Last week, Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey, said that Lebron James has become, statistically speaking, the greatest player of all times by a “big margin," which forces us to wonder if stats actually give the title of GOAT to The King over a guy called Michael Jordan.
During an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, Morey – a stats guru who has a bachelor's degree in computer science and an MBA from MIT – said:
“I mean, you just look at his [Lebron James] ability to generate wins and championship probability over time and basically break that down and obviously you don’t need all the numbers, you just watch him as well and see that, but if you basically isolate that and just look at the career he’s had, frankly at this point I think it’s become a bit of a big margin where he’s come out ahead. I know that’s a little bit controversial.”
Morey’s comment brought a lot of criticism mostly by MJ fans, who consider the six-time MVP the best player to have ever stepped on an NBA court. Nevertheless, what the Rockets GM says is that, statistically, Lebron is the best player of all times. He doesn’t care what James' or Jordan's fans think; he cares about what numbers say. So, let’s put aside for a moment the era in which they played, their mindset, their age, their teammates or rivals and let's focus solely on the stats to see if Lebron is indeed, a better player than the Chicago Bulls legend.
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Jordan played 15 seasons before retiring, and Lebron has played the same number of seasons so far. Jordan surpasses Lebron in points (30.1 vs 27.2 ppg), free throw percentage (83.5 percent vs 73 percent), steals (5.3 per game) and losing the ball on fewer occasions (2.7 vs 3.5 turnovers per game). Whereas the new Laker is ahead in rebounds (7.4 vs 6.2 per game), assists (7.2 vs 5.2 apg), three-point field goal (34.4 percent vs 32.7 percent), effective field goal percentage – a metric which considers the fact that a three-point field goal is worth more than a two-point field goal – with 54 percent vs 50.9 percent. In all other stats, they have similar numbers.
Daryl Morey stated that Lebron generates more wins and one of the statistics which can tell us if this is true is the win shares, a metric that estimates the number of wins a player produces for his team. Here Lebron James ranks 4th all-time with 219.3 and Jordan fifth with 214.0. Moreover, the former Cavs player holds the playoffs best record of win shares all-time with 51.00, MJ is second with 39.76.
However, the GM mentioned more championships probability as well and here is where it gets a little bit trickier. Michael Jordan holds a 6-0 record in NBA Finals. MJ’s odds of winning a championship every time he reached this stage was a superb 100 percent, while Lebron holds a 3-6 record which is far from that percentage (33.3 percent). Nonetheless, Lebron is most likely to take his teams to this stage with 69 percent chances. MJ’s percentage is 46 percent. Although what’s the point of reaching the finals if you are not going to win them anyways?
Finally, anytime Jordan joined a team their winning record improved by 21 percent, whereas Lebron’s teams improve 23 percent (this percentage doesn't include when he moved to Miami for obvious reasons).
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