NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Yao Ming overtook Shaquille O'Neal in the final balloting and will be the West's starting center in the NBA All-Star Game for the second straight year.
After the third returns were announced earlier this month, Yao trailed O'Neal by about 26,000 votes. But the second-year center of the Houston Rockets may have benefited from a calf injury that sidelined O'Neal and multilingual internet voting, which opens the balloting to more than a billion people in Yao's native China.
Yao received 1,484,531 votes. The 7-2 O'Neal collected 1,453,286, but should make his eighth All-Star appearance. The 53rd All-Star Game will be Feb. 15 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The leading vote-getter again was Toronto Raptors swingman Vince Carter, who received 2,127,183 votes and will start at forward for the East.
