The votes are in, and Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul will lead the West while LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett will headline for the East when the 62nd NBA All-Star Game comes to Houston on Feb. 17.
The starting lineups were announced Thursday night during a one-hour special on TNT.
For the East, James, of the Miami Heat, will be joined by Miami teammate Dwayne Wade, Boston Celtics stars Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett and New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony.
They will be met by the L.A. Lakers' Bryant, who leads the NBA in scoring with 29.9 points per game. Bryant is joined by fellow Laker Dwight Howard, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant, and Chris Paul and Blake Griffin of the L.A. Clippers.
Bryant ended up winning the fan voting tally, edging James for the most fan votes with 1,591,437 ballots for the Lakers star while James finished second among all players with 1,583,646 votes. The Thursday results mark Bryant's NBA-record 15th consecutive selection into the All-Star Game; Bryant won four NBA All-Star Game MVP awards in 2002, 2007, 2009 and 2011.
After being selected for the 15th time, Garnett ties Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal with the second-most All-Star Game appearances. The highest number of appearances is 19, belonging to Lakers legend and NBA all-time leading career points scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Despite a close call in fan voting, Jeremy Lin of the Houston Rockets will not be joining Bryant, Durant, Howard and Griffin representing the West when the All-Star Game comes to Houston. Lin finished third in Western Conference Backcourt voting for guards with 883,809 votes--roughly 45,346 votes behind Paul to be edged out at the fan voting.
Fellow Rocket James Harden finished fourth with 485,986 votes, while Russell Westbrook finished fifth with 376, 411 votes. The Spurs' Tim Duncan finished fourth in the frontcourt voting at 492,373 votes while Pau Gasol of the Lakers finished fifth with 310, 845 votes for the West.
In the East, Chris Bosh (528,014 votes) and Tyson Chandler (467,968 votes) finished fourth and fifth in fan voting for the frontcourt while Deron Williams, who garnered 449,791 ballots, and Kyrie Irving-taking 445,730 votes--finished third and fourth in backcourt voting.
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