the player’s first and last name, along with hash tag #NBABallot.
• Facebook voting allows fans to post a status from their personal Facebook accounts.  The posts must include the player’s first and last name, along with hash tag #NBABallot.  Fans can post votes for 10 unique players per day.
• Fans can use Instagram to vote by posting an original photo, using #NBABallot and the player’s first and last name in the photo caption.  Fans can vote for 10 unique players per day.
• SMS voting by texting the player’s last name to 6-9-6-2-2 (“MYNBA”) on any wireless device.  Fans can vote for 10 different players per day, per phone number, via SMS voting by sending 10 separate SMS messages, each one with a different player’s last name. Message and data rates may apply.
• NBA fans can also access the ballot and vote through the NBA Game Time and NBA Game Time from Sprint applications, available on Android and iOS.  Fans can fill out one full ballot per day, through the NBA Game Time and NBA Game Time from Sprint application, the most comprehensive app in the marketplace for NBA fans.

Balloting concludes on Monday, Jan. 19, and starters will be announced live on TNT on Thursday, Jan. 22, during a special one-hour edition of TNT NBA Tip-Off presented by Autotrader.com at 7 p.m. ET, featuring Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith. The special will air prior to TNT’s exclusive doubleheader featuring the San Antonio Spurs at the Chicago Bulls (8 p.m. ET) and the Brooklyn Nets at the Los Angeles Clippers (10:30 p.m. ET).