Why LeBron James is listed as a Center in 2021-22

Why LeBron James is listed as a Center in 2021-22

Basketball Reference lists a single position for each player each season. For the 2021-22 season, LeBron James's primary position is listed as Center. Notably it is the only season in his career where he is listed as a Center, and also means that he has a listed position at each of Small Forward, Power Forward, Point Guard, Shooting Guard and Center in his career.

When reviewing our data after 2021-22 we were somewhat surprised at this positional designation, and so confirmed it with data from Cleaning the Glass. If you take every minute James played in 2021-22, and assign someone on the floor for each of those minutes as a PG, SG, SF, PF or C, then he was the de facto Center more often than any other position that season. It was very close between that and Power Forward, but as we only list the most common position for each season, James's primary position comes out as Center that year.

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