LeBron James is now 37 years old. 37. Yet he’s still easily one of the best basketball players in the world. He now has 19 seasons of wear and tear at the elite level on his body, but still plays as if he’s not suffered a single injury at all. Not only has he played 19 seasons in the NBA, he has also reached the finals 10 times, so add onto the 19 seasons 10 deep playoff runs. LeBron’s efficiency and production should have dropped off a cliff by now, but somehow he just had arguably his best season in the last 5 years. LeBron finished with MVP votes again and made an All-NBA team in his 19th season. Players should not be this good after 19 seasons at the highest level. He was absurdly good last season, but how good exactly?
The most typical names that are put into a top 10 all time discussion of NBA players are: Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. Of these players, 5 of them played at least 19 seasons in the NBA: LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. Therefore, to look at how ridiculous LeBron’s 19 season was, it makes sense to compare his 19th season to these other all time greats.
A good way of looking at overall production of a player throughout a season is to add together their points per game, rebounds per game and assists per game to give you a total. A season where a player has a total of 40 or over is an excellent season. Below is a chart tracking the totals for all of the players previously mentioned through 19 seasons.
As you can see, LeBron hasn’t produced the single best performing season in terms of production: that award goes to Kareem’s unbelievable 1971/72 season, however, he has been by far the most consistent of all of these players. Every other player has a noticeable fall off towards the end of their careers, but LeBron is still producing a total of 44.7. The next closest score is Kobe with 33.6, meaning LeBron produced a total of 11.1 more than the next best performing all time great in his 19th season.
On top of this, LeBron has scored 40 or more in 16 out of his 19 season so far. That’s 84.2%. The next closest behind him is Kareem with 11, which equates to 57.9% of his seasons. Not only this, but outside of LeBron’s rookie season, his lowest overall total is 38.7. Just 1.3 shy of 40. The consistency that he has shown throughout his career is simply astonishing.
Now I know that it’s possible to produce these stats whist not actually playing efficiently or overly well. So, let’s look at the Player Efficiency Rating of all of these players in their 19th seasons.
I mean, it’s not even close is it? Not only does LeBron’s PER score tower over every other player on this list, he also finished 4th in the league in PER last season. So he’s performing at a significantly higher level that these all time greats, but also still proving that he’s one of the best players in the league.
A huge part of LeBron’s game is his athleticism. He is, in my mind, without a doubt the greatest athlete to ever play the game. One of the best ways to look at a players athleticism is to look at the number of times they dunked the ball throughout the season. LeBron has always been known for ability to do this, and he was still remarkably good at doing it last season.
LeBron dunked the ball more than 2 times as many times as Shaq in his 19th season, a man who is 4 inches taller than him. However, LeBron is not only better at dunking the ball than these 3 players in his 19th season, he’s also better than a tremendous number of active player in the league.
Out of the players in this graph, LeBron unbelievably finishes second, dunking the ball 9 more times than Jayson Tatum, who is just 1 inch shorter but 13 years younger.
Since I’m currently comparing LeBron last season to other active player, how does his total of points, rebounds and assists compare to other active players?
I think these graphs are enough now to properly show how absurdly good LeBron was in his 19th season. Players shouldn’t be this good this late in their careers. Opposition players learn to guard them better, they begin to slow down and injuries often play a significant factor. But LeBron James is still performing at this level. Now admittedly the Lakers did miss the playoffs this season, but when their star player is performing at this level, then it’s pretty clear that it isn’t his fault that the team isn’t winning enough games. LeBron has proven in the past that he can drag an average team to the finals: just look at the Cavaliers team that he dragged to the 2007 finals. There were a lot of issues in the 2021/22 Lakers, including chemistry issues and Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook just not performing to the standard expected of them, but also the Western Conference was incredibly strong last season. It was an incredibly disappointing season for the Lakers, but not for LeBron. He was exceptional, and can only do so much when the other players simply aren’t performing.
Next season I firmly believe that the Lakers will be in title contention, with LeBron hungry for that fifth ring, and Anthony Davis motivated to prove all of his doubters wrong. It’s still unclear whether Westbrook will be around or not, but if he is I see him treating the 2022/23 season as a revenge season, and reminding the league why he’s a former MVP and one of the best point guards of all time. Will LeBron perform at the same level that he did last season? I see no reason why not. The lack of playoff basketball this summer means that his body will have had plenty of time to recover, and he’ll be raring to go come the beginning of the season. If Davis and Westbrook perform at higher levels then he won’t need to perform at that level however: those stats for LeBron came through the necessity for him to carry the team himself. Regardless, I don’t doubt for a second that he will still do everything within his power to propel the Lakers into title contention, and if that means having another expectation shattering season such as this one, then that’s exactly what he’ll do.
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