Points

Comparing their point totals, we can see that Jordan is the clear winner, crushing Lebrons median points per game over his career by over 5 points. Looking at their average points per game over the course of their career, MJ doesn’t spend too many years scoring less than Lebron, and his peak (37 PPG at 23), is much higher than Lebrons (31 PPG at 21).

Assists

Their assist totals tell a different story, one where Lebron shines. His median assists per game sits just above 7 per game, compared to Jordan below 6. Looking over time, we can see that Lebron has simply aged into his playmaking. As his athleticism has declined, he has taken more of a quaterback role, marking 10 assists at age 35 and earning him the 19-20 season assist champion.

Offensive Rebounds

Offensive rebounds tell a suprising story, with MJ firmly ahead of Lebron by 1 offensive rebound a game. One would expect Lebron, standing 6’8“, would win more than the 6’6” Michael, but it seems as though Jordan was simply more tenacious on the offensive glass.

Field Goal Percentage

We now turn to look at some efficiency measures to see how good these players really are at putting the ball in the hoop. FG% tells us what percentage of shots are going in for each player. Median values show not much difference between the two, as MJ started out his career more effecient, and Lebron seems to be taking smarter shots as he grows older. It is worth noting that Lebron takes most of his shots within 3 feet of the hoop (layups and dunks), vs MJ taking a lot more midrange shots from around 12 feet.

Effective Field Goal Percentage

Effective FG% controls for the 3 point shot being worth more than a 2, and does put Lebron a head of Jordan by a bit more of a margin than regular FG%. This is mainly due to the gap that grows into the players late 20s and 30s. It is worth noting that Lebron exsists in the “3 point era,” where teams are taking 30 3s per game, whereas Michael retired when teams were taking less than 10.

Free Throw Percentage

Free throw percentage is another efficiency metric that shows how good each player is at the line, and there really is no comparison in this category. Jordan’s worst years still beat Lebron’s best. Free throws is one category that Lebron is notoriously poor in, and the stats back it up.

Turnovers

Turnovers show us how clean each player is with the ball, and count how many times a player gives the ball away either on a pass or dribble. Michael is the clear winner, turning the ball over 1 time less per game than Lebron over the course of his career, spured on by reducing his risky plays as time went on. This gives some context to the high assist totals Lebron has racked up recently. He is putting up impressive numbers, but may be doing it less efficiently.

If you weren’t keeping track, heres how the scoreboard looks at the moment

Points - Jordan

Assists - Lebron

ORB - Jordan

Efficiency - Lebron

FT% - Jordan

Turnover - Jordan

Jordan 4 - 2 Lebron

Steals

In the steals category, Jordan is the clear winner, averaging just under 2.5 steals per game over the course of his career, peaking at over 3 steals per game. Both players taper off near as they age, which is common among defensive stats as top of the line players tend to focus their more limited energy on the offensive side of the court.

Blocks

The block category is a bit of a tighter race. Jordan edges out Lebron just barely, with a few outlier seasons during his mid 20s. Looking at their play over time, we see the same decline from both of them as they age

Defensive Rebounds

The tides turn a bit for Lebron on the defensive glass, averaging just under 6.5 rebounds a game compared to Jordans 4.5. This doesn’t seem suprising, given that Jordan was more of a perimeter player, playing the SG compared to Lebron playing the small forward, and Lebron’s slight height advantage.

Personal Fouls

Finally, we’ll try and see how “efficient” each player was on defense. That is, how good were they at playing defense without fouling their opponent. As we can see from the graph, Lebron is a much cleaner player, averaging well under 2 fouls a game, whereas Jordan averaged over 2.5 over the course of his career. As Jordan aged, he did become more diciplined, however, Lebron remains the clear winner regardless of age.

Checking how they compare after the defensive stats:

Steals - Jordan

Blocks - Jordan

Defensive Rebounds - Lebron

Personal Fouls - Lebron

Defense is tied at 2-2, overall Jordan leads 6-4

Player Efficieny Rating

We begin with the “holy grail” of basketball statistics, PER. “Player Efficieny Rating” is a number that accounts for all availible metrics in the game of basketball, both good and bad. It includes efficiency, points, missed shots, turnovers, and controls for time spent on the court. Using PER, we see that Lebron loses to Jordan by just a bit on average. Over the course of their careers, both players have simliar peaks in their mid 20s, but over all not much seperating the 2

True Shooting Percentage

True shooting, much like effective field goal percentange, is a better representation of a players efficiency shooting the ball. It factors in 3 pointers, 2 pointers and free throws to give the best overall picture of a players efficiency. Lebron is the clear winner in this category, even with his clear weakness in shooting free throws. This is mainly due to Lebron’s athletic, slashing style of play, which means he takes a huge majority of his shots from within 3 feet of the rim in the form of dunks and layups, boosting his effeciency much higher than Jordan’s.

Box Plus/Minus

BPM, or box plus/minus measures the impact a given player had on the success of his team over the an average player. If a player has a +5 OBPM, it means that their team is 5 points better than average than with that player on the court within 100 possessions. The results are a bit of a mixed bag. Both players have absurd average BPM, with Jordan averaging a +10, which is considered an all-time season. Jordan is the winner in the median, however, Lebron has the higher peak at age 24

Win Shares Per 48 minutes

The final advanced stat we’ll use is win shares per 48. Win share is a statistic meant divvy up the credit for team success to individual players. It essentially shows how many wins during a season was due to a given player’s contribution to his team. Win shares per 48 shows how many wins a player contributed over the course of a 48 minute game. Jordan finishes above Lebron with .273 win shares per 48 compared to Lebron’s .23, although, just like BPM, Lebron has the slightly higher peak. League average for WS/48 is .100, which speaks to the greatness of these 2. While the averge player takes 10 games to contribute a win for his team, Jordan takes under 4, and Lebron slighty over 4. At their peak, it took them less than 3 games to essentially win a game all by themself for their team.

Tallying up all statistics:

PER - Jordan

TS% - Lebron

BPM - Jordan

WS/48 - Jordan

Jordan 3 - 1 Lebron.

In the statistics category, Jordan wins 9 - 5 over Lebron. Overall, although Lebron is a more efficient player, Jordan simply has more of an impact on the game according to the advanced stats and many box score statistics.

The stats category goes to Jordan.

Seasons

These two graphs show who has been a more durable player over their careers. Lebron simply has had more seasons where he plays a signifcant number of games. Jordan retired from basketball twice, and had 2 seasons where he played under 20 games. Lebron, although he has been playing a bit less as he gets older, has been incredibly durable, and clearly wins this category.

Peak

We also want to look at the peak of each player. For this category, we will use the “all in one” statistic of PER, and see how many seasons each player averaged over a 25 PER rating. Again, Lebron is the winner by a healthy couple of seasons, and we can clearly see that he has sustained a higher peak than MJ.

Longevity goes to Lebron.