to get the fresh 14 for the Lakers, LeBron. Look out below! Oh my lord, it's never going to end. Is it LeBron's reign over the NBA? I've just come to the conclusion that LeBron is hacked into the matrix and has transcended aging. LeBron is in his 19th NBA season and is somehow still one of the best players on the planet. This isn't supposed to happen. 99% of NBA players peak in their mid to late 20s and then slowly regress as they age, eventually becoming a liability to their team and inevitably sailing off into the sunset, washed up and content with their achievements. But not LeBron. The man is fighting his age like he's got a grudge on time itself, and the more he piles up on these mind-bending feats, the more we must ask ourselves the question, and I really hate to do this, but is LeBron the greatest basketball player of all time? And if he isn't, what would he need to do?

to truly once and for all be the goat. [Music] About five years ago, I uploaded my first basketball-related video onto this channel. The title of that video is LeBron: The GOAT. You can still watch this video today, but since it's an absolute dog water of a production, I highly recommend you steer clear of it. To summarize the video, I gave 10 reasons why LeBron would retire as the GOAT. Fast forward five years and thousands of hours of watching games, collecting data, and gathering context in this sport that we love. I've since changed my ways and realized that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time, but my original assessment from five years ago hasn't completely changed because I never said LeBron was the GOAT at the time. I just gave 10 reasons why LeBron would retire as the GOAT. But ever since I dropped that video, I've pretty much avoided the GOAT conversation altogether. I've put a spin on the idea of the greatest players in certain aspects of the game. I've talked about

the greatest scores. I've ranked players using purely numbers, but I've never really broken down who the greatest player is, in my opinion, because I just feel like the topic is a bit redundant, and ESPN already gives you a daily update on the GOAT debate anyways, so no need for me to do it. But I think it's time we actually discuss this because what LeBron is doing at this point in his career is just absurd. At the moment, there are pretty much three different camps on the whole GOAT debate: people who think Michael Jordan is the GOAT, people who think LeBron is the GOAT, and people who are wrong. I'm just joking, of course, but not really. I'd say about 75 percent of people fall into the MJ's the GOAT category, about 20 percent of people fall into the LeBron's the GOAT category, and about 5 fall into the other category. Usually, these other fans believe the GOAT is Wilt or Kobe or Kareem. There's not many of them, but boy will they die on that hill. See, the thing here is that

a lot of the fans in MJ's corner believe that he is and will forever be the GOAT. But realistically, is there anything LeBron can do to surpass him? I mean, there's got to be some sort of objective metric we can use to distinguish the greatest player of all time. No opinions, no bias, just the facts. If LeBron somehow won four more championships and retired with eight rings, he'd undoubtedly be the GOAT, right? So, there are paths for him to become the greatest ever. But where does that threshold lie, and what would LeBron have to achieve to get there? [Music] First, let's just take a look at the basic numbers between Michael and LeBron. LeBron has more career points, rebounds, assists, blocks, more triple-doubles, higher field goal percentage, and a higher three-point percentage. And Michael has more steals and a higher free-throw percentage. But this whole argument, the career totals argument, is only useful in demonstrating LeBron's longevity and sustained excellence. These numbers don't prove that LeBron's a better scorer, rebounder, or defender.

or shooter than jordan. They just prove that lebron's been good at these things for a very, very long time. These numbers also show just how versatile lebron is, possibly his most valuable asset. So instead of looking at career totals, let's look at career averages. Michael averages more points and more steals, and lebron averages more assists and more rebounds. And as much as it pains me to say this, this is usually where the argument for the goat ends for most people. Throw in a required comment about their finals records, and you pretty much have a condensed version of most goat debates. But there is so much more to unpack here, so let's unpack it. [Music] So you all know how much i like advanced stats. They don't tell the full story, but if you know which ones to look for, you can discover some nuances in a player's game that you won't get by just watching them play. Player efficiency rating, win shares per 48, offensive box plus minus, defensive box plus minus, value over replacement, and true shooting percentage.

these six advanced stats give us efficiency, production value, impact, and pretty much everything in between. And in these six advanced statistics, Michael Jordan exceeds LeBron in five of them. He's more efficient overall, he contributes to more wins, he contributes to more points, he's better on defense, and he is generally more valuable on the court than LeBron is. The only advanced stat where LeBron tops Jordan is true shooting percentage. Now, in terms of who's a better basketball player, nearly every metric points to Michael Jordan. But really, take a look at these numbers, and it's actually uncanny just how close LeBron is to MJ across the board, just a fraction behind Jordan in pretty much everything. But these numbers aren't even addressing who's greater because that conversation would involve accolades, accomplishments, and impact on the game. Take away the rings, the influence, the intangibles, the opinions, and it's virtually objectively true that Michael was a better basketball player than LeBron. But the GOAT debate isn't necessarily about who is the better

player. It's about who is the greatest player. We've got some more unpacking to do. [Music] Now, we cannot have a thorough GOAT debate without discussing the accomplishments of each player. Numbers are cool, and they have their purpose, but numbers alone aren't indicative of greatness. They're just a vehicle to greatness. This is why despite James Harden spending half a decade piling up some of the greatest scoring numbers in NBA history, most people don't consider him greater than some players with far lesser offensive numbers. The numbers complement the accolades, not the other way around. This is also why I consider Wilt Chamberlain to have been a better basketball player than Bill Russell, but Bill Russell was greater than Wilt. Wilt achieved his greatness through his numbers, whereas Russell achieved his greatness by contributing to an unrelenting style of winning basketball. So let's take a look at the accomplishments of both Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Now, there are plenty of other awards a player can earn in the

nba, but these are the ones that really stand out on a player's resume: championships, finals MVPs, regular season MVPs, defensive player of the year, all-nba selections, and all-defensive team selections. And amongst these six categories, Jordan beats LeBron in five of them, and Michael accomplished all of this in just 15 seasons to LeBron's full 18 seasons. The only category where LeBron outperformed Michael is in all-nba selections, and most will argue that again, this is an accomplishment of longevity more than anything else, which at this point seems to be the overall theme in the GOAT debate. Up to this point in his career, the majority of fans will agree that LeBron has been a step below Jordan in terms of greatness. So now, the race to become the GOAT has become a marathon because eventually, the sheer volume of LeBron's career numbers and achievements may become so overwhelming that we'll have no choice but to concede that he is, in fact, the greatest player of all time, which brings

us to a real dilemma in this age-old debate. [Music] The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. A great quote by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu regarding the idea of excellence and the sustainability of it. Almost as if you can have longevity or be exceptional, but you can't have both. Now in the world of basketball and sports in general, usually being exceptional translates to longevity and vice versa. Michael Jordan was excellent for 13 seasons in the NBA. His flame was violently bright and it burned for quite some time. But what if there was a flame that burned about 95 percent as bright and lasted much, much longer? At a certain point, the radiance of even the brightest flame is outclassed by the flame that just won't quit. Of course, LeBron isn't to flame. He's a six-foot-nine-inch, 250-pound freak of nature in basketball shoes. But his light shines about 95 percent as bright as Michael Jordan's did, and it's

lasting a whole lot longer. When does the longevity of LeBron's brilliance simply outmatch the slightly greater but much shorter brilliance of Michael? Because as we've discussed, Mike trumps LeBron in pretty much every single metric other than longevity and overall production. So the real question here is, how much longer will LeBron have to be excellent before the majority agrees that he is greater than Michael? Was the man is in his 19th NBA season, and he's leading the NBA in scoring. He's still a top five player in the league, and his bag is getting deeper and deeper with every season. Here's a chart of LeBron's total points, assists, and rebound averages throughout each season of his career. Each point on the graph represents the total average of points, assists, and rebounds for every season of his career. So for example, this season LeBron is putting up 8, 6, and 30 a game, so his total for the season is 44. Now in the NBA, anything above a total of 40

is exceptional. LeBron's total production has exceeded 40 in 17 different seasons. Now, here's Michael's total average points, assist, and rebounds for every season of his career. This is by far the greatest argument in favor of LeBron in the GOAT debate. The man has simply sustained excellence for longer than Mike did. And although the numbers are just a vehicle to greatness, there has got to be a point where the numbers are just too glaring to ignore. LeBron's numbers are getting to that point, but some fans will argue that there were other players that were still really good this late in their career. You mean like Kareem or Kobe or Karl Malone? They weren't even close. LeBron's already the only player to be a part of the 30k 10k 10k club. Aside from a freak injury, he'll undoubtedly break Kareem's scoring record. He'll probably play the most seasons in an NBA career. He already has the record for most All-NBA selections, and he's still adding to what is

probably the longest career highlight reel with moments like this. If LeBron is still doing this in a couple of years while still putting up all-NBA numbers, I really think it's going to be difficult to say that he's not the greatest player ever. [Music] You know what, I'm just gonna say it. While LeBron's legacy is growing as he plays more seasons, Michael's legacy would have been slightly diminished if he played more seasons. Of course, this isn't a matter of fact, but all the evidence points towards this assumption. Michael Jordan retiring after playing just 13 NBA seasons in 1998 was the best thing he could have ever done for his legacy. The Bulls were not going to win another championship, and the backbone of the dynasty he had built had all but vanished by the beginning of the 1999 season. If he had played through that three-year retirement gap from 1999 to 2001, he would have either stayed with the Bulls and put up huge numbers on a losing team or signed with a different

team and chased rings, both options being far less illustrious than him going out on top with the team that drafted him. Michael's career was the perfect storm. He was drafted by a franchise that was ready and willing to build around him. He was on a roster that suited his skill sets extremely well, and he and the Bulls peaked right as the dominant teams from the 80s and early 90s like the Lakers, Celtics, and Pistons began to fade away. You could not have written a better career if you tried. On the other hand, despite his success, LeBron really got the short end of the deal many times throughout his career. He spent his first seven seasons in the NBA playing for a team that could not have cared less about building a coherent team around him. He spent four straight finals going toe-to-toe with the most dominant dynasty in modern NBA history outside of Jordan's Bulls. While Michael was surrounded by players who were all willing to buy into their system, LeBron

has spent many years carrying the load of bad rosters and seemingly incompetent teammates. Part of which is his own fault for trying to play GM and putting together piss-poor rosters. And I bring up these small nuances because the GOAT debate is very nuanced. As much as people want to act like the whole 6-0 in the finals is the end-all be-all to the discussion, it's just not. If rings were all that mattered, then Bill Russell would be the GOAT. Oh, but he played a long time ago, that doesn't count. Okay, well then Robert Horry is the GOAT because he has seven rings to Jordan's six. Well, yeah, but Horry wasn't the best player on any of those championships. Okay, so is the argument about rings or is it about being the best player on the court, or a mixture of both? Is a player's performance, despite how masterful it was, all in vain if his team loses? The line becomes less and less clear the deeper you dig. No single

metric can be used to determine this debate, and the unpacking of every small minute detail is a necessary burden, but unfortunately, it's a burden that most fans won't bother to take on. At the moment, I personally believe Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. I also think he's the best basketball player of all time, but unlike some fans, I don't think the door has closed on LeBron. I think that if LeBron can continue to dominate the league for a few more seasons and continue to shatter our previous notions of what we thought was possible in a single NBA career, I think that he has a chance to retire as the greatest player of all time. But of course, only time will tell, and fortunately for LeBron, time seems to perpetually be on his side.

The Harsh Truth About the GOAT Debate

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