NBA All-Star Starters Announced

The starters for the upcoming NBA All-Star game were released tonight with no changes from the last voting update. Here they are...

Eastern Conference:

Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls
Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat
LeBron James, Miami Heat
Amar'e Stoudemire, New York Knicks
Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic

Western Conference:

Chris Paul, New Orleans Hornets
Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets
Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder
Yao Ming, Houston Rockets

Each player is making a return trip to the All-Star game, led by Kobe Bryant in his 13th. Kobe also received more than 2.3 million votes making him the most popular. Does that surprise anyone else? He may or may not have raped a chick a few years ago. He's won back-to-back titles, which I guess means there are a ton of front runners out there, because I don't think Jack is logging on to vote for his favorite Lakers.

I am not surprised in the sense that he doesn't deserve it. Of course he does, Kobe is one of the Top 10 greatest players of all-time and is still playing at a high level. But that many people voted for him? Come on America. On second thought, perhaps China can be blamed for this. As you see Yao Ming gets the starting nod after a solid 5 games played this season. Maybe it's Kobe's Worldwide popularity that pushed him to this level. Yes, I am going to go with this.

The All-Star reserves will be announced next Thursday night. Just scroll down to see my picks. I do have 4 Celtics making it as well as Kevin Love in the West.

-Keefe