INSIGHTS
- LeBron James is the youngest player in NBA history to score 30,000 points.
- LeBron James is one of the only 5 NBA players who won 4 or more MVP awards.
- LeBron James has maintained his dominance in spite of facing against strong opponents such as the Golden State Warriors.
OVERVIEW
LeBron James is the best NBA player of all time, based on his average and peak game performances compared to outstanding players in the past and present. He has also maintained his dominance in the game despite difficulties and strong opposition. Finally, his age and current performance sets him up to achieve even greater heights of excellence in the future.
STATISTICS
Based on our research, LeBron James matches and outperforms other outstanding players in key performance criteria including total points, rebounds, assists, and games. LeBron has also shown superior performance over NBA legends such as Michael Jordan, as well as recent basketball superstars such as Stephen Curry.
Let's start with a few statistics specifically about LeBron James himself:
• LeBron's game averages are 27.1 points, 7.3 rebounds and 7 assists. He is one of only two players (the other is Oscar Robertson) in NBA history to average at least 25 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists on basketball games.
• LeBron holds 4 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards. He is one of the only 5 players who won 4 or more MVPs, the others being Wilt Chamberlain (4 MVPs), Michael Jordan (5), Bill Russell (5), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (6). LeBron also has more MVPs than Magic Johnson, who holds 3. Given LeBron's age (33 years old) and current performance, he is on track to add more MVP awards to his list of achievements.
• Thanks to his recent Cavaliers-Spurs game, LeBron became the youngest player to score 30,000 points.
• Compared to other NBA players who scored over 30,000 points, LeBron's record is impressive. He reached the 30,000 mark only after 15 years in NBA, while highest score holder Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reached 38,387 points after 20 years.
COMPARISON
Here we pit LeBron's performance against other past and present NBA players. (We selected NBA players for uniformity and availability of performance criteria.)
■ Michael Jordan vs LeBron James
Michael Jordan's legendary performance, as well as ubiquity, suffices to make him a favorite among many basketball fans over LeBron James. However, statistics show that LeBron has certain advantages over Michael. Fox Sports reports that LeBron has a higher scoring efficiency than Michael at 58.4% and 56.9% respectively. LBJ is also a better scorer than MJ:
3-point attempts: LeBron 34.2% success rate on 4 attempts per game vs. Michael 32.7% on 1.7 attempts per game
While Michael Jordan faced 5 difficult postseasons, LeBron James toughed it through 7 difficult postseasons. Fox Sports calculated that 6 out of the top 8 from the collective 13 teams faced by James and Jordan together in the NBA Finals were James' opponents.
Land of Basketball put Jordan and James' performances side by side, showing that LBJ outplayed MJ across all criteria:
NBA Playoffs
Finally, Fox Sports points out that LeBron James has intelligently maximized his ability and performance through better nutrition, training regimens, technology and knowledge of the game compared to NBA legends before him.
■ Larry Bird vs LeBron James
Larry Bird is regarded as the gold standard in the small forward position, as well as being one of the 5 greatest players of all time, which explains why some people consider him as a better player than LeBron James. However, the numbers don't lie: LeBron has more MVP awards than Larry in the same number of seasons (13) and All Star games (12). LeBron also has a higher true shooting percentage at 58.1% compared to Larry's 56.4%.
NBA Regular Season
■ Kobe Bryant vs LeBron James
Fans may argue that Kobe Bryant is a better clutch player (a player who makes crucial shots especially in the last minutes of the game) than LeBron James, but they would lose their money on that supposition: LeBron scores a higher percentage of clutch shots in the final 24 seconds on average at 41% compared to Kobe's 25%. Also, The Perspective reports that LeBron is a team player while Kobe was seen as selfish (his history with Phil Jackson is an example). Lastly, Kobe won his 5 NBA rings with Phil Jackson, considered the sharpest basketball mind, while LeBron won his first 2 rings on a weaker support team (with the exception of Dwayne Wade).
NBA Regular Season
■ Stephen Curry vs LeBron James
Steph Curry's killer 3-points and rise to fame may make him a favorite among some NBA fans over LeBron James. Yet inside the 28-feet shooting range, Steph's 3-point performance drops from 43.4% to 32.7% while LeBron exhibits a higher 35% within the same range.
NBA Regular Season
■ Magic Johnson vs LeBron James
Magic Johnson has distinguished himself by setting the fast-paced game play known as the Showtime brand. He is also admired as a great leader, who led his team to 5 championships. However, as mentioned above, LeBron James holds 4 MVP awards with years of playing ahead of him while Magic goes down in history with 3. LeBron also outperforms Magic in game averages:
Average Per Game
■ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs LeBron James
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the all-time leader in points scored, setting the bar for excellence in NBA history for decades. Therefore, fans and NBA history buffs will not easily cede his superiority to other players including James. Indeed, the two players break even in their performance averages, as is shown by Basketball Reference below:
Average Per Game
However, youth and modern technology are on James' side. Kareem scored 30,000 points when he was 36 years old while LeBron reached the same milestone at 33 years old.
■ Bill Russell vs LeBron James
Bill Russell was dubbed by Michael Jordan as the GOAT (Greatest Player Of All Time) with 11 championships. However, The Shadow League argues that LeBron has a shot at beating Russell's record thanks to the former's age and performance. The breakdown below also shows that LeBron plays a superior game to Bill, save for rebounds.
Average Per Game
■ Wilt Chamberlain vs LeBron James
Wilt Chamberlain has the distinction of having excelled in the trifecta of points, rebounds and assists. This has won him the admiration of many NBA fans. Nevertheless, James breaks even with his average game performance compared to Chamberlain's. Also, James has the opportunity of destroying Chamberlain's record in the future years of his career.
Average Per Game
QUALITATIVE SUPPORT
In a SB Nation article, NBA sports writer Tom Ziller extols LeBron as the best basketball player in the world. The article focused on his performance at his age: "This is unreal! This is Year 15 for LeBron. He should not be near or at his peak in Year 15, not when his peak is Potentially The Greatest Ever. He's set to move into the top 20 in regular-season minutes played this year; this spring, he'll likely pass Tim Duncan to become No. 1 all time in playoff minutes played. He turns 33 at the end of the month, and he's still running a league with a flood of incredible talents age 29 and under."
Bleacher Report's sports writer Adam Fromal showed that LeBron is the career leader in the NBA throughout his 15 years: "Even before including this season's numbers (he finished in the No. 1 spot through the first 82 games and is running away from the field during the postseason), he was already the career leader in NBA Math's total points added for the regular season and playoffs combined." The article argued that LeBron is the BOAT (Best Player Of All Time), even if he might not be the GOAT (Greatest Player Of All Time).
Analysts have also acknowledged Lebron as the BOAT, including TNT analyst Charles Barkley and NBA TV and TNT analyst Greg Anthony. In 2016, Barkley declared "I think Klay Thompson is the best all-around player, other than LeBron James, in the NBA." In 2017, Anthony vowed, "It’s not just that [LeBron] is really good in his 15th year. He’s the best player."
Sports Illustrated writers Ben Golliver And Rob Mahoney pointed out that LeBron James' peak performance surpasses any of his rivals: "But James (26.4 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 8.7 APG) maintains the No. 1 spot on this list for the fifth straight year because he continues to consistently reach heights that no other current player—and virtually no other player from any era—can touch. Even after 14 seasons and 12 playoff runs, his peak play tops any of his contemporaries’ peaks, and he’s proven in each of the past three years that he can sustain that transcendent level of dominance throughout an entire postseason run and against superior opponents whose game plans are specifically geared toward exhausting him." The article also pointed out that James' numbers would be great if they came out against an average opponent, but given the Golden State being an insane opponent, James' performance is all the more exceptional.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, based on statistics and qualitative support, LeBron James is indisputably the best NBA player of all time. He has either matched or outperformed other outstanding NBA players both from the past and present. LeBron has also maintained and breached his own records even while playing against strong opponents such as the Golden State Warriors. Finally, his relatively young age coupled with his current and peak performances set him up to achieve even greater heights of basketball performance and excellence in the future.