On February 18th, 2002, Sports Illustrated released their weekly magazine with a high school basketball player on the cover with the headline reading, ‘The Chosen One.’ That high school player was LeBron James. Now nearly 22 years later, James is still one of the best players in the NBA and does not look like he is ready to slow down.
We all know the accolades, 4-time NBA Champion, 4-time Finals MVP, 4-time regular season MVP, 19-time All-Star, 19-time All-NBA, 6-time All-Defense, and one of the players on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team. He is in his 21st season in the NBA and still remains one of the 10 best players on the planet. With averages of 25.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 6.7 assists, James’ numbers are down but in the In-Season Tournament, James averaged 26.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 7.6 assists per game, leading the Lakers to the championship. He was not only LA’s best player but the best player in the In-Season Tournament overall as he won the MVP of the tournament, becoming the first ever In-Season Tournament MVP. Let’s compare some other historically great players age 39 season numbers to the numbers James has put up this season.
Let’s start with the player LeBron is compared to the most Michael Jordan. In Jordan’s age 39 season, he was in his second season with the Wizards and had already been retired twice. That season, Jordan played in all 82 games, averaging 20.0 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.5 assists. While M.J. was still a very good player, he was not playing at the level LeBron is playing today. Kobe Bryant’s final season was at 37 years old, however, in his final 2 season’s Bryant averaged 19.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 3.8 assists on shooting splits of .36/.29/.82, he was still scoring but not efficiently. I know this was post achilles tear but James has dealt with injuries too and has barely slowed down, if at all. In Kareem’s age 39 season, he averaged 17.5 points and 6.7 rebounds, again still a very good player but not elite like the level LeBron is playing at right now. There are also plenty of players who, like Bryant, did not reach their age 39 season. Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Shaquille O’Neal, and Charles Barkley all had retired by the time they were 39.
What LeBron James is accomplishing at age 39 is something we have never seen before and even with all of the modern technology and body recovering tools there are, this is still very rare. Look at two of his 2003 draft partners, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade, both those guys are out of the league and Wade has been out of the sport since LeBron won his 4th title and 4th Finals MVP in 2020. While I am not trying to declare him the greatest of all time, for a moment I think that we all need to sit back for a second and marvel at what LeBron James is accomplishing in his age 39 season and in his 21st season.
Commenti