I think when comparing peaks, people get too locked into single seasons or one-off data points. Basketball is noisy—guys have up and down years depending on teammates, role, system, rules, etc. So I prefer to look at a 3–5 year stretch to smooth out variance and get a better sense of what a player actually brought to the table. Box stats and on/off aren't gospel. They’re tools which illustrate what players are capable of.
That said, LeBron and Jordan both have peaks that are clearly in that top offensive tier historically. 2025 IA per 75 (PTS/AST/TOV/TS%):
LeBron (09–10, 12–14): 31.3 / 8.7 / 4.0 / 66.1 TS%
Jordan (88–91, 93): 33.7 / 6.3 / 3.1 / 64.3 TS%
Basically a wash. I see little merit in debating whether +2.6 points and -0.9 turnovers is worth more than +2.4 assists and +1.8 TS%. LeBron has the edge in efficiency and playmaking, Jordan a slight edge in raw scoring volume. But once you dig into context, I think LeBron is just capable of doing more and his production was more role-dependent. His teams were constantly shifting and often built around other high-usage scorers like Wade or Kyrie. Jordan had a stable system and low-usage defense focused teammates who didn’t need touches to make an impact.
LeBron had to change roles constantly: mid-post off-ball hub in 2013, primary ball handler in 2020, hybrid scorer/playmaker in 2016. He succeeded in all of them. The constant changes in LeBron’s role and team context explain the year-to-year variance in his box score numbers, but they also make his peak harder to identigy using traditional stats. What looks like inconsistency is often just adaptability. Jordan’s game was more consistently optimized. He did one thing at an insane level and the Bulls were built to succeed around that.
At the team level, we can look at playoff offensive rating (rORTG):
LeBron-led teams from 2013–17: +10.4 rORTG (highest ever)
Jordan-led Bulls from 1989–93: +7.7
Other top stretches were Nash’s Suns (+9.9), Magic’s Lakers (+9.0), Steph’s Warriors (+7.2). A pattern to note is that playmaking-heavy stars tend to produce the best team offenses.
Some have argued Jordan scaled better with defensive teams. I don’t think that holds. Jordan played in the days of illegal defense where spacing wasn’t punished—you could have 2–3 non-shooters on the court and still have isolation space. Teams could load up on defenders without severely compromising the offense. Ever since the league moved away from illegal defense, there's been a delicate tradeoff between offense and defense when building around a star. LeBron played in a league where you had to have shooters or the floor collapsed. So his teams needed spacing, not because of him, but because of the league environment.
Another counterpoint: LeBron’s teams, at their best, actually slightly outperformed the Bulls with Jordan on the court—but they fell apart when he sat. The difference wasn’t that Jordan elevated his teams to significantly greater heights because of a more scalable skillset. It was that the Bulls had stronger infrastructure that held up better in his absence. If anything, I would argue that LeBron’s teams were able to prioritize offense over defense precisely because of his ability to anchor defenses as a forward. That kind of defensive safety net just wasn’t possible with Jordan.
We don’t have RAPM for Jordan pre-1997, so we can turn to analogues for Jordan defensively: Kawhi and Tony Allen. I think this is actually being quite charitable to Jordan here. Kawhi shared Jordan’s strengths: quick hands, elite man defense, but he was bigger, stronger, less mistake prone, and regularly guarded tougher matchups. Allen, meanwhile, was a pure defensive specialist who barely contributed on offense, allowing him to go all-in on POA defense in a way high-usage guards like Jordan usually can't. These comps help us estimate Jordan’s potential impact in modern data, but they likely represent a best-case scenario. And LeBron actually outperforms both of them in '98-19 PS DRAPM:
LeBron: 2.28 (2nd among all perimeter players)
Kawhi: 2.09
Tony Allen: 2.09
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQdG8Zv84zqKEzETDjd8KPsClcw9bPETX9v_x_KEAxjv9NrFaWikOoiSaciy1jbMiygg2D-V8DUQn0O/pubhtml?gid=112475182&single=trueJordan's got his DPOY from '88, depending on how much stock you put into home scorekeepers giving him steals for breathing near the ball. But LeBron was often a sort of pseudo-anchor for his teams, not just a perimeter stopper. That kind of scalable defensive value matters more when we’re splitting hairs at the top.
If you want to argue Jordan was just as good offensively during his own time, that's fine. But LeBron begins to gap him when you consider defense. I also don’t take a strict era-relativist view. I like to consider who brings more to the table across different situations in a more optimized league.
To me, LeBron and Jordan stand a cut above the competition because of their unmatched combination of offensive output, defensive ability, and playoff resiliency. But LeBron had the broader skillset, more adaptable game, higher offensive ceiling, and the more scalable defensive impact.
1. 2013 LeBron James (>2009/2010/2012/2014/2016/2017/2018)
Best blend of shooting, defensive engagement, and decision making. Feels like the most complete version of him.
2. 1991 Michael Jordan (>1988/1989/1990)
Was thinking of moving him down, but Shai’s 2025 impact signals make me want to hold off.
3. 1977 Kareem Abdul-JabbarNot sure on this one but I need a third. This spot could just as easily go to 64 Wilt or 04 Garnett among a couple others.
