LeBron James didn't do it. Neither did his Miami teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
Kobe Bryant didn't do it. In fact no Laker not named Jerry West or Magic Johnson has ever done it.
None of the big three - Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce or Ray Allen - in Boston did it.
And none of the past five MVPs - James, Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Garnett - ever did it.
But Blake Griffin did.
By being named to the All-Star Game as a rookie, Griffin joins some elite company.
"To be honest, I didn't put a lot of thought into it," said Griffin, the No. 1 pick of the 2009 draft who missed all of the 2009-10 season with a knee injury. "Not that I didn't care, but it was out of my hands. It was one of those things. I appreciate being voted in.
"I'm really proud to be fortunate enough to have been chosen. The best part is I owe all of this to my teammates and to our coaching staff. Everybody involved in trying to help me get back."
Griffin is the first All-Star rookie since Yao Ming in 2003, and is one of just five ACTIVE players whom accomplished the feat joining Ming, Tim Duncan (1998), Grant Hill (1995) and Shaquille O'Neal (1993). He is just the seventh rookie player in the last 20 years to do it, adding Dikembe Mutombo (1992) and David Robinson (1990) to the list.
Pretty impressive list.
But wait, it gets better.
Go back another 10 years and the list grows to just 17 players as 10 rooks qualified for the team during the 1980s. Though the list grows dramatically over that 10-year span, the names keep the list elite: Patrick Ewing, (1986), Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon (1985), Ralph Sampson (1984), Kelly Tripucka, Isiah Thomas and Buck Williams in 1982, and Magic Johnson, Bill Cartwright and Larry Bird in 1980, all played in the annual All-Star game as rookies.
If you are counting at home, Griffin has joined a list of just 17 players over the last 30 years, a list that includes seven Hall of Famers (Robinson, Ewing, Jordan Olajuwon, Thomas, Johnson, Bird) and two future HOFers in Shaq and Duncan.
Rewind another 10 years and the list grows to just 23 as Walter Davis did it in 1978, Alvin Adams ('76), Sidney Wicks ('72), John Johnson and Geoff Petrie in 1971 and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1970, the lone Hall of Famer to do it in the 1970s.
That's just 23 players over 40 years to do what Griffin has done, with the Hall of Fame total to eight, after the addition of Abdul-Jabbar, and that total still does not include the two no-doubters that just literally have to stop playing the game to get in.
The list gets diluted in the 1950s and 60s, however, with 22 rookies participating in the game during that 20-year span. But qualifying for the team was much easier with just 14 NBA teams as recently as 1969, compared with the 30 teams that currently make up the National Basketball Association.
Still, 1950 to 1969 brings the total to just 45 rookies to have ever played in the All-Star game. To put that in perspective, there have been 3,975 players to play in the NBA, from Alaa Abdelnaby to Matt Zunic, and just 44 players other than Griffin were rookie all stars.
And of those 22 named in the 50s and 60s, guess where 14 find their names...yup. Naismith. Hall of Famers Paul Arizin (1951), Rick Barry (1966), Elgin Baylor (1959), Walt Bellamy (1962), Wilt Chamberlain (1960), Bob Cousy (1951), Elvin Hayes (1969), Jerry Lucas (1964), Bob Pettit (1955), Willis Reed (1965), Oscar Robertson (1961), Maurice Stokes (1956), West (1961) and Wes Unseld (1969) were all rookie All-Stars.
That is 22 of the 45 rookie All-Stars that went on to have Hall of Fame careers, with two more locks to get in.
Now we are not putting Griffin in the Hall of Fame just yet, but when you look at this impressive list of NBA stars, you have to wonder what the future holds for Griffin.
