Kobe Bryant is the current leader in NBA All-Star votes so far and, as mentioned in the distinguished Yahoo! Sports Blog “Ball Don’t Lie”, is pretty deserving of this honor at this juncture of the season. Considering his name, past history, current performance, and the Lakers stellar record no one should be surprised to see him at the top.

You only have a right to be frustrated if you’re name is Amare Stoudemire. Everyone else please take a seat.

Here are your current NBA All-Star game starters if the game were to be played today, courtesy of RealGM.com, as of December 16, 2010:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

C: Dwight Howard

PF: Kevin Garnett

SF: LeBron James

SG: Dwyane Wade

PG: Rajon Rondo

WESTERN CONFERENCE

C: Yao Ming

PF: Pau Gasol

SF: Kevin Durant

SG: Kobe Bryant

PG: Chris Paul

Yao Ming being voted in as the starting center is a bit crazy but if this is his final season I can’t imagine a better way to go out.

Blake Griffin leads all rookies with 245,000 votes followed by John Wall with just over 120,000.

I’m kind of surprised that Derrick Rose is not ahead of Rondo at this point but maybe that will even itself out as time goes by. Kevin Garnett is definitely the right choice over Chris Bosh but I’m thinking that Russell Westbrook deserves to be ahead of Chris Paul right now.

I also think Dirk Nowitzki deserves to be ahead of Pau Gasol - I think he’ll catch up at some point.

Here are some NBA All-Star figures from CBSSports regarding the tallies so far:

The closest current races are Carmelo behind Gasol and Derrick Rose behind Rondo. Gasol trails Anthony by about 20,000 votes and Rose is behind Rondo by about 75,000 votes.

  • One mild and pleasant surprise is that Kevin Durant is the second-leading vote-getter in the West behind Kobe. Durant has 470,881 votes to his name right now, still almost 300,000 behind Kobe though. But Durant is well on his way to his second All-Star team and first one as a starter. He’s ahead of talented players like Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki, Carmelo Anthony and Tim Duncan. Quite a big year for Durant. From a player known only as underrated and hidden in the league’s smallest market to the second top star in the West only behind Kobe is a big step up.*

  • The East though is basically the Miami Heat and friends. LeBron and Dwyane Wade are two of the top three vote-getters with Dwight Howard being second, Rajon Rondo fourth and Kevin Garnett fifth. The “other” guy on the Heat, Chris Bosh, is fifth among forwards right now with 161,801 votes. Interesting players that are ahead of Bosh in the East in total votes? Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Shaquille O’Neal. I guess if you really wanted the spotlight Chris, you should’ve went to Boston.*

How do you feel about these starting lineups?* *