In mildly surprising news — depending on your expectations and where you looked — Andrew Wiggins was named a starter for the Western Conference All-Stars on Thursday evening. The selection marked his first appearance as an All-Star amid a career year for the 36-13 Golden State Warriors, who also feature Stephen Curry as an All-Star starter.
Much of his rise to All-Star starter — which relies 50 percent on fan votes, 25 percent on player votes and 25 percent on media votes — was fueled by the fan vote, where he finished third with more than 2.5 million votes.
On Jan. 7, K-Pop star BamBam tweeted out support of Wiggins’ All-Star candidacy. The post received nearly 37,00 retweets and more than 3,000 quote-tweets, the latter of which were often BamBam’s fans urging others to vote for Wiggins as an All-Star.
It’s the best time to begin 2022! He is one of the best two-way players!
Wiggs deserves to be an All-Star, vote Andrew Wiggins into the 2022 NBA All-Star Game..and I can’t wait to meet you all very soon#AndrewWiggins #NBAAllStar pic.twitter.com/bpOXKAJ920— BamBam
(@BamBam1A) January 8, 2022
According to an article from Alex Shultz of SFGATE, “In terms of engagement, BamBam’s tweet about Wiggins appears to
obliterate every other NBA All-Star vote endorsement except for one … another tweet of BamBam’s from Christmas Day about Steph Curry.”
Shultz also writes that “SFGATE asked a Twitter spokesperson to help quantify the full impact of BamBam’s tweet, but Twitter declined to give us a peek behind the curtain.”
Backing from BamBam’s fans seemingly played a gigantic role in propelling Wiggins to this honor. Despite finishing fifth in player votes and sixth in media votes, he edged out teammate Draymond Green for the final starting spot, thanks to that third-place fan vote finish.