The NBA All-Star Game wouldn't be the same without LeBron James. In year 23, the NBA's all-time leading scorer will make his 22nd straight All-Star appearance, as he was announced as a Western Conference reserve on Sunday afternoon. That is a record, obviously, as only one other player (Vince Carter) has even played that many seasons in the NBA.
LeBron is averaging 21.9 points per game this year, his lowest output since his rookie season (the only year of his career he wasn't an All-Star) and there were legitimate questions whether he would make this year's ASG, which will adopt a "USA vs. The World" format.
Who knows what the actual game(s) will look like. Frankly, the past few years of the All-Star Game have been disastrous. That problem could be solved by the players giving any real effort, but I digress.
Point is, LeBron's streak was in real jeopardy this year with so many stars balling out in the Western Conference, but fans can breathe easier knowing that LeBron will be at Intuit Dome for the festivities later this month.
LeBron James makes 22nd All-Star Game despite some questions
One being... Did he deserve it? At this point, James being in the All-Star game is almost a foregone conclusion. But James did make the game over Kawhi Leonard, Alperen Sengun, Lauri Markkanen, and a few more guys who have true gripes after being left out. If James' statistical profile was put side-by-side with those three guys, would he still be the choice?
Probably not, to be honest, but it would be hard to find someone who doesn't at least understand why LeBron got in over those guys.
Perhaps more importantly — does it matter? I'm not saying that James deserves to make the All-Star Game solely because he's LeBron James. But I think him posting close to All-Star level production, paired with the fact that he is LeBron James, makes this selection feel less egregious. He's posting 22/7/6, after all; that's close enough, right?
That won't comfort Clippers fans at all, but starting 6-21 probably didn't do them any favors in the public eye.
In the end, LeBron will make his 22nd-straight All-Star appearance, which is an outrageous sentence to type. At this point, there aren't many more records to break, only ones to further have for himself. This is an example of one of those, and in the "unbreakable LeBron records" rankings, this is near the top.