The Kobe argument has long been dead. This much I am sure of: Since his second or third season, LeBron has never been on a court with a better basketball player. The only interesting arguments that still remain are how he compares to the all-time greats—your Wilts, your Birds, your Magics, your Abdul-Jabbars, your Jordans.
Scottie Pippen caused a stir recently by suggesting that LeBron could be better than his long-time teammate, Sir Michael Jordan. But he padded it with a bunch of one-day-maybe’s, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
I decided to take this up with Baskeball-Reference.com, which has a user-based ranking of the top players in NBA history. Jordan, unsurprisingly, is #1, and by a pretty significant margin. LeBron is hanging down at #18, only two spots ahead of Kobe Bryant, and three spots behind his rival in the finals, Dirk Nowitzki.
This is quite clearly bullshit. And for “proof,” I point you to numbers:
Win Shares is a fancypants statistic that weighs all of the traditional statistics – points, rebounds, assists, turnovers, etc. – into one measure of the player’s efficiency, and, ultimately, his value to his team.
It’s imperfect for obvious reasons – “steals” and “blocks” are hardly a complete measure of a player’s defensive prowess, for example – but if we want to be objective, it’s the best we’ve got.
Here are how the players at the top of Basketball-Reference’s list compare in Win Shares per 48 minutes by age: (Blue is good, red is bad.)
The players are ordered by their average win shares across their prime (ages 23 to 33), meaning that, based on this statistic, LeBron is the second best (= most efficient) player in NBA history. But he might as well be tied for first because he is even with Jordan to three decimal places.
For more analysis of LeBron vs. Jordan, here are how their numbers compare for both the regular season and playoffs:
Based on these comparisons, LeBron and Jordan are about dead even. LeBron has even been a little better in the playoffs (0.270 vs. 0.246). And given that the competition is now marginally bigger, faster, stronger, and probably smarter than it was in Jordan’s day, and given that the win shares measure probably fails to properly account for LeBron's legendary defensive prowess, which includes the ability to guard both centers and point guards, and to hold League MVP Derrick Rose to 6% shooting in a playoff series, if we’re picking teams and I get to choose between LeBron and Jordan in their primes, I’m picking LeBron. Without hesitation, actually.
I know this blog is pretty light on sports fans, but I hope there are some Jordan purists in the audience, because I’d love to engage in a good ole' fashion pissing match with you.
UPDATE: Bigger, badder charts here.
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Somewhat relatedly, Ben Morris did a crazy in-depth analysis of Dennis Rodman (hat tip: Mark Larson) and kind of sort of concluded that he was more valuable on a per dollar basis than Jordan:
While I may not be ready to conclude that, yes, in fact, Rodman would actually be a more valuable asset to a potential championship contender than Michael freaking Jordan, I don’t think the opposite view is any stronger: That is, when you call that position crazy, conjectural, speculative, or naïve—as some of you inevitably will—I am fairly confident that, in light of the evidence, the default position is really no less so.
