LeGoat?

by | Feb 20, 2023 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

With 38 points against the Thunder on February 7th, LeBron James added another notch to his claim of being the best NBA player of all time, as he is now the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.

Going into the game, LeBron needed 36 points to break Kareem’s record of 38,387 points, and with a fadeaway late into the third quarter, Lebron crowned himself the new scoring king.

This sent social media into a frenzy, as LeBron’s accomplishment quickly became the number one trending subject in the world that night. There was obviously a ton of media coverage surrounding LeBron breaking the record. Many sports media outlets and talk shows such as ESPN had trackers that you could follow along, with as they counted down the points LeBron needed to break the record.

But as you can expect, LeBron breaking the record was only the tip of the media coverage iceberg, because literally moments after breaking the record, the debates started. Is LeBron the greatest of all time? Has this cemented LeBrons legacy? Who’s the GOAT LeBron or Jordan?

When you look at it, it’s a very interesting and complex debate. With time, the NBA has changed and the game has evolved so much since Jordan played. LeBron is playing in a much different NBA.  To credit the constant evolution of the NBA even for LeBron, the NBA he played in for the first part of his career isn’t the same NBA he’s played in during the past eight to nine seasons.

As time has gone on, the game has gotten less physical and more up-tempo. The league is no longer dominated by the traditional back-to-the-basket big man and has switched to spacing the floor and three-point shooting.

So back to the debate that pits one generation against the other Jordan vs. LeBron, let’s see if I can get a clear-cut answer. It’s very hard to separate the two players statistically. They are neck and neck and not far apart from each other in almost every per-game stat. LeBron’s career per-game stat line comes out to 27.2 points, 7.3 assists, 7.5 rebounds, 1.5 steals, and 0.8 blocks. While Jordan’s career per game stat line is very similar with 30.1 points, 5.3 assists, 6.2 rebounds, 2.3 steals, and 0.8 blocks.

So with both players being nearly identical in terms of stats, let’s look at individual awards. Jordan has five regular season MVPs to LeBron’s four. Jordan also has six NBA Finals MVPs to Lebron’s four. Jordan has ten regular season scoring titles to Lebron’s one. Lastly, Jordan has nine All-Defensive First Team selections to LeBron’s five. LeBron on the other hand edges out Jordan in both All-NBA First Team selections with thirteen to Jordan’s ten, and LeBron also edges out Jordan in All-Star game selections with nineteen to Jordan’s fourteen. So out of the awards that I have in consideration for this comparison, Jordan clearly edges out LeBron in this category.

Now for the final showdown… championships. I’ll keep this comparison short and sweet for you. Jordan has a clear edge in championships. Jordan is 6-0 in the finals with two separate three-peats. While LeBron on the other hand is 4-6 in the NBA Finals, and might I add he also played on better teams than the squads that Jordan won his championships on.

So to wrap this up let’s not get this twisted. By no means am I saying that LeBron isn’t a great player. He most definitely is. To me, he’s not a top-five NBA player of all time, but rather a top two… behind Jordan of course.

 

 

 

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