Michael Jordan vs Lebron James

Who is the greatest basketball player of all time?  Well, based on consensus it should be Michael Jordan.  Lebron has gained some more supporters in the Jordan/Lebron debate since he called Donald Trump a bum.  Recently Lebron played his 1072nd career regular season game, which is the same number that Michael Jordan played.  ESPN was treating it like an apples vs apples comparison, and so has plenty of people on twitter.  The problem is, it isn't.  Lebron came into the league out of high school, and Jordan played two seasons with the Wizards, which he was 38-40 years old.  Lebron James is closing in on his 33rd birthday, and is either in his physical prime, or pretty close to it.  That makes the comparison, which still is in Jordan's favor statistically, less fair.  Given the different circumstances of their career, I decided to try and make some fair comparisons.  Looking at them at similar stages in their life.  Now what if we started with Lebron's 4th season, and make comparisons, which wouldn't count those two seasons Jordan played with the Wizards.  Lebron turned 22 years old a couple months into this 4th season, while Jordan turned 22 about 3 and half months into his rookie year, so the age comparison is fair.  What isn't fair is that Jordan was a rookie, while Lebron had 3 seasons of NBA experience.

       
1st comparison looks at Lebron from his 4th season until now, and compares it to Jordan during his first 11 seasons.  The ages they were are close enough. PER is Player Efficiency Rating, and True Shooting % factors in field goals, and free throws, and gives the extra point for 3 point shots.

Regular Season

	PER	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TS%
Lebron	28.8	27.3	7.4	7.2	1.6	0.8	.598
Jordan	29.6	32.0	6.4	5.7	2.6	1.0	.586

Playoffs

	PER	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TS%
Lebron	28.2	28.3	8.9	6.9	1.8	1.0	.575
Jordan	28.9	33.9	6.4	6.2	2.3	0.9	.577

The slight edge in PER goes to Jordan.  You have to give Jordan credit for being such an efficient scorer despite being a high volume shooter.  The rest of the comparison goes as someone should expect.  Jordan averaged a good deal more points, with Lebron having the edges in rebounds, and assists, while Jordan averaged more steals.  There are still a couple of issues here.  Jordan's teams played a slightly faster pace, while there's a slight difference in minutes per game.  So I decided to depend on basketball reference, and their PER 100 possession statistics.

Per 100 possessions

Regular Season

	Pts	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO
Lebron	37.6	10.2	9.9	2.2	1.1	4.7
Jordan	41.6	8.3	7.4	3.4	1.3	3.8

Playoffs

	Pts	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO
Lebron	36.6	11.5	9.0	2.4	1.3	4.5
Jordan	43.4	8.2	7.9	2.9	1.2	4.2

The comparison is similar to the per game statistics.  While Lebron was great all around, Jordan was the better scorer, and turned the ball over less.  Turnovers are something the goes along with high assist numbers.   

Now what about the fact that Lebron already had 3 season of experience by the time he got to his fourth season?  What about the wear and tear factor of Lebron's games played (though it hasn't had much effect on him)? Lebron by his second season was already and  grown man, and well adapted to the game.  His one season of NBA experience probably meant as much, and maybe more than all of Jordan 3 seasons of college experience.  So I wanted to look at Lebron from his 2nd season until now, and compare it to Jordan's career with the Bulls.  I won't go the the tables like I did previously.  In terms of PER Jordan has the edge at 29.1 to Lebron's 28.4.  He also get's the edge in the postseason with a PER of 28.6 to 27.9 for Lebron.

Now other parts of the comparisons between them are about their team accomplishments, and are usually unfair.  Jordan fans point to his 6-0 record in the Finals, while Lebron fans point to how Lebron has beaten, and played better teams in the Finals.  Both are team accomplishments.  If you want to argue about who's teams were better (Jordan's, just my opinion), then you can bring up those arguments.  It's not Michael's fault that he never played a team as good as the last 3 Golden State teams in the NBA Finals.  During the late 90s, it was Jordan's Bulls that dominated like Golden State has recently.  Should that be held against Jordan that his team was the juggernaut? Lebron has gotten to 8 NBA Finals, but the East has been soft during most of those seasons.  Overall Michael's teams faced better competition on their way to the Finals, while Lebron's faced better competition in the Finals.  Lebron's teams lost 3 of their 5 NBA Finals, before they even met Golden State, and their competition in those series' was similar to what Jordan and Bulls faced in the Finals.  It's just that the Bulls won all of their Finals so their opponents appear weaker, because they didn't win the title.  Also San Antonio 2014 domination of Miami, helps the reputation of the 2013 team.  In terms of individual numbers the edge goes Jordan.  Lebron is pretty close though.