LeBron James: Why All the Fuss If He's No Good as a Player?

Ever since Miami lost to Dallas in the finals and LeBron performed poorly, there has been plenty of anti-LeBron commentary on Bleacher Report, of which I see two categories.

One category contains expressions of dislike of LeBron as a person—he is arrogant, a fool, etc. And the second category holds dismissals of LeBron as a basketball player—he can’t shoot, has no post game, chokes in big moments, and so on.  This article is NOT about category No. 1.  So you don’t like the guy—whatever.  But, as far as category No. 2 goes, if you read Bleacher Report, you might start to wonder why there was ever so much fuss about this guy AS A PLAYER. 

Why did every team in the NBA court him, and why did millions hang on his decision, if he’s so worthless as a basketball player?

I though it might be a good time for a little reminder.  First, I’ll keep it simple.  LeBron was 26 years old last season.  Suppose we look at NBA history and compare LeBron’s output to this point with other players through their 26th year?  Let’s just do this: add points plus rebounds plus assists plus steals plus blocks, for all players in NBA history up to the age of 26.  What do we get?  I’ll give you the top 18, in reverse order.

Rk	Player	Pts+plays
18	Charles Barkley	19,148
17	Magic Johnson	19,154
16	Stephon Marbury	19,362
15	Chris Bosh	19,494
14	Oscar Robertson	19,689
13	Moses Malone	19,967
12	Dwight Howard	20,213
11	Isiah Thomas	20,426
10	Shaquille O'Neal	20,572
9	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	20,650
8	Michael Jordan	20,929
7	Carmelo Anthony	21,172
6	Kobe Bryant	21,344
5	Bob McAdoo	21,385
4	Tracy McGrady	21,656
3	Wilt Chamberlain	22,226
2	Kevin Garnett	22,782
1	LeBron James	27,788

OK, but LeBron, you’ll say, has always been able to put up numbers.  He’s not a winner, right?

I did a little experiment on that too.  I’ll assume you know the “win shares” concept[1].  I looked at every player in NBA history, up to the age of 26, for win shares during regular seasons and playoffs.  But as everyone says at B/R, the playoffs should count much more than the regular season, so I multiplied post-season win shares by 3.75[2] to get “success shares,” to which I added bonuses for “championship shares,”[3] multiplying championship shares times 15.  I’m not saying this formula is the be-all and end-all, but it’s a way of trying to gauge how much success a player has achieved.  OK, so what do we get for players through their 26th year?

This time I’ll give you the top 21 in “success shares,” again in reverse order.

Rk	Player	Suc.Sh.
21	Kevin Garnett	79.11
20	Kevin Johnson	80.30
19	Charles Barkley	80.49
18	Dave Cowens	82.73
17	Walt Frazier	83.00
16	Dolph Schayes	83.68
15	Dirk Nowitzki	84.59
14	James Worthy	88.12
13	Scottie Pippen	88.67
12	Michael Jordan	90.35
11	Isiah Thomas	91.36
10	Bill Russell	94.39
9	George Mikan	95.61
8	Dwight Howard	98.06
7	Shaquille O'Neal	98.51
6	Tony Parker	115.77
5	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	125.91
4	Tim Duncan	131.16
3	Kobe Bryant	135.46
2	Magic Johnson	152.97
1	LeBron James	165.96

Does all this mean that LeBron is destined to be the greatest player in the history of the game?  No.  Like I said, I offer this as just a little reminder as to whether there is a basis for all the fuss, keeping strictly to LeBron as a basketball player.  Did LeBron under-perform in the 2011 finals?  Yes.  Do you hate him?  I don’t care.  Is there a basis in LeBron’s achievement as a basketball player that warrants so much attention being payed to him?  Yes.

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[1] Basically, a player’s win shares are the percentage of a team’s production that the player accounts for, multiplied by the team’s wins.  So the leader in win shares is not necessarily the winningest player, he might just be a guy who got lucky enough to be on a lot of good teams (Robert Horry). The leader in win shares is also not necessarily the guy who does the most for his team, because if his team loses all the time, it doesn’t matter how much he’s “carrying” them.  The leader in win shares is the guy who contributes the most with the greatest results in winning.

[2] 60 regular season wins is championship level play, 16 playoff wins is a championship, and 60 divided by 16 equals 3.75.

[3] The percentage of his team’s postseason production that a player contributed to a championship.