The streak that looked like it would never end has finally ended. LeBron James is, for the first time in twenty-one seasons, not part of the All-NBA teams - a historic level nobody before him in NBA history had reached. Twenty-one years of presence at the highest level. That's an entire generation of players who arrived, played a career and left in that span.

The league announced the three All-NBA teams for the 2025/26 season, and LeBron's name isn't on any of the fifteen spots. It isn't a drop in form - at 41, James averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists, numbers most of the NBA would sign for blindly. He helped the Lakers finish fourth in the Western Conference and reach the second round of the playoffs.

The problem is a technicality. The NBA a few years ago introduced a rule requiring players to play a minimum of 65 games for individual awards. LeBron played 60. He missed the first 14 games of the season due to sciatica, and those 14 games knocked him out of contention for All-NBA, MVP and every other individual category.

The streak started in the 2004/05 season, when James was first voted to the All-NBA Second Team alongside Dwyane Wade, Kevin Garnett, Amar'e Stoudemire and Ray Allen. He finished last season with another Second Team selection. And so - twenty-one years in a row.

Now there's a contract expiring worth 52.6 million dollars and a decision that will hang over the whole summer. LeBron at 41 plays like a thirty-year-old, but the question is no longer whether he can - the question is where. Retirement, extension, trade. Everything is on the table, and everything will be a headline through September.