NBA Finals 2012: Is LeBron Having Greatest Playoff Performance in NBA History?

If LeBron James' postseason hasn't been the finest individual performance in recent memory, it's certainly close to it.

At the moment, he's averaging 30.5 points, 9.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.9 steals a game–the epitome of well-rounded excellence. He's also remained an incredibly efficient scorer, making over 50 percent of his field-goal attempts and getting to the free-throw line more than 10 times a game.

Perhaps more importantly, the team he's led to within one win of a championship simply doesn't look much like the superstar experiment for which he signed up.

Dwyane Wade has been excellent at times, but woefully inconsistent at others.

Meanwhile, Chris Bosh missed nine games with an abdominal strain and hasn't been at top form either before or since the injury. But for Shane Battier's heroics in the NBA Finals and some occasional flashes from Mario Chalmers, the Big Three have been left on their own–and two of them haven't been themselves.

In other words, this has been the LeBron James show.

And, that's saying something given just how dominant that show has been against the previously rolling Thunder.

But, is it the best we've seen in a playoff stretch?

Maybe.

Any superlative statement must be cautioned, lest it become yet another exaggeration lost in a seemingly endless series of similarly hyperbolic assertions. Leave the overreactions to guys like Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith.

Still, even a sober assessment of James' postseason suggests that it is singularly special.

Dwyane Wade's 2006 run comes close, thanks to the last four games of the NBA Finals if nothing else. Staring down a 0-2 deficit against the Dallas Mavericks, Wade almost single-handedly brought Miami back averaging nearly 35 points and eight rebounds a game in the process–to say nothing of his first-rate defense.

Shaquille O'Neal's championship runs from 2000 to 2002 also deserve a nod. In 2002's NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers, he averaged 38 points and 16.7 rebounds a game–30.7 points and 15.4 rebounds for the duration of that postseason. 

It doesn't get much more dominant than that.

In 2003, Tim Duncan stormed through the playoffs with 24.7 points, 15.4 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 3.3 blocks per game. In the process, he proved that he could do much of what O'Neal did–just more deferentially.

You can make a good argument for James when juxtaposed with each of those performances.

It gets a bit harder to do so when you-know-who gets brought up.

Michael Jordan put up 31.1 points, 8.4 assists, 6.4 rebounds and 2.4 steals en route to his first title in 1991. In each of the following two championship runs, he passed the ball a bit less, but averaged 34.5 and 35.1 points respectively.

For the most part, he was every bit as efficient as James as well, shooting for over 52 percent in '91.

But, it's not just the numbers that made each of MJ's postseasons so special. It's the way he got them–the clutch shots, the imposing fourth-quarter closeouts and the unfailing leadership. He may not have shared LeBron's penchant for triple-doubles, but it's hard to argue he was any the worse for it.

Does LeBron's postseason compare to Jordan at his best? Sure, it compares.

Is it the best one yet? Too close to call.