In the NBA's second release of All-Star balloting results, the Denver Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony moved into second place for forwards in the Western Conference. Two weeks ago, Melo had 369,768 votes, good for third behind the Oklahoma City Thunders' Kevin Durant and the Los Angeles Lakers' Pau Gasol. Now Melo is a head of Gasol with 602,516 votes to 597,201 votes. Durant leads with 735,521 votes. If All-Star balloting ended with these results, Melo and Durant would be the starting forwards for the Western Conference.
The Lakers' Kobe Bryant still leads all balloting, finishing with 1,153,694 votes in this round. The Orlando Magic's Dwight Howard leads the Eastern Conference with 988, 572 votes, right ahead of the Miami Heat's LeBron James (969,459). Fellow Heat teammate Dwayne Wade has 938,402 votes to lead guards.
The Houston Rockets' Yao Ming leads centers in the Western Conference, but he is out for the season. SB Nation's Tom Ziller has a solution to this situation:
The most sensible resolution would be to allow Gasol to start at center (where he played for the first quarter of the season for L.A.) and fill the center spots on the roster with tall forwards like Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki.
The Nuggets' Nene is over 400,000 votes behind Yao at this point.