Michael Jordan and LeBron James are one-of-a-kind athletic marvels. Anyone who had the good fortune to watch both play should consider themselves lucky. Jordan was unquestionably the greatest basketball player of the first 70 years of the NBA, and he is a top-5 athlete in team sports history. There will never be another like Mike. However, as Bob Dylan said, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” and they’re changing whether we want to believe it or not. Some are so uncomfortable with this that they will conjure up preposterous feats of pretzel logic to try to stop it. I get it. Nostalgia is a seductive mistress. However, we gotta find a way to honor nostalgia without ignoring what’s staring us right in the face. The case for LeBron James is bordering on overwhelming…
Competition Level and League Style
Michael Jordan played in the NBA from 1984-2003, with a couple of mini-retirements along the way. On opening night of the 1983-84 NBA season, there were just eight international players on NBA rosters. During Jordan’s career, there wasn’t a single international player who won a league MVP. In fact, there was only one instance when an international player finished in the top-3 in MVP voting. In contrast, over LeBron James’s first 22 seasons in the NBA, international players won nine MVPs (soon-to-be 10) and finished in the top-3 19 times (soon-to-be 22). There were 124 international players from 43 countries on opening night rosters in 2024. The level of competition that Jordan played against isn’t even in the same stratosphere as what James played against. Jordan’s NBA was a national league filled with the best American basketball players. James’s NBA is a global league filled with the best basketball players on Earth. If you’re going to blame someone for this reality, blame His Airness. It was Jordan and his Dream Team brethren who sparked basketball fever across the globe in the summer of ‘92.
An additional factor that made winning championships more difficult for James is the evolution of the league’s playing style. Jordan largely didn’t have to contend with the great equalizer: the 3-point shot. During the 2024-25 NBA season, teams hoisted 37.5 3-pointers per game, and hit them at a blistering 35.8% clip. During the 1990-91 season–Jordan’s first championship season–teams shot just 7.1 3-pointers per game at a success rate of just 32%. As a result of this evolution, it is considerably more difficult for one player to control the outcome of a game. Randomness is at an all-time high. NBA teams came back to win from 20+ point deficits a whopping 38 times in 2023-24 alone. That just didn’t happen in Jordan’s era. There were zero 20-point comebacks in the NBA in 1990, and just one in 1995.
The fact that NBA competition is so much more difficult today than it was when Jordan played doesn’t automatically make James the better player. What it does mean, however, is that comparing James to Jordan as if it’s an apples-to-apples comparison shows a profound misunderstanding of what degree-of-difficulty means. James doesn’t have to beat Jordan’s raw totals, he just has to come close. Spoiler alert: he comes close just about everywhere, and even has an advantage at face value in most areas.
Clutch
The basketball zeitgeist has long concluded that Michael Jordan is the GOAT of clutch performers, while LeBron James wilts under pressure. It would be really nice if we could quantify this claim with statistics instead of simply taking average Joe’s word for it. Oh wait, we can! And, just like so many arguments that are used against James, this one actually supports his case as the GOAT. James is, by many measures, a clutch performer, but there is a significant amount of evidence that suggests he is the most clutch performer in NBA history. Before we dive into the data, it’s important to define what clutch is. The notion that athletes somehow perform beyond their abilities during pressure situations is demonstrably false. This version of “clutch” does not exist. Instead, we should think of “clutch” as an athlete’s capacity to play as close to their peak performance as possible in pressure situations. As it turns out, LeBron James has managed to do this better than any basketball player in history.
Stathead’s individual shot data goes back to the 1996-97 season. In playoff games from the 1996-97 season to the 2023-24 season, LeBron James was 7 for 12 (58.3%) on game-winning or game-tying shots in the final second of the 4th quarter and overtime. All of the NBA MVP winners during that span combined were just 9 for 51 (17.6%). The list of MVPs includes Karl Malone, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, and Joel Embiid. Yes, over that 27-year span, James had nearly as many game-winning or game-tying playoff buzzer beaters than 17 NBA MVP winners combined, and he accomplished it on just 12 shot attempts.
In playoff games from the ‘96-97 season to the ‘23-24 season, James was 8 for 20 (40%) on shots to tie or take the lead in the final five seconds of the 4th quarter and overtime. The 17 NBA MVP winners during that span were 23 for 113 (20.3%).
In playoff games from the ‘96-97 season to the ‘23-24 season, James was 14 for 35 (40%) on shots to tie or take the lead in the final 30 seconds of the 4th quarter and overtime. The 17 NBA MVP winners during that span were 56 for 198 (28.3%).
In playoff games from the ‘96-97 season to the ‘23-24 season, James was 23 for 50 (46%) on shots to tie or take the lead in the final 60 seconds of the 4th quarter and overtime. The 17 NBA MVP winners during that span were 86 for 289 (29.8%).
In playoff games from the ‘96-97 season to the ‘23-24 season, James was 35 for 77 (45.5%) on shots to tie or take the lead in the final two minutes of the 4th quarter and overtime. The 17 NBA MVP winners during that span were 190 for 515 (36.9%).
In playoff games from the ‘96-97 season to the ‘23-24 season, James was 58 for 138 (42%) on shots to tie or take the lead in the final five minutes of the 4th quarter and overtime. The 17 NBA MVP winners during that span were 393 for 987 (39.8%). James’s total includes a blistering 41.9% on 3-pointers, which is the 3rd highest in history among players with more than 15 attempts in these situations. The NBA MVP winners shot just 28.3% on 3-pointers in these scenarios.
This data includes four seasons of Michael Jordan’s career, including years in which he won two championships, two Finals MVPs, and a regular season MVP. Jordan shot 9 for 31 (29%) in the last five minutes in these pressure situations, and 7 for 22 (31.8%) in the last two minutes. James didn’t just far exceed the playoff field goal percentages of the greatest players in history, he dwarfed them in shot attempts as well, seemingly adding the nail in the coffin to the ridiculous claim that he avoided taking shots in pressure situations. This was supposed to be a weak spot for James–or at least that’s how revisionists have touted it–so the fact that it turns out to be a historical strength really begins to tilt the GOAT conversation.
Efficiency
The best basketball players in the NBA are the most efficient. The best basketball players of all-time combine efficiency with high volume-scoring and usage. Michael Jordan and LeBron James are, by far, the best the league has ever seen at doing just that. Yet, between Jordan and James, it’s a blowout in favor of James. James has a better overall field goal percentage (50.7% to 49.7%), a better 2-point field goal percentage (55.6% to 51%), a better 3-point field goal percentage (35% to 32.7%), a better eFG% (54.8% to 50.9%), and a better true shooting % (59% to 56.9%). Those margins aren’t even close. No matter what measure we look at, James has been significantly more efficient as a scorer than Jordan. However, James’s advantage in this category is even more impressive than it looks on the surface. Jordan retired at the top of his game at age 34, which means his field goal percentages are largely locked in at his career peak, his age-38 and 39 seasons with the Wizards notwithstanding. James’s percentages have had no such luxury since he has been playing for 22 consecutive years. James has attempted nearly 5,000 more shots than Jordan, and still has a massive advantage in scoring efficiency at nearly every type of shot on the court.
Physical Stature
Jordan and James were both ball dominant scorers with a similar modus operandi: stress the defense by initiating the offense in the most efficient way possible. However, that’s where the similarities end. Jordan stood at a relatively meager 6 ‘4 ¾” and 198lb compared to James’s 6’ 7 ½” 250lb frame (note: these are real heights, not listed heights). For reference, Karl Malone–one of the most physically imposing players in NBA history–played at 6’7 ½” and 250 lb. This advantage for James shows up all over the court, but it is most exaggerated on dribble-drives to the basket. James’s career shooting percentage inside of three feet is a robust 74.2% compared to Jordan’s 59.8%. James’s combination of size and athleticism allowed him to take more efficient shots than Jordan. James has shot 35% of his overall attempts within three feet of the basket. That number is just 17% for Jordan, exhibiting how much more of an advantage James’s physical ability has given him. This also allowed James to absorb contact on the way to the rim for more and-1 opportunities. James’s massive size advantage also brings us to…
Positional Versatility
Michael Jordan was a shooting guard. LeBron James was everything. James has spent at least one season officially designated by Basketball-Reference at each of the five positions. The advantages that come from a player not only being able to play all five positions offensively, but also defensively, are incalculable. Jordan gets a lot of credit for his defense, and rightfully so. He was a great defensive player. However, he was defending guards and small forwards. James–also a great defensive player–defended guards, power forwards, and centers. Keep in mind, Jordan and James are “supposed” to play the same position. This isn’t like comparing Jordan to Shaquille O’Neal, and then praising Shaq for his obviously superior shot-blocking. If Jordan is the GOAT, the expectation should be that he meets or surpasses James–a ball-dominant backcourt player just like he was–in these comparisons. Furthermore, at 40 years old, James has essentially become Magic Johnson in his prime, but with a 3-point shot. Seriously, if you aren’t old enough to have seen Magic Johnson play basketball, LeBron at 40 is what it looked like. Without the ability to lean as much on his raw athleticism, James’s positional versatility and diverse skill-set has allowed him to morph his game into an even better version of an all-time great player in his prime.
3-Point Shooting
We’ve talked at length about James’s massive advantage in shooting efficiency from just about everywhere on the court, including 3-point shooting. However, James’s advantage from behind the arc is far, far greater than what it appears at first glance, and at first glance it appears significant. At face value, James holds a 35% to 32.7% advantage from three. However, those numbers don’t begin to tell the whole story. Jordan attempted so few 3-pointers over his career that a 99-game hot streak–just over the length of a regular season–from 1995-96 inflated his percentage considerably. Outside of that stretch, his career 3-point percentage stands at 30.5% on just over one attempt per game. In fact, Jordan’s median single-season 3-point percentage stands at a paltry 26.7%, while James chimes in at 35%. Jordan simply wasn’t a threat from three. He knew it, and defenses knew it. Over his last 15 seasons–the length of Jordan’s entire career–James has shot 36% on just over five attempts per game. That number grew to nearly 40% on over 5.5 attempts per game over his age-39 and 40 seasons. James’s far superior 3-point shooting not only gives him yet another advantage over Jordan, it stresses defenses in a way that Jordan could never do.
Playoff Success
This should be a slam dunk for Michael Jordan, right? I mean, every argument for Jordan as the GOAT starts with the fact that he won six NBA titles and six NBA Finals MVPs. Raise your hand if you’ve heard someone say, “until LeBron James wins six titles, there’s nothing to talk about.” [Editor’s note: I’m raising both of my hands.] First, let’s dispatch one of the worst tropes of this GOAT conversation: “Jordan never lost in the NBA Finals, so LeBron James can never be in the same conversation as Jordan.” This is, of course, ridiculous when you consider that if we line up Jordan and James’s careers side by side based on how far they made it in the playoffs, we see that Jordan made it farther than James twice, while James made it farther than Jordan nine times. Six championships are impressive, but where was Jordan all of those other years? Unbeknownst to the folks who parrot the line about Jordan being 6-0 in the Finals as some kind of a death knell to James’s GOAT claim, that statistic actually supports James’s claim. NBA legacies aren’t some kind of Ricky Bobby “if you’re not first you’re last” zero-sum litmus test. There are varying levels of success and, by and large, James had a more successful playoff career than Jordan. He won 41 playoff series to Jordan’s 30, and has more Finals appearances, Conference Finals appearances, Conference Semifinals appearances, and overall playoff appearances.
Before we move on, it’s only fair to address Jordan’s 6-4 advantage in championships and Finals MVPs. Championships are, of course, the gold standard, so we can’t just whitewash the playoff conversation by solely focusing on James’s overall playoff success. Six NBA titles and six Finals MVPs are a phenomenal achievement. That’s why Jordan is one of the top-5 athletes in sports history. However, as a reminder: what Jordan faced in terms of competition level on the way to an NBA Championship wasn’t close to what James faced. James doesn’t need to match Jordan’s championship total any more than Jordan needed to average 50 points per game or score 100 points in a game to be considered a better basketball player than Wilt Chamberlain. Chamberlain played during the weakest era that NBA basketball has ever seen. Everyone (or almost everyone) knows this, which is why nobody demanded that Jordan match Chamberlain’s totals before anointing him the superior player. Yet, very few people are willing to make the same obvious observation when comparing James to Jordan. To reiterate, Jordan’s competition was the best basketball players in the United States. James’s competition was the globe. Jordan played in a league without 3-point shooting being a significant factor, making it much easier for the best player in the league to control the outcome of a game or a series. James had no such luxury. So, while Jordan’s six NBA titles and Finals MVPs are more than James’s four NBA titles and Finals MVPs, this conversation doesn’t take place at face value, unless you’re ready to name Wilt Chamberlain the GOAT.
Playoff Success # 2
LeBron James is often criticized for playing for three different franchises. (The horror!) What gets lost in this criticism is the fact that he won the NBA Finals MVP with all three franchises. The degree of difficulty involved with this feat is off the charts. In fact, it’s so difficult that nobody else has ever done it, or even come close. Kawhi Leonard is the only other player in NBA history to win the Finals MVP with two different franchises. The reason this happens so infrequently is because good players rarely leave good teams. Why would they? Good teams are hard to build! That seems to apply to everyone but James who started from scratch three times and brought home a Finals MVP all three times. To dispel any notion that James was a frontrunner, the average record of the three teams that he joined in free agency was 38-44. Starting over on a new team rarely, if ever, leads to an NBA Championship for a superstar. For perspective, Kevin Durant had to join the defending champions to do it.
Supporting Cast
As we’ve seen, so many of the arguments used to discredit LeBron James actually end up being arguments for LeBron James. One of those arguments revolves around the various supporting casts that Jordan and James played with. There is this idea that James’s legacy is tainted because he manufactured his championships by forming superteams, while Jordan supposedly showed integrity by sticking with one team. First, this argument is lazy. If either of the two played on a superteam, it was Jordan. The Bulls won 55 games without him when he retired for the first time. Yes, that is correct: Michael Jordan was removed from the Chicago Bulls, and the team still won 55 games. There isn’t a team that James has ever played for that would’ve won 55 games without him. In fact, in 22 seasons, James only won 55 games in the regular season five times. The idea that James played for stacked superteams loses even more steam when we look at who he and Jordan actually played with. Scottie Pippen was an elite player during Jordan’s reign. He finished 3rd in the MVP voting in 1993-94 and is firmly one of the 40 greatest players to ever play. Jordan’s supporting cast included all-stars Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong, and Dennis Rodman, along with Toni Kukoc (sixth man-of-the-year) and Steve Kerr (highest 3-point shooting % in NBA history). James paired with Dwyane Wade on the Heat, Kyrie Irving on the Cavs, Anthony Davis on the Lakers, and finally Luka Doncic on the Lakers. Where this argument starts to lose touch with reality is when talk turns to all of the great teammates that James had as if they were all on the same team. He only ever had one star wingman at a time, the same as Jordan. And as for this idea that James created superstar-laden teams, Chris Bosh is the best 3rd cog that James ever played with, and that lasted for just four seasons. Bosh finished in the top-10 in MVP voting just once in his career. James played on superteams no more than Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Shaquille O’Neal played on superteams. Either eliminate them all from the GOAT discussion, or we need to stop talking about superteams as a negative for James.
Statistics
Jordan and James have statistics for days. There are two types of statistics when evaluating a player resume: per game and raw totals. James has Jordan beat in every possible way in terms of raw statistics. He is the all-time leader in total points in the regular season and in the playoffs. He has more of everything than Jordan in both the regular season and the playoffs. Jordan puts up a better fight in the per game department, but James is right there with him in every category. Jordan’s primary advantage over James–and everyone else who has ever played the game for that matter–is points per game. However, the advantage isn’t nearly as big as the narrative suggests. Jordan’s career points per game average sits at 30.1. James is at 27 despite playing nearly 500 more regular season games. Jordan led the league in points nine times. James did it just once. This would appear to be a huge advantage for Jordan. However James finished in the top-2 in scoring nine times. Jordan did it 10 times. Wilt Chamberlain (7) is the only other player to do it more than six times. While it’s true that James didn’t match Jordan’s scoring, the numbers refute rather emphatically the notion that James wasn’t an elite scorer. It’s also clear that the primary reason Jordan scored more than James is because he took more shots–close to 3.5 more shots per game over his career–than James. Would James have benefited from shooting more? Given his superior shooting efficiency, it would appear that way.
In lieu of shooting more, the numbers show that James focused more on involving his teammates than Jordan did. James led the NBA in assists in 2019-2020, finished in the top-10 12 times, and is 4th in NBA history in total assists. Jordan finished in the top-10 just once. James also had a significant advantage in rebounding, finishing in the top-20 nine times. Jordan never finished among the top-20 rebounders. Jordan appears to have a big advantage in steals, but Jordan’s defensive statistics were thrown into question by the revelation that the Chicago Bulls’ scorekeeper significantly padded Jordan’s statistics during home games, leading to statistically improbable home/away splits. This quite likely was the reason Jordan was named the Defensive Player of the Year for the 1987-88 season. Both Jordan and James routinely finished among the leaders in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, and were both elite defenders, with James having the added ability to defend all five positions.
As for advanced statistics, James holds massive advantages in career Win Shares (WS) and Value over Replacement Player (VORP). Neither are statistics that benefit from simply playing longer. Jordan holds a slight edge in Player Efficiency Rating (PER) (27.9 – 26.9) despite James playing in a more competitive league, and playing nearly 500 more regular season games. Jordan led the league in Box Plus Minus (BPM) nine times. James did it seven times. Jordan led the league in Win Shares nine times. James only managed it five times. However, James finished in the top-5 in Win Shares 12 times, while Jordan did it 11 times. No matter what statistical comparison we look at, James holds up quite well. Remember, if Jordan is the GOAT, he should be crushing James in these comparisons given that he played in an NBA that was populated almost exclusively by a pool of players from a single country, rather than the world.
Longevity
This is, of course, LeBron James’s opus when it comes to defining his legacy. There’s no question that James was the best player in the NBA for several individual regular seasons and postseasons. However, nobody in the sport of basketball can even come close to his sustained level of excellence. We’ve already discussed his status as the career regular season and playoff points leader. He’s already close to 3,000 ahead of second place, and the image in the rearview mirror is getting farther and farther away with each passing day. He’s the all-time leader in all-star game selections, top-2, top-3, top-5, and top-10 MVP finishes, 1st team All-NBA selections, overall All-NBA selections (1st, 2nd, and 3rd team), playoff appearances, and seasons played. He averaged at least 25 points per game for an unfathomable 21 consecutive seasons, which is, by far, the most in history. Kevin Durant (16) is the only player to do it for more than 11 consecutive seasons. James averaged at least 25 points, six rebounds and six assists for 21 consecutive seasons. Oscar Robertson (9) and Luka Doncic (6) are the only other players to even do it five times. There’s obviously much, much more to James’s claim than longevity. However, with each passing year, his sustained excellence makes it more and more difficult to deny his claim to the throne.
Jordan’s Sabbatical
LeBron James haters are an incessant bunch. While you’re sleeping, they’re cooking up another ludicrous angle to delegitimize James not only as a bona fide contender for the GOAT throne, but even as a top-5 player. It should come as no surprise that there exists yet another of these arguments that actually furthers James’s claim as the GOAT. James haters love to talk about how many games he has missed in his career, and there is no question that modern NBA players don’t play as many games as previous generations. Still, this is an easy criticism to dispel, considering James has played close to 700 more regular season and playoff games than Jordan, and that number grows higher with his commitments to Team USA. For perspective, Bill Walton’s entire regular season and playoff career lasted 517 games. Nevertheless, the haters will not be satisfied. Nor are they likely to be satisfied with the fact that LeBron James never played fewer than 45 games in an NBA season, while Jordan played fewer than 20 games twice. James started 70+ games 14 times. Jordan only did it 11 times. That’s also unlikely to move the needle for his most ardent detractors. What should move the needle is the fact that Michael Jordan took two years off from the mental and physical stress of the NBA grind right in the middle of his NBA career. That respite is an advantage that James never had. For all of the talk about James not playing a full 82-game schedule, he did not have the luxury of a mid-career reboot.
Summary
Michael Jordan and LeBron James are in a tier of their own. They are two of the top-5 greatest athletes in the history of team sports. However, there can only be one winner in the GOAT debate, and that winner should be the one whose resume supports the best possible argument. It wouldn’t be hard to take Jordan’s side in a debate because there are some strong points to make. However, the argument that can be crafted for Jordan isn’t even close to the argument that can be made for James. Whoever you support, make sure you’re using facts and logic to reach your conclusion rather than deciding on your conclusion and then looking for facts to support it. This shouldn’t be a popularity contest.