LeBron James is arguably the most athletic player in the game today, especially when taking into consideration his size and stature.
There’s no question he can defend, and can lock even the best players up when motivated while making life very difficult for his opponents while roaming the defensive end of the floor.
But despite the athleticism and basketball IQ that James clearly possesses, he’s not a player that typically ends up being whistled for a lot of personal fouls. And in fact, he’s in the midst of a streak where he hasn’t been called for a foul at all in any of his last five games.
From Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports’ Ball Don’t Lie:James has played 23 games now, for his 17-6 Miami Heat, and he’s still only registered 32 fouls on the year. It’s been five games, LeBron has played over 186 minutes over the course of his team’s 4-1 run, and he hasn’t been hit with a single foul throughout the entirety of that span.
The streak has actually gone on past 186 minutes. James was hit with his second foul, and offensive charge, 9 1/2 minutes into the Dec. 8 win over the Hornets. This means he played a good 25 minutes or so during that contest without an infraction, which puts the foul-less streak at over 211 minutes. Considering James’ All-Defensive First Team credentials, this is strong stuff.
It would seem almost impossible for LeBron, as involved as he is on both ends of the court for his team while averaging over 37 minutes per game, to be so careful defensively that he could avoid the ire of the referees, and escape form multiple games consecutively unscathed, in terms of the whistles he receives from the officials while playing on the defensive end of the floor.
At the same time, it’s always been that way for James -- maybe not to the point where he’s gone several games in a row without picking up even a single personal foul, but he’s always been used as more of a help defender on his teams, and thus he usually isn’t the one who would end up in the primary position to make a defensive play on an opponent that would result in the foul being called on him directly.
Still, it brings into question how much “star treatment” a player with LeBron’s reputation is afforded from the officials. Given the sheer number of minutes that James is on the court, along with how involved he is in everything the Heat do on a night-to-night basis, one would have to believe that, legitimate or not, this streak can’t go on for very much longer.