OKC using Dunedin trip for Adams

Steven Adams.
Steven Adams.
Steven Adams has been riding the coattails of his visit to Dunedin in a bid to reach basketball's biggest weekend.

The Oklahoma City Thunder has posted photos of his trip to the city in August in its campaign to get the New Zealander to the NBA All Star game.

An annual highlight of the NBA season, the game brings together 24 of the league's top players.

Fan voting has a 50% weighting in selecting the starters, while media and player votes make up 25% each.

Teams promote their star players to receive fan votes and the Thunder has made use of Adams' exploits in the South.

A photo of Adams from his Dunedin Steven Adams Camp at the Edgar Centre has been posted on the team's Facebook page twice.

Many of Otago's young basketballers featured in the photo, which was captioned ''four million Kiwis can't be wrong. Vote Steven Adams for All-Star now''.

A video was posted on Monday again featuring the photo.

The page is liked and followed by more than 7 million people.

Voting for the game closed yesterday.

In the latest voting returns released last week, Adams was placed sixth among Western Conference front court players with 1,483,223 votes.

He has had an impressive season and is averaging 15.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game.

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James leads all vote-getters with 3.7 million.

In the Eastern Conference, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo leads with 3.6 million.

Once the starters are confirmed and the reserves are selected by the NBA's coaches, a draft will be held to split the players into teams.

That will be on February 8 (NZT).

The game is in Charlotte on February 19.

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