Prime LeBron James is the most resilient scorer in NBA History

[AEnigma]

He actually started at age 24/25 for Jordan, but he threw in three games from the 1986 postseason to preempt complaints about potentially excluding a great individual performance against a -4 defence.

Either way I do not think anyone is really disputing that pre-prime Lebron still had serious flaws as a scorer, but the title is explicitly about primes.

[Lebronnygoat]

This is interesting information. Others have made some obvious points about it, which I won’t repeat.

Can you explain why you included the 2014 Bobcats though? They did not have a -3.0 rDRTG.

Also, I get that you ostensibly analyzed corresponding years by age, but you actually started at age 22 for Jordan and started at age 24 for LeBron, which obscures the fact that LeBron really struggled in playoff series against 3.0+ rDRTG defenses at ages 22 and 23. (He had 22 PPG on -8.3 rTS% against the 2007 Spurs, and 26.7 PPG on -2.8 rTS% against the 2008 Celtics). I think if you included those and took out the 2014 Bobcats, you might find the results look pretty different.

I got them at -2.9rdrtg. No difference really between-3.0. It would be a different story had it been 2.7 or smth like that. This is about prime LeBron. Arguably 08 is his prime for scoring, but to me 09 takes it a step up. But 08 would move the stats but bron has the edge, especially considering defensive competition and -4rdrtg defenses LeBron would have a better edge. 07 is certainly not LeBron’s scoring prime. This uses them at the same age and their first MVP’s, but since 86 MJ had one of his GOAT series (I mean he played goat scoring lvl in 2 games so it’s a small sample size) I decided to include it. 88-98 and 09-18. 10 years.

[OhayoKD]

4 efficiency points clears 4 volume points. Thats not even a debate, especially when the defensive competition is in LeBron’s favor by -1. Peak wise LeBron’s resilience clears too. 2014 and 2009 > Any Jordan. Regular season is closer. Though peak regular season goes to LeBron. While prime is comparable.

Does it? Show your work

Will say the more you lean towards efficiency, the stronger Kareem's GOAT scoring case becomes

This is purely hypothetical since I don't have the TSA for LeBron/Jordan over these periods, but I am just going to put hypothetical numbers [somewhat accurate].

LeBron: 30.1 PP75 on 20 FGA and 9 FTA [62.8 TS%]
Jordan: 34.3 PP75 on 25 FGA and 10 FTA [58.5 TS%]

This gives us the difference of ~4 TS%, which is what OP has.

In order for LeBron's team to make-up the 4.2 points, the team would need to score those points on 5 FGA and 1 FTA, which is a 38.6 TS% is needed from LeBron's teammate(s) in order to match Jordan's Volume + Efficiency.

Works for me.

[OhayoKD]

I didn't know only 2 players exist in this discussion. Why don't you share other players numbers as well?

BTW, I'd have to check my spreadsheets but I think something is wrong with these numbers.

Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, and Wilt would be good inclusions here

[Colbinii]

I didn't know only 2 players exist in this discussion. Why don't you share other players numbers as well?

BTW, I'd have to check my spreadsheets but I think something is wrong with these numbers.

Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, and Wilt would be good inclusions here

I'd like to see Dirk and Bird as well.

[tsherkin]

I didn't know only 2 players exist in this discussion. Why don't you share other players numbers as well?

BTW, I'd have to check my spreadsheets but I think something is wrong with these numbers.

Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, and Wilt would be good inclusions here

I'd like to see Dirk and Bird as well.

Bird definitely doesn't belong in a discussion of most resilient scorers based on his playoff history.

[Colbinii]

Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem, and Wilt would be good inclusions here

I'd like to see Dirk and Bird as well.

Bird definitely doesn't belong in a discussion of most resilient scorers based on his playoff history.

That's why I want to see him

[ChipotleWest]

If Lebron's the greatest scorer why is he no wear to be found on this list?

Read on Twitter

I see quite a few faces some more than once, but I do not see Lebron's face.

[lessthanjake]

This is interesting information. Others have made some obvious points about it, which I won’t repeat.

Can you explain why you included the 2014 Bobcats though? They did not have a -3.0 rDRTG.

Also, I get that you ostensibly analyzed corresponding years by age, but you actually started at age 22 for Jordan and started at age 24 for LeBron, which obscures the fact that LeBron really struggled in playoff series against 3.0+ rDRTG defenses at ages 22 and 23. (He had 22 PPG on -8.3 rTS% against the 2007 Spurs, and 26.7 PPG on -2.8 rTS% against the 2008 Celtics). I think if you included those and took out the 2014 Bobcats, you might find the results look pretty different.

I got them at -2.9rdrtg. No difference really between-3.0. It would be a different story had it been 2.7 or smth like that.

If you are using a specific cutoff, you should actually adhere to that cutoff, not try to smuggle in data that doesn’t qualify (even writing -3.0 for the Bobcats in your OP, when you knew it was below that) simply because including that data point would help your argument.

Amusingly, your justification is that the 2014 Bobcats were very close, at -2.9 rDRTG. But meanwhile, the 1991 Lakers had a -2.9 rDRTG (and were obviously a far better team than the 2014 Bobcats), and you didn’t include Jordan’s huge series against them with a +10.2 rTS%. This is basically impossible to justify.

This is about prime LeBron. Arguably 08 is his prime for scoring, but to me 09 takes it a step up. But 08 would move the stats but bron has the edge, especially considering defensive competition and -4rdrtg defenses LeBron would have a better edge. 07 is certainly not LeBron’s scoring prime. This uses them at the same age and their first MVP’s, but since 86 MJ had one of his GOAT series (I mean he played goat scoring lvl in 2 games so it’s a small sample size) I decided to include it. 88-98 and 09-18. 10 years.

I would think that those earlier years would be considered part of LeBron’s *scoring* prime (and this thread is about scoring), given that they included, for instance, the one year he led the league in scoring (as well as his highest PPG ever in another early year).

Anyways, we could go back and forth about what is defined as “prime” for these guys and what isn’t. That’s ultimately an inherently subjective question. But, if you choose to only start at 2009 for LeBron, I do think your formulation obscures that LeBron was really not a resilient playoff scorer at all in his earlier years. Meanwhile, Jordan *was* a resilient playoff scorer at those early ages. It’s not even just 1986—Jordan was even a resilient scorer against a great Bucks defense as a rookie (29.3 PPG on +4.25 rTS%)! And these aren’t inconsequential years for these guys—they were both already amongst the league’s best players and best scorers in those years! This is all part of their stories in the league, and if you want to narrowly tailor a thread topic to try to avoid discussion of it, then I suppose you can do that, but it’s worth pointing out.

[Cavsfansince84]

If Lebron's the greatest scorer why is he no wear to be found on this list?

Read on Twitter

I see quite a few faces some more than once, but I do not see Lebron's face.

For the same reason that he wouldn't appear on a list of highest ppg seasons which is he doesn't shoot nearly the volume that some other guys have. That's not even the topic of this thread though. It's specifically most resilent scorer in nba history.

[tsherkin]

If Lebron's the greatest scorer why is he no wear to be found on this list?

I see quite a few faces some more than once, but I do not see Lebron's face.

This isn't salient to the thread subject, really. The discussion is of resilience against escalating defensive quality, and volume alone isn't actually an argument for greatness. Lebron has one season of 23+ FGA/g in his career (23.1).

Jordan has 7, and shot 24+ in 4 different seasons, including 25.7 and 27.8 (the listed year).

Kobe has 3 seasons of 24+ and his 06 season was at 27.2

Gervin had 2 and was at 24.9 in 1980 (25.2 in 1982).

Luka is taking 23.6 FGA/g this year.

That said, Lebron scored 23.76 ppg without FTs in 2006 when he was at his shooting best, and was definitely not as good a jump shooter as any of these guys.

Luka's representation on this list is more about ability than the others, per se, who were more about hyper-volume shooting. Not sure that's the angle you want to take on an attack against Lebron's scoring ability.

[ChipotleWest]

If Lebron's the greatest scorer why is he no wear to be found on this list?

I see quite a few faces some more than once, but I do not see Lebron's face.

This isn't salient to the thread subject, really. The discussion is of resilience against escalating defensive quality, and volume alone isn't actually an argument for greatness. Lebron has one season of 23+ FGA/g in his career (23.1).

Jordan has 7, and shot 24+ in 4 different seasons, including 25.7 and 27.8 (the listed year).

Kobe has 3 seasons of 24+ and his 06 season was at 27.2

Gervin had 2 and was at 24.9 in 1980 (25.2 in 1982).

Luka is taking 23.6 FGA/g this year.

That said, Lebron scored 23.76 ppg without FTs in 2006 when he was at his shooting best, and was definitely not as good a jump shooter as any of these guys.

Luka's representation on this list is more about ability than the others, per se, who were more about hyper-volume shooting. Not sure that's the angle you want to take on an attack against Lebron's scoring ability.

The lesser attempts for Lebron vs. Jordan is easily offset by Lebron taking 5000 more 3 pointers than Jordan in his career. You're getting an extra point for each vs. 2. He made 1700 more. There's really no reason he shouldn't be in the mix on ppg if he's the GOAT scorer. Also to me that is a slight knock on him, why is the "GOAT" scorer not taking more field goal attempts? Wouldn't the team want that?

But fair enough, resilient, Jordan had Jordan Rules put against him the Pistons were being more physical with him than any team had ever been to any player and they did beat his team two years in a row. He still was good but he had no teammate averaging 15 ppg that season, however he came back and beat them 4-0. That's resilient.

[lessthanjake]

He actually started at age 24/25 for Jordan, but he threw in three games from the 1986 postseason to preempt complaints about potentially excluding a great individual performance against a -4 defence.

Either way I do not think anyone is really disputing that pre-prime Lebron still had serious flaws as a scorer, but the title is explicitly about primes.

“He started at age 24 for Jordan, except that he actually didn’t.” Come on. I get that the earlier year for Jordan helped Jordan, so this is not just intentional data manipulation like including the 2014 Bobcats series was, but the fact that Jordan *was* a resilient playoff scorer in his early years while LeBron really was not is definitely a relevant point worth mentioning. Of course, one can try to narrowly tailor the topic being discussed in order to avoid this (though, again, I think those years would be defined as part of LeBron’s *scoring* prime, given the numbers he was putting up), but that basically just amounts to using a convenient cutoff to avoid very negative data points. Pointing out the existence of those negative data points that are just outside the time period being considered (though not outside the age range being used for the other player in the comparison) is certainly quite relevant.

[tsherkin]

The lesser attempts for Lebron vs. Jordan is easily offset by Lebron taking 5000 more 3 pointers than Jordan in his career. You're getting an extra point for each vs. 2. He made 1700 more. There's really no reason he shouldn't be in the mix on ppg if he's the GOAT scorer. Also to me that is a slight knock on him, why is the "GOAT" scorer not taking more field goal attempts? Wouldn't the team want that?

Because he knows that it's better to pass more often than not. Even Jordan had to learn that lesson. There's a limit to what hyper-volume scoring can accomplish.

But fair enough, resilient, Jordan had Jordan Rules put against him the Pistons were being more physical with him than any team had ever been to any player and they did beat his team two years in a row. He still was good but he had no teammate averaging 15 ppg that season, however he came back and beat them 4-0. That's resilient.

That's irrelevant narrative that escapes the usage of the word "resilient" in this thread... and in playoff matchups with Detroit from 88-90, Jordan averaged 27.4 ppg on 54.9% TS, 29.7 ppg on 56.1% TS and 32.1 ppg on 56.6%.

In those respective regular seasons, he averaged 35.0 ppg on 60.3% TS, 32.5 ppg on 61.4% TS and 33.6 ppg on 60.6% TS.

He was considerably diminished against them. Not the pro-resilience argument you seem to think it is...

[AEnigma]

He actually started at age 24/25 for Jordan, but he threw in three games from the 1986 postseason to preempt complaints about potentially excluding a great individual performance against a -4 defence.

Either way I do not think anyone is really disputing that pre-prime Lebron still had serious flaws as a scorer, but the title is explicitly about primes.

“He started at age 24 for Jordan, except that he actually didn’t.” Come on. I get that the earlier year for Jordan helped Jordan, so this is not just intentional data manipulation like including the 2014 Bobcats series was, but the fact that Jordan *was* a resilient playoff scorer in his early years while LeBron really was not is definitely a relevant point worth mentioning. Of course, one can try to narrowly tailor the topic being discussed in order to avoid this (though, again, I think those years would be defined as part of LeBron’s *scoring* prime, given the numbers he was putting up), but that basically just amounts to using a convenient cutoff to avoid very negative data points. Pointing out the existence of those negative data points that are just outside the time period being considered (though not outside the age range being used for the other player in the comparison) is certainly quite relevant.

I expected complaints from the usual crowd for this post, but will confess I did not expect, “Using numbers from when Lebron was a worse scorer would make him look like a worse scorer.” Inspiring stuff; looks very secure and definitely not like a petty and empty dismissal.

[Homer38]

If Lebron's the greatest scorer why is he no wear to be found on this list?

Read on Twitter

I see quite a few faces some more than once, but I do not see Lebron's face.

Not enough FGA compared to others....

[lessthanjake]

Also, is there any explanation for why Jordan’s series against the 1991 Pistons isn’t counted here? The 1991 Pistons had a -3.3 rDRTG, so they clearly qualify. Jordan had a +13.1 rTS% against them, and the series is curiously not included.

[NbaAllDay]

If Lebron's the greatest scorer why is he no wear to be found on this list?

Read on Twitter

I see quite a few faces some more than once, but I do not see Lebron's face.

I'm pretty sure you see Lebrons face more than anyone here.

[Lebronnygoat]

This is interesting information. Others have made some obvious points about it, which I won’t repeat.

Can you explain why you included the 2014 Bobcats though? They did not have a -3.0 rDRTG.

Also, I get that you ostensibly analyzed corresponding years by age, but you actually started at age 22 for Jordan and started at age 24 for LeBron, which obscures the fact that LeBron really struggled in playoff series against 3.0+ rDRTG defenses at ages 22 and 23. (He had 22 PPG on -8.3 rTS% against the 2007 Spurs, and 26.7 PPG on -2.8 rTS% against the 2008 Celtics). I think if you included those and took out the 2014 Bobcats, you might find the results look pretty different.

I got them at -2.9rdrtg. No difference really between-3.0. It would be a different story had it been 2.7 or smth like that.

If you are using a specific cutoff, you should actually adhere to that cutoff, not try to smuggle in data that doesn’t qualify (even writing -3.0 for the Bobcats in your OP, when you knew it was below that) simply because including that data point would help your argument.

Amusingly, your justification is that the 2014 Bobcats were very close, at -2.9 rDRTG. But meanwhile, the 1991 Lakers had a -2.9 rDRTG (and were obviously a far better team than the 2014 Bobcats), and you didn’t include Jordan’s huge series against them with a +10.2 rTS%. This is basically impossible to justify.

This is about prime LeBron. Arguably 08 is his prime for scoring, but to me 09 takes it a step up. But 08 would move the stats but bron has the edge, especially considering defensive competition and -4rdrtg defenses LeBron would have a better edge. 07 is certainly not LeBron’s scoring prime. This uses them at the same age and their first MVP’s, but since 86 MJ had one of his GOAT series (I mean he played goat scoring lvl in 2 games so it’s a small sample size) I decided to include it. 88-98 and 09-18. 10 years.

I would think that those earlier years would be considered part of LeBron’s *scoring* prime (and this thread is about scoring), given that they included, for instance, the one year he led the league in scoring (as well as his highest PPG ever in another early year).

Anyways, we could go back and forth about what is defined as “prime” for these guys and what isn’t. That’s ultimately an inherently subjective question. But, if you choose to only start at 2009 for LeBron, I do think your formulation obscures that LeBron was really not a resilient playoff scorer at all in his earlier years. Meanwhile, Jordan *was* a resilient playoff scorer at those early ages. It’s not even just 1986—Jordan was even a resilient scorer against a great Bucks defense as a rookie (29.3 PPG on +4.25 rTS%)! And these aren’t inconsequential years for these guys—they were both already amongst the league’s best players and best scorers in those years! This is all part of their stories in the league, and if you want to narrowly tailor a thread topic to try to avoid discussion of it, then I suppose you can do that, but it’s worth pointing out.

You’re two best wing defenders and ranking 1-3 probably best defenders, were hurt that series. I’m not moved by it. Vs the bobcats healthy in the first round who were on fire since march 3rd (16-6). Yea not the same. This also uses Jordan’s arguably best series ever vs Boston, and one of his best series bs Cleveland like c’mon now. Right after 2009 it uses 2011 so…

[PistolPeteJR]

I generally agree, but you cannot sneak Demar and Jaylen in there lol.

Demar seemed pretty good to me pre Chicago

Come on man, really? DeRozan’s never been a good defender. Never.