5 biggest All-NBA questions remaining this season
No. 1: What about LeBron?
The last time LeBron James didn’t make the All-NBA First Team, Barrack Obama was still the junior Senator from Illinois, Kevin Durant was finishing up his lone year at Texas University and Zion Williamson was in second grade. The last time he didn’t make one of the first two teams, Facebook was still an exclusive thing for certain elite colleges and universities and Twitter didn’t exist yet.
So yeah…it’s been a while since we’ve had to have this talk.
Right now, the first streak seems all but done. If he appeared in every game the rest of the season, that would make it 64 on the year. Durant is already at 57, while George is at 56. The Warriors and Thunder have 13- and nine-game leads on the Lakers in the standings, respectively. LeBron’s numbers are not appreciably better than those of either KD or PG. It might take the best six-week stretch of James’ career for him to even be in the First-Team discussion.
That leaves Leonard, James’ two-time Finals nemesis who may or may not have an interest in playing in the King’s shadow starting next season. The missed games are closer than you think (Kawhi’s 16 to LeBron’s 18), and for as much as Chill Mode LeBron is more of a one-way player in the regular season than Leonard, the additional playmaking makes up for it.
Ultimately, this is probably going to come down to team performance. The Raptors will exit the All-Star break 14 games clear of the Lakers. If James can somehow will his team to a top-seven seed with a performance the likes of which we saw down the stretch last season and Leonard misses another handful of games, James might yet make at least Second-Team for the fifteenth consecutive season.
Final predictions:
First Team:
- G: James Harden
- G: Steph Curry
- C: Joel Embiid
- F: Giannis Antetokounmpo
- F: Kevin Durant
Second Team:
- G: Damian Lillard
- G: Kyrie Irving
- C: Nikola Jokic
- F: Paul Goerge
- F: LeBron James
Third Team:
- G: Russell Westbrook
- G: Kemba Walker
- C: Anthony Davis
- F: Kawhi Leonard
- F: Blake Griffin