What If LeBron James Never Wins an NBA Title?

LeBron James is currently in his ninth NBA season and with 25,807 minutes under his belt, it's safe to say that time is no longer on the King's side.

With career averages of 27.7 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 7 assists, LeBron is without a doubt one of the greatest players in the history of the game.  

By comparison, Oscar Robertson averaged 25.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 9.5 assists while generally being regarded as one of the top 10 players in NBA history.

How about a couple of top five guys like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird?  Magic averaged 19.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 11.2 assists (the highest average in NBA history). Bird averaged 24.3 points, 10 rebounds, and 6.3 assists. 

LeBron James has to be in the discussion with these three players, but there's just one thing missing from his resume.  Rings.

Magic has five, Bird has three, and Oscar has one while the King is still stuck with a goose egg.

Now it should be noted that Robertson didn't win one until 1971 (his 11th season) with his second NBA team—the Milwaukee Bucks.

So it's been done before, just look back to last season with Dirk Nowitzki finally cementing his legacy with this first NBA Championship in his 13th season—coming at the hands of King James himself.

A ring will do wonders for your legacy as one of the all-time greats, Dirk went from a top 40 player of all time to a top 20 player with last year's title.  

Kobe jumped from a top-15 all-time player to somewhere in the 2-8 range after winning back-to-back titles without Shaquille O'Neal by his side.  His final legacy is still yet to be determined depending on how his final years play out.  

Which brings us back to King James—where does he rank now and where will he rank if he finally wins a title?  

I think the absolute worst you could rank LeBron right now in terms of the all-time greats of the game would be 15th.  And that is if he retired today, in his ninth season, with no rings.  

As soon as LeBron wins his first NBA Championship (assuming he is able to accomplish this at some point in his career) he would immediately vault into the top nine.

The only players you could possibly rank ahead of him at that point would be:  Jordan, Russell, Jabbar, Magic, Bird, Wilt, Kobe, and Duncan.  

It's certainly not a stretch to think LeBron will win multiple championships and go down as the greatest or second-greatest player in the history of basketball when you consider the fact that he is the only member of the 27/7/7 club.

So what if LeBron never wins a title?  To be completely honest, I'm not certain that any of us have ever actually asked ourselves that question because we've always just assumed that he would.

Well, it's time to start thinking about it because the clock is ticking on a man fast approaching 26,000 NBA minutes.  Bird played 34,000 minutes and Magic played 33,000 minutes—LeBron will be there in just two more years after the completion of this shortened season.

Ultimately, if the King never wins a ring, he'll still end up as one of the 10 best players this league has ever seen. However we all know he wants to be remembered for being more than just a great all-around player who couldn't close and could never quite reach the mountain top.

LeBron James wants to go down as the greatest player to ever play this game and in order for him to do that he needs to start winning and he needs to start winning fast.

The clock is ticking.