At 20 years old, LeBron James was the youngest player to make an All-NBA team, and now at the ripe age of 39, the all-time leading scorer was selected to his 20th All-NBA team, making him the oldest player to receive the honors as well.
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To put into perspective, only 10 players in NBA history have even played in the league for 20 years, while LeBron has achieved being on the All-NBA team for 20 straight seasons.
During the 2004-2005 NBA season, LeBron averaged 27.2 points (47.2% FG; 35.1% 3PT), 7.4 rebounds, 7.2 assists, 0.7 blocks and 2.2 steals.
Then fast forward 20 seasons later to the 2023-24 season, LeBron averaged 25.7 points (54% FG; 41% 3PT -career-high), 7.3 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 0.5 blocks and 1.3 steals.
LeBron is still not finished with his career, and yet he is already the all-time points leader in NBA history (40,474), while also being fourth all-time in assists (11,009).
Furthermore, LeBron as a 4x champion has 183 playoff wins throughout his career. To contextualize how many this actually is, in the last 20 years, not even an entire NBA team has come close to that amount of postseason victories, considering this, James' former team, the Miami Heat are the next on the list with 143 wins in the last two decades.
How much longer will fans be able to witness greatness? LeBron unfortunately has confirmed that, despite Father Time not being able to slow him down yet, he is in fact not immortal.
"Not very long, I'm not going to play another 21 years, that's for sure," James said. "I don't know when that door will close, but I don't have much time left."
Was younger LeBron better or older LeBron better? Maybe both the same... as it took LeBron the same exact amount of games to get from 0-10k points (368 games), that it did for him to go from 30-40k points (368 games).
LeBron's consistency and longevity is unmatched. To emphasize, if you take LeBron's career-worsts for each category since his rookie year, this is what he would average: 25.0 points per game (2021), 6.0 rebounds (2015), 6.0 assists (2007), and 47.2% FG shooting (2005).
That is to say, up until Russell Westbrook in the 2019-20 season (27.2 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 47.2% FG), there has never been an NBA player to average 25-6-6, while shooting 47% or better, and LeBron has done this for 20 straight seasons.
