Tis’ another season where LeBron James is over excelling his competition. It has been literally unfair this season to the ones who have the pleasure of guarding LeBron. I mean look at his stats this season. He leads every category on his team except for blocks and although he doesn’t lead any categories in the NBA, he makes up for that in his astonishing skills.
LeBron averages 27 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block a game this season. To this point, you ponder to yourself that these are some prodigious stats. So why is LeBron not better than MJ? Well because through LeBron’s 9 season career thus far, he has averaged 27.6 points a game, which is not even good enough to top Jordan’s rookie season average at 28.2 points. Through Jordan’s career he averaged 30.1 points, 2.3 steals, 83.5 percent from the free throw line, and 49.7 percent from the field a game.
Micheal Jordan has had to many years where he has scored an insurmountable amount of points. When I look at Jordan’s third season, which was his best season in terms of points. Jordan averaged 37.1 points a game, which by any standards would be almost impossible to beat. Jordan averaged 30+ plus points a game in 8 of the 15 seasons he played, while LeBron has only 3 thus far. Jordan is better in free throw percentage, steals, and field goal percentage, while LeBron leads in assists, rebounds, and blocks. All of LeBron’s leading categories are nice, but only 1 puts points on the board.
Field goal percentage and free throw percentage always lead to points and if good at it, which Jordan clearly was, I see no huge evidence that would promote LeBron to being better than Jordan. Also, steals can be very key because they usually lead to fast breaks, which usually leads to points as well. Micheal has a huge edge in a lot of statistics that lead to scoring, but it’s not like Micheal is that far behind in the other categories, such as rebounding or assists.
LeBron is almost 30 years old and has still possibly 10 more years left in the bag until quits are probably going to be called. This leaves plenty of time to try and catch Jordan. I mean heck even when Micheal Jordan made the surprise return to the NBA 10 years ago, when he played for the Washington Wizards for two seasons at the ages of 38 through 40. He still managed to stack those numbers up that only an abundance of players now a days could only dream of having. So whats going to happen to LeBron? I think he still is going to put up great numbers through his final years of play and will still make the competition look vulnerable.
However, once LeBron reaches 30, I predict a steady decline in numbers, maybe a jump up or two, but that’s it. So I don’t believe LeBron will ever catch Micheal Jordan, which leaves Jordan as the greatest player ever and he still will be no matter what, even if LeBron continues at his pace.
By: Richie Boswell
All stats are provided by ESPN
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