Congrats Lebron !

[Hoops23]

This achievement will help LeBron in conversation with Michael Jordan and the rest as the greatest player ever.

[truthiness]

^ it makes no sense to keep track of total Point/rebounds/whatever when each player played a different number of games (that's what happens if you count playoff games too).

They play different numbers of games during the season, too, because of injuries, suspensions, lockouts etc.
That's what you have the per-game stats for.

For me "career" means ALL the points you ever scored (of course, in games that mattered, not in practice and warm-ups).

Since you bolded "total", here's the definition of "total":

to·tal
[toht-l] Show IPA
adjective
1.
constituting or comprising the whole; entire; whole: the total expenditure.
2.
of or pertaining to the whole of something: the total effect of a play.
3.
complete in extent or degree; absolute; unqualified; utter: a total failure.
4.
involving all aspects, elements, participants, resources, etc.; unqualified; all-out: total war.
noun
5.
the total amount; sum; aggregate: a total of $200.
6.
the whole; an entirety: the impressive total of Mozart's achievement.

By definition, total should include the playoffs.
Then you split that by regular season and playoffs, if you need to.

When the titles are considered so important when evaluating a player, why not take into account his playoff stats when evaluating his career. Especially when we consider playoff stats to be more relevant than regular season stats.

[RexBoyWonder]

^ it makes no sense to keep track of total Point/rebounds/whatever when each player played a different number of games (that's what happens if you count playoff games too).

They play different numbers of games during the season, too, because of injuries, suspensions, lockouts etc.
That's what you have the per-game stats for.

For me "career" means ALL the points you ever scored (of course, in games that mattered, not in practice and warm-ups).

Injuries reflect a legitimate aspect of a player - If he can't stay healthy to play enough games, or if he's limited to small minutes per game, that should be taken into account. Same with suspensions - that's on the player.

Making the playoffs (or missing them) is an aspect of team success, not an individual.

Lockouts are very rare and effect every player that played in those years the same. The playoffs happen every year, some great players might miss them and some scrubs play in them. Those extra 4-28 games are a YEARLY factor that would strongly Skew the numbers in favor of players playing on contenders.

At the end of the day, regular season and the playoffs are two different beasts. That's why you separate the stats.

[RSCD3_]

He's close to another two legends

25 more to surpass Kareem in assists; 60 to pass Larry bird Currently 38th

Also for the advanced stat lovers

.14 Offensive wins shares behind Nash; 2.00 behind Shaq Currently 16th

.04 DWS behind Drexler Currently 46th; 15th among non bigmen

19th in total win share about 1 ahead of hakeem and 1 behind russell

[homecourtloss]

Does anyone think that John Stockton's assist record will ever be broken with how sophisticated NBA defenses are today?

In addiiton to the sophistication of the defenses, the pace at which Stockton played for most of his career was extraordinarily fast which allowed him to rack up a lot of assists (the pace also allowed other players to rack up impressive tempo free raw stats, e.g., Jordan, Magic, Bird, etc.; even though they're all greats, the raw stats look better because of the pace they played at in their careers and for Jordan, early in his career.) The AVERAGE pace in the '88-'89 season was faster than the pace the fastest team this year (Philadelphia) plays at.

James's 2007-2008 CLE team played at a pace of 90.4. James averaged 30, 8, and 7.

Stockton's 1988-1989 team played at a pace of 98 which was below league average but still lightning fast compared to the pace James played at in Cleveland.

Imagine James's numbers if his team and the league as a whole played as fast at John's teams did and the league did back then.

[truthiness]

^ it makes no sense to keep track of total Point/rebounds/whatever when each player played a different number of games (that's what happens if you count playoff games too).

They play different numbers of games during the season, too, because of injuries, suspensions, lockouts etc.
That's what you have the per-game stats for.

For me "career" means ALL the points you ever scored (of course, in games that mattered, not in practice and warm-ups).

Injuries reflect a legitimate aspect of a player - If he can't stay healthy to play enough games, or if he's limited to small minutes per game, that should be taken into account. Same with suspensions - that's on the player.

Making the playoffs (or missing them) is an aspect of team success, not an individual.

Lockouts are very rare and effect every player that played in those years the same. The playoffs happen every year, some great players might miss them and some scrubs play in them. Those extra 4-28 games are a YEARLY factor that would strongly Skew the numbers in favor of players playing on contenders.

At the end of the day, regular season and the playoffs are two different beasts. That's why you separate the stats.

We're debating semantics, but hey .... what we gonna do till the game starts ?

Anyway, I agree they should be separated.

I don't agree that injuries are something players can 100% control. They depend on luck (or bad luck) just like it's often the case with players ending on a good/bad team.

Let's take Boozer. He signs with the Bulls who have an up-and-coming star and he figures "man, I'm gonna play the finals or at least conference finals every year". Then Rose gets injured and misses 3 playoffs in a row, and Boozer would be happy to make it out of the 1st round. He can't control that, just like Arenas couldn't control getting injured when Gerald Wallace fell on his knee.

This is why for me "Total stats" should include playoffs, and then you have a division between regular season and playoffs. But when debating all time greats, playoffs stats should DEFINITELY be taken into account.