Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James is widely-recognized as the greatest player in today’s game. In fact, some view the Akron, Ohio native as the best ever. His list of accolades runs longer than a country mile, yet he’s on the precipice of attaining yet another incredible feat.
The Cavs are set to close out their regular season campaign with a home-and-home series against the New York Knicks (at NYK on Monday; at CLE Wednesday). If Cleveland (49-31) can manage a victory over New York (28-52) on Monday night, they’ll have four straight seasons with 50 or more wins (11 in franchise history) and clinch the Central Division title.
Remarkably, James, now 33 years of age and his 15th season, has a chance to win 10 consecutive divisional titles (Cavs and Miami Heat) — a feat no player in NBA history has achieved.
Via Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com:
James, meanwhile, is attempting to become the first player in NBA history whose teams have won 10 consecutive division titles. They don’t mean what they used to (a division winner used to get a higher playoff seed than a team with a better record that didn’t win its division), but the Cavs potentially winning the Central Division still matters.
If the Cavs were to finish tied with the Sixers for third in the East, the Cavs would win the tiebreaker because they would have won the Central and the Sixers did not win the Atlantic Division.
James has played in all 80 games for the Cavs this season, averaging 27.7 points (3rd in NBA) on 54.4 percent shooting from the field (36.7 percent from beyond the arc), 9.2 assists (career-high), 8.7 rebounds, 1.6 steals and just under one block (0.8) in 37.2 minutes.
Monday night’s game is set to tip inside Madison Square Garden at 7:30 p.m. EST with NBA TV and FOX Sports Ohio having live broadcast coverage.