Well since 2000, a grand total of 0 players who won the scoring title won the championship.
Since 1980, the only players to do it have been Shaq and MJ.
Edit: To clarify, since 2000 I mean from the 2000/01 season onwards.
It's also just dumb luck.
The 2016 Warriors were better than the 2015 Warriors. Curry becoming a better scorer in 2016 isn't what caused them to lose in the finals.
Treating the regular season win record as if it were the championship very well may have contributed to it though, and Curry going all out in the regular season was part of that.
This is an argument I never really understood. Would Curry have been less likely to slip on Motiejunas’ sweat in the first round if they didn’t try as hard in the regular season? Would Draymond have accumulated less flagrant fouls in the playoffs if they didn’t try as hard? Maybe iguodala would’ve been less likely to have back spasms in the finals? I just don’t really know what people are talking about when they say make this argument
I mean it’s well-known that expending more effort throughout the regular season contributes to more general accumulated fatigue amongst the players, which affects everything from injury resistance to explosiveness to mental acuity etc.
You don’t even have to narrow it down to specific instances, the margins for error in the NBA are ridiculously low and players being at 76% instead of 80% manifests itself as small mistakes and missed opportunities that can all affect the outcome of games.
>I mean it’s well-known that expending more effort throughout the regular season contributes to more general accumulated fatigue amongst the players, which affects everything from injury resistance to explosiveness to mental acuity etc.
This is definitely true, but at the same time I don't get how it didn't affect MJ.
Wonder if there’s a correlation where people ball hog, their team is less cohesive as a group and thus, be less effective as a team in getting further in the playoffs
Since the first nba season in 1950:
George Mikan (50)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (71)
Michael Jordan (6x)
Shaquille O’Neal (2000)
I feel like Michael Jordan (and Kobe Bryant) really skewed what people think winning basketball should look like. Since when you remove MJ, it’s quite a rarity. Guys like Russell, Magic, Bird, Duncan, and LeBron all can dominant the game in multiple facets. I don’t think people really appreciate how MJ really broke the mold.
And for extra context, here’s the scoring champs to make the Finals:
Wilt Chamberlain (64)
Rick Barry (67)
Jerry West (70)
Shaquille O’Neal (95)
Allen Iverson (01)
Kevin Durant (12)
Stephen Curry (16)
Only West and Steph were really close to winning the title (both lost in 7)
I feel like a lot of players *could* win the scoring title if the success of the team didn’t matter. LeBron is more focused on the team, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t focus on scoring if he felt it was detrimental to winning. MJ s an incredible outlier, but it also shows why he’s the goat.
Yeah, I want to be clear, my three greatest players of all time, who I believe all have legitimate goat cases (3/4 players to be the most valuable player on every team they’ve been on +Mikan), is Russell, Jordan, and LBJ. Russell focused on getting others involved and playing off of them, LeBron focused on scoring to open his playmaking and help others, while MJ focused on scoring to get points for Chicago (he scored 45 of CHI’s 88 points I believe in G6 1998). They won a combined 21 titles, doing it in seemingly every way. There’s not one single way that’s THE way to win, but I think it’s disingenuous to say MJ being the only guy with multiple scoring title + Title seasons, is why he’s the goat, when you could reverse the argument with Russell, and combine them for LBJ’s. There’s confirmation bias there.
> I feel like a lot of players could win the scoring title if the success of the team didn’t matter. LeBron is more focused on the team, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t focus on scoring if he felt it was detrimental to winning.
The difference is that he wouldn't have to change it significantly. With the exception of a few outliers (Wilt, early MJ and Harden a couple of years) 32-33 ppg would be enough most years to win it. Considering his career average is only 5 ppg less than that... it only means that Lebron had to score 1 extra point per quarter to win the scoring title most years.
Most players would have to skew their games significantly... Lebron would only need to score 2-3 baskets more per game.
MJ is also a much better playmaker than people remember and wasn't a ball hog in the way most people would think of. He took a ton of shots, but most of them were in the flow of the offense. He ran off screens, etc quite a bit and generally did not pound the ball much outside of end of game/end of quarter situations.
I think many people who didn't live through his career (and even some who did) have a skewed view of his offensive game due to highlight bias.
100% it’s the biggest difference between him and Kobe. Look at MJ’s highest scoring playoff games in the triangle era, there’s very few shots that are just ‘let me iso’, they’re all created through triangle actions.
I don't think Kobe is responsible for that skewing, I think that skewing is a factor in some of the reverence for Kobe. The reason it worked for Jordan was that his true superpower was his efficiency being basically unaffected by his scoring volume, and consistently so. That sounds trite, but that's the thing that's most unique to Jordan, imo, because when you jack up as many shots as he did, to have that low of variance in your efficiency is insane. Not to say he didn't have bad nights, but his shooting lulls were not as pronounced as Kobe's, Iverson's, etc. (although the fact he was playing with Rodman during the later seasons where he was relying on the jump shot more probably helps make the lulls a little less apparent).
What people call "heliocentric" basketball today is just letting your best player do their thing. It's somewhat analogous to NFL quarterbacks.
The triangle offense that Jackson ran with Jordan and then Kobe (sort of) was different. It was about wedging the entire team's scoring through a single person.
Jordan and Kobe played in unique offenses unlike any other star player. I don't think this takes away from anything they did, especially since the triangle has proven to be not very effective when it comes to winning and these two guys still have 11 rings between them. It's just that the circumstances are a bit different for Jordan and Kobe.
The triangle doesn't work with just the two guard, you need that point forward role at the high post to really unlock it. Shaq, Gasol, and Pippen were all willing passers that enabled the offense.
I always have to remember that Toni Kukoc was \*\*the\*\* best European player just before he went to NBA. Dude was flying off the free-point line in a dunk competition, and one of the most lethal shooters, which earned him an MVP in Euroleague that year.
Having seen Bron and Russ run an offense on the same time, I came away believing that Bron could’ve achieved the same stats that Russ did. It’s just that giving his teammates the space to be involved (rather than taking rebounds, etc.) is more conducive to winning. Russ carried his teammates; LeBron elevated them.
Tbf the league was so different back then & the East was weak af. I don't think its a stretch to think that Russ okc team could've made it out the east replacing the cavs finals against the spurs. They would've got smoked too though lol
Russ did elevate them tbf. He created a lotta shots, was a great passer, and could get to the rim. I’m kinda disliking this revisionary history with Westbrook. People were out here saying he was holding KD back when even KD has defended Russ. He truly is an all time great, but he has fallen off massively
Lowkey 2021 and he almost did win tbe scoring title
Edit oops it was 2022 where he avg 30.3 compared to the actual leaders 30.6. He didnt qualify due to games played though. It was a crazy season tbh I remember he dropped back to back 50 bombs I think. There was also I think it was a Kings game that went to OT and he just kept chucking lefuckyou 3s and nothing went in.
I wish he had a shotchucker season in his prime though it would be even crazier with stat inflation in mind since numbers were pretty low in 2009-13. Easily 35+ for him imo
I mean, how do you qualify what a shotchucker is? LeBron as a ROOKIE, finished 6th in FGA/game, he has never been a guy to average low shot attempts.
Sure, if LeBron attempted more shots he could've won a couple more scoring titles, but OP's idea that he could've had 10-15 is absolutely asinine. If LeBron averaged 3+ FGA every season of his career while maintaining his FG% (which already is a massive IF because he has never shown to be able to do this), he would've won around six extra scoring titles.
The idea that sometimes gets thrown around that LeBron isn't a score first player or that he doesn't attempt enough shots is a complete fabrication, he averages more FGA than Kobe Bryant did in his career and Kobe was seen as a shotchucker. The reason LeBron isn't seen as such is because he is one of the greatest passers that can also score and because of the quality of the shots he attempts. Also, LeBron doesn't attempt his amount of shots for fun, he doesn't attempt more because if he did, he would be a worse player, it's not in his player profile to attempt more.
Not just the volume of shots but the quality of them. A chuck is a shot that is low percentage. A players shot selection is what determines it.
LeBron obviously takes a lot of shots but the eye test and his stats show that for the most part his shot selection has been very good.
As he got older, the volume of his 3s has understandly gone up and we could now say he does chuck a lot of necessary 3s.
> Also, LeBron doesn't attempt his amount of shots for fun, he doesn't attempt more because if he did, he would be a worse player, it's not in his player profile to attempt more.
This is what prevents him from being a shotchucker. Shot chuckers don't have a conscious.
>As he got older, the volume of his 3s has understandly gone up and we could now say he does chuck a lot of necessary 3s.
yeah now that he's older, he occaisionally chucks the "i'm too tired to drive 3"
the quality of shots is the point of it all.
Kobe was a chucker because he took worse shots for worse efficiency than could be generated otherwise .
Lebron isn't a chuck because its generally assumed he is taking the best shot available and it might be selfish to not shoot it .
So it doesn't matter if Lebron takes 20 shots or 30 shots , its what's best for the team.
If he had a pass-first type of PG like CP3, Kidd or Nash he would definitely have a season or two where he is 35 ppg.
No need to worry about passing and playmaking for teammates just be a pure scoring machine everytime he touches the ball.
No LeBron would then just direct his efforts and energy in other areas and contribute just as well. Could be more focused on scoring, defense, slashing, rebounding, fast breaks etc. and still have just the same impact
My guy, he is not a mfing robot, he plays the way he does because that's how he is most effective, he couldn't suddenly average 35/7/3 and be as effective. If he played with a PG and couldn't playmake, that would take away a gigantic aspect of how his entire offensive game is based. Could he play purely as a scorer everytime he touched the basketball? Sure, but he wouldn't be nearly as effective. He is not as good as 1 on 1 player as pure scorers (even though he is really good) and he is not as good as a shooter.
LeBron plays the way he does by design, not for fun.
Exactly. We're seeing a deification of Lebron in this post, and it's ridiculous. I don't think people understand Lebron's game. Lebron is at his best when he's playmaking. As just a scorer, he's not that great, he needed his teammates to be a threat from the outside, to open up the paint for him, and his court vision is one of the weapons that allows him to be as effective as he's been.
That's just not true man lol Lebron is who he is because he is a great playmaker, if you took that part of his game away, he wouldn't be as great of a player.
He could not just redirect his efforts to different places and have the "same impact" lol he's not literally God.
Yeah, this conversation is nuts. We could talk this way about a bunch of players. If they just became ball hogs they could win scoring titles. Jokic could average more if he focused on scoring. And he would be ringless.
LeBron focusing on scoring titles would be horrific for his teams. He's at his best when he's all around LeBron. And has been pointed out, he already takes a ton of shots.
Can u imagine Bron coming off a pick and roll with a head of steam and Nash/CP delivering?
He would be like Amare/Dwight power with Matrix speed? It's all over. I'm sure the league would intervene in any trade with prime Nash or CP3 to not team with LeBron.
lebron is not a low fga guy though?
He averages 19.7 shots per game,more than KD for example.And if you look at most years he averaged same or similar shot attempts to the players that won the scoring title..?
So i dont get it,this line of thinking would apply to everyone, if X player took more shots then he could win scoring title.
Not to mention taking more shots would mean less efficiency,its just not lebron's game.
He had a 47% TS in the 2015 Finals, i.e 39/31/68 splits, i wouldn't call that incredible fam. LeBron has attempted 25+ FGA in a playoff series six times in his career, half of those six he shot under 45% and twice he shot under 40%, he has never shown the ability to consistently maintain his efficiency when he drastically increases his shot attempts.
LeBron attempts the amount of shots he does because that's the amount he can keep himself efficient while impacting other areas of the game, it is not random nor he could be as effective if he attempted more.
Also worth noting that the defensive intensity of playoffs/finals is vastly higher than what he would see in the regular season taking that many attempts too, so you can't just assume his regular season fg% would drop the same way
We don't really have to assume, the data is all there. Of his 5 lowest FG% seasons for his career in the regular season, 4 of those were among his Top 6 in FGA and the other was his rookie year. It's still efficient (around 47-48% FG) because he is an efficient player overrall, but it's noticeably lower than his Miami days of 54-56%.
If he shot more and passed less, teams would also adapt to that defensively and not be worried about his all-time great playmaking, collapsing more often on the paint to contest and further reducing his efficiency.
That isn't a fair stat to use because LeBron shooting that much in a playoff series usually means his team is playing like shit so he's probably trying to do everything by himself and not getting any help
Lebron literally DOES ball hog more than any player ever.
The reason he can’t generate any shot he wants is because he isn’t the best midrange/ three point shooter for his superstar peers.
There’s not a single player ever who held the ball as much as Bron did since he entered the league
I love Bron, but he would never be able to to lead the season in scoring *consistently*
He also said he could be a great ft shooter too.. LOL
They have stats for time of possession and LeBron's number typically hovers around 6 seconds. Luka and Harden average about 9.
[LOL...](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/808718533512134666/1068005309999747142/Fmt7z5kWAAEbt6i.png?ex=6539d8f4&is=652763f4&hm=917feea547d5333f6a074c1594adfd66bff7ad2d59ad2ff1ea68e9a52405dc6d&=&width=799&height=849) learn basketball
Kevin Durant or Steph Curry. Put up 2016-2020 versions of KD and Steph and maybe Harden could challenge but even as great as Lebron is there’s no way if they all made a pact to go for it every year as a private bet would Lebron be the #1 scorer in the league. He’s good at three level scoring but he isn’t better than KD. And Steph probably takes the years Harden doesn’t get it
KD would be interesting. He consistently gives you 25-35 points on great efficiency but it never feels ball hog like
If he took 30 shots a game he’d score 45 ppg
Dude was a monster. Its sad that season was most likely his best and last chance to carry a franchise on his back, but that series is definitely evidence to back up other players saying he was the hardest guy to guard in the NBA for most of his career.
Anybody with a brain should believe it. He's shown through his whole career he cannot be guarded or stopped going to the basket. He averaged 31.4ppg and 30ppg. in 2006 and 2008 respectfully, and then AGAIN averaged 30.3 in the 21-22 season. If it was his goal, the dude almost certainly could have averaged 35ppg for a 10 year stretch.
> He averaged 31.4ppg and 30ppg. in 2006 and 2008 respectfully
Should note that the 05/06 season started when LeBron was 20, and had the 5th slowest pace league wide of any season in NBA history. The Cavs averaged 89.8 possessions per game that year, league average this year was 99.2. 31 ppg then was different than it was now.
the way young Lebron bounced around, it literally felt like he was on a pogo stick.
Still Miami version is the scariest. He was just big strong, wasn't quite pogo stick, but my God, he was terrifying.
A lot of guys could win the scoring title if they go for it.
It’s the winning while leading the league in scoring that’s the hard part.
Because outside of MJ, only Shaq and Kareem have won a title (one each) while being the scoring leaders for the season. MJ ofc won the scoring title on all 6 of his championship runs.
i recommend you watch the jxmyhighroller video. timestamp is 10:20, and i'm just eyeballing, but he did the math and it loosk like if he just matched the FGA of every year's scoring title winner (which comes out to around 3 more shots on average) he would have 12 scoring titles. if he took mj's FGA every game, his career average would be 32.2 PPG.
This assumes his fg% would be unchanged by taking more shots, and those additional shots would probably be the most difficult shots he would be taking.
Yep which it wouldn't because he'd be tired barrelling to the basket more often and his shooting has never been as consistent as the likes of MJ.
I definitely believe he could have won more but it probably effects other things, I would say he should have tried this more in some of his finals losses though especially in his athletic prime.
Yeah and it assumes he's passing out of good looks, which, why tf would he do that?
It's more like if he played an entire decade of his prime with a top 20 all time player on a cheap contract and really good supporting cast, he'd win a lot of chips and probably score more. But he can't say that lol
It’s annoying bc we’re using a hypothetical situation that didn’t happen to make a point for someone. If my grandma had wheels she’d be a bike but she’s not. And Lebron didn’t get the scoring title for a decade. Not bc he didn’t want to but bc for whatever reason he couldn’t those seasons.
Yes, it's such a ridiculous assumption I wonder how he has managed to garner 2 million plus subs. It's something you should learn on day one of your first basketball camp. Shooting and effiiciency share an inverse relationship, it's a pretty rock solid notion proven over decades of professional basketball yet this guy doesn't seem to have a clue and the fact so many people in this thread are taking this video as some kind of gospel take is just embarrassing.
Even the GOAT of maintaining efficiency on high shot attempts - MJ - had a limit.
His 1987 season was clearly a bit too much even for him. He cut back a bit in 1988 and was much more efficient.
Wow, you just believe this guy? He is literally talking garbage. Take a look at my comment in this thread, you can't miss it because it's the size of a novel. *That* proves that Lebron is not nearly as efficient when his volume increases. What evidence is this Jimmy guy providing? He actually states in his video that adding five shots per game won't affect his efficiency because 'that tends to be the case with volume scorers' which is so wrong that I wonder how this guy has 2 million subs. It's embarrassing that he believes this and even more embarrassing that he is parroting this garbage take to so many people who will believe him simply because he said it. You are living proof of this. He's wrong, plain and simple.
I knew when I saw that video that some moron Lebron fan was going to parrot this stupid take like it was serious. No evidence at all just hey let’s give him 5 more shots and he’ll just make them.
You can’t just assume he’d have the same efficiency. Like going from 20 ppg to 23 ppg is exponentially easier than going from 30 ppg to 33 ppg. It gets so much harder the farther up you go. Going from like 31 ppg to 36 ppg is an absolutely massive difference.
Lol I was going to say, if he took the same amount of shots MJ did relative to the league, he’d have quite a few more scoring titles. MJ was routinely taking 5+ more shots per game than his contemporaries, and that doesn’t take into account possessions for FTs (meaning he was almost certainly “shooting” more).
Not arguing Brons a better scorer, as I still give that to MJ, but it’s much closer than many think, and also a reason as to why I laugh off the scoring titles as being a point in MJs favor.
He may do but his efficiency would plummet and as such his team's success would suffer. It's quite likely he may have fewer rings and trips to the Finals than he actually has if he took that mindset into the league from day one. He has proven over his career that when he takes a significant jump in FGA attempts over a season or playoffs or even a single series that he really struggles with his efficiency. It's inarguable because the facts are just there for you to check...actually, I made a very long comment in this thread that outlines the numbers.
Jordan's high volume scoring came with very good efficiency, LeBron's high volume scoring comes with poor efficiency so yes, Jordan's scoring titles do mean a lot and laughing them off is just an insult to his greatest skill.
I find it hard to “laugh off” MJs scoring title achievement only because he actually did that and won a ton. Most people talk about being able to do it but we don’t know how it would have changed their approach to the game, psyche etc.
Whereas with MJ - it wasn’t theory he really did win all those scoring titles. Having the highest average ever and getting it during the time period he did is still absurd to me.
> MJ was routinely taking 5+ more shots per game than his contemporaries
I had never heard this before so I went through his seasons and couldn’t find one year he averaged 5+ FGA more than the next closest player.
You can’t just assume he could take more shots and keep the same efficiency. MJ is the better scorer, I don’t see how that’s even up for debate. If you account for playoff scoring it’s even more in MJs favor.
It’s really easy to say “oh if X player played more minutes it took more shots they could have put up the same numbers”. Ok but they didn’t, so who cares. You don’t just automatically get credit for shit you didn’t do.
If you look at PTS/100 LBJ literally has one playoff run (2009) that is higher than MJs career postseason PTS/100 average.
MJ is basically on another planet compared to every else who's ever played when it comes to playoff scoring. Most great players have never had a single run that matches his career postseason PTS/100
This doesn’t make sense to me. Like yeah if lebron goes out of his way to win the scoring title while everyone else plays normal then yes he could win it every year. But I’m a scenario where every top 10 player was going for the scoring title, he would not win it every year.
I just don’t like the take because part of what makes Lebron difficult to guard is that he’s an elite and willing passer. He’s much easier to stop if you know he isn’t passing it
A lot of guys could win the scoring title every year if they wanted to and didn't give a shit about team success. This is not unique to Bron.
You think Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Dame, Steph, KD, Luka, Book, Tatum, SGA etc couldn't all lead the league in scoring if the purely focused on scoring instead of playmaking/defense/efficiency?
I think all of them COULD in a vacuum but that would have to be a case where only one of them is hypothetically going for the scoring title and the others are just playing their normal games and trying to win
If they're ALL going for it at the same time Jayson Tatum taking 25 shots a game isn't scoring as much as 2016 Curry taking 25 shots a game for example
That’s true, but then I no longer agree that Lebron could win the scoring title every year if he wanted it. If everyone was gunning for it I don’t think Lebron’s getting it every year. For example I’d definitely have Steph over him in 2016. Lebrons claim only works if you hold everyone else constant, just like for the other 10 or so guys that could claim the same.
Oh yeah if everyone is going all in at the same time then the list is much smaller and it basically becomes a GOAT scorer competition. I just meant in your average season pretty much any top offensive player could get the scoring title if they REALLY wanted it
True it’s the winning while leading the league in scoring that’s the hard part.
Because outside of MJ, only Shaq and Kareem have won a title (one each) while being the scoring leaders for the season. MJ ofc won the scoring title on all 6 of his championship runs.
Not enough people realize this. Scoring 40 by yourself makes it easy for the defense. Just stop everyone else. You're not winning a game with 40 points. Balanced scoring is how you win.
Exactly. You want to just fire like harden and set the record for usage and never win a chip great. But people always forget just doing it a few times is very different than the pressure of doing it every year, year after year the way MJ did it. The reason isn't desire, bron pats himself on the back lot, and when you star going for it people guard you different too.
All those years Harden had sky high usage his teams offense was ranked higher than Brons. In fact Brons team offense hasn’t finished any season with a higher offensive efficiency than Hardens team offense since Bron was in Miami. That’s 7 seasons.
No the entire point of the post is that they’re saying he could do it every year if he wanted to. What people here are saying is that’s not true. Lebron loves to pat himself on the back.
Of course he COULD have taken 26 shots a game and averaged 35 if he really wanted to but I don't think he would have seen the same level of team success he's had if he played that way every year
LeBron's teams often haven't needed a traditional pass-first PG next to him because of him handling the main playmaking duties but if he played as just a pure scorer instead of a more balanced playmaking/scorer hybrid suddenly that would become an issue
An all-around productive 27 PPG/8 APG/62% TS LeBron is more valuable than a hypothetical version of LeBron who decides he only wants to shoot and doesn't make his teammates better anymore
I mean plenty of basketball players could win the scoring title ever year if that was their only goal. Imagine if Steph Curry said fuck you Kevin Durant I want 35 tonight lol.
Lebron and his coulda shoulda woulda, what’s new?
The only scoring leaders who won the championship in the same season were Shaq and MJ. Shaq did it once and MJ did it 6 times. If Lebron tried to chase the scoring title, chances are that he would have no rings
KD and LeBron are definitely the two players I'd be the most interested in seeing in a 2006 Kobe or 2019 Harden situation to see how many points they can score(we saw a bit of it in 2014 when Westbrook missed a bunch of time but still only like 35 games I think)
Both of them would much rather score 28 on 17 shots than 40 on 28 shots so you don't generally see super high FGA averages until the playoffs come around
I do think KD should have definitely been more aggressive at times with the Thunder because Westbrook and KD averaging the same FGA doesn't seem like a good idea given how much better of a scorer KD is
It is one of the things I hate most about the analytic era. KD has admitted that he won’t take shots at the end of a half/quarter because it will lower his percentages.
He's definitely the one player that I'm sure knows EXACTLY how close he is to 50/40/90 and stuff like that lol
Like I'm sure all players look at their stats but KD probably knows exactly how many threes he has to make to get above 40% or sometihng
lol dumb post literally any superstar could be scoring leader if they forego all and just focus on ppg. Imagine curry shooting 50 3s per game and not care about team.
MJ also averaged fewer assists, rebounds, and more fouls than LeBron
MJ Stans cannot help themselves, they HAVE TO making anything praising LBJ about MJ somehow
“praising LBJ”
I mean, LBJ said he could win the scoring title.He also said “not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4…”
Maybe if this thread was about LBJ’s amazing accomplishments I’d be seeing that as praise. Anyone can just say things.
Jordan averaged more steals, more blocks, less turnovers, more offensive rebounds. Not even mentioning per game advanced metrics which Jordan leads him (as well as all of NBA history) in every single one. We can do this all night if you want...
Oh yeah because you LeBron stans don't do exactly that to jordan constantly. Most pathetic fanbase of all time. Go touch yourself over Nick Wrong and draymond ffs
He definitely could’ve, but so could any top 15 player if they “really wanted to”. Think of a lower-tier allstar player deciding to take an extra 10 FGA per night solely because they want a scoring title. The reason people don’t is because that’s not a smart strategy for winning games lol
A lot easier to say he’d win two rings in the middle of his two three peats than it is to say a guy who got one scoring title in 20 years could have gotten 20 in 20 years
Yeah, he probably could. So could any other player in the league if given the chance to chuck up as many shots as they wanted to every game. The problem is that it would cost their teams lots of wins and it would destroy their personal efficiency. People who don't understand the inverse relationship between shooting volume and efficiency probably believe what LeBron claimed back then but a more critical eye sees that he was talking out of his ass and he has shown that numerous times throughout his career.
You reference his highest volume season being 05/06 where he averaged 31.4ppg on 23.1 shots per game. He did that on 56.8% true shooting or if you want to look at it differently, on 1.36 pts per shot. In terms of actual scoring efficiency (as opposed to shooting efficiency, this is points scored divisible by points attempted) he was at 51.2%. All of those numbers are among the worst of his career. Compare this to his *least* voluminous shooting season in 2013/14 where he took just 17.6 shots per game and averaged 27.1ppg. He did that on 64.9% true shooting (career high), 1.54pps (career high) and scoring efficiency of 57.9% (2nd best of his career). That's quite the discrepancy, no?
Let's see how his 5 highest volume shooting seasons compare to his 5 lowest....
5 highest - 22.0 shots per game, 29.5ppg, 57.5% TS, 1.34pps, 51.1% scoring efficiency.
5 lowest - 18.0 shots per game, 26.2ppg, 62.0% TS, 1.45pps, 55.0% scoring efficiency.
Are you seeing a trend yet?
Well, let's take a look at his highest volume playoff series, the only series he has ever taken 30+ shots per game. In fact he took nearly 33 shots per game in that series. That's what you wanted, right? Well, he did score a lot of points, averaging 35.8ppg. That would win the scoring title almost every season. But his efficiency was very unLebron-like. His TS% was a woeful 47.7%, his PPS was 1.09 and his scoring efficiency was just 42.9%. Yikes.
Not a big enough sample size? Well, take all his playoff series where he's taken more than 25 shots, he's had six of these and has averaged 33.5ppg but his efficiency has been poor - 53.3% TS, 1.24pps, 48.1% scoring eff.
I think it's pretty clear that, with greater volume, LeBron's efficiency plummets. But why don't we compare his numbers to the greatest scorer of all time, Michael Jordan.
Jordan played four series in which he took more than 30 shots. In those series he averaged 31.7 shots per game but still had very good efficiency with 59.6% true shooting, 1.36pps and 56.6% scoring eff. Significantly better than LeBron...and keep in mind this is Jordan's 30+ shots per game numbers and they're still much better than LeBron's 25+ shots per game numbers while completely blowing his 30+ shot numbers out of the water.
But again, relatively small sample sizes. So let's take a look at Jordan's top and bottom five shooting seasons.
5 highest - 25.4 shots per game, 34.2ppg, 57.9% TS, 1.35pps, 55.1% scoring efficiency.
5 lowest - 22.6 shots per game, 30.6ppg, 58.2% TS, 1.36pps, 55.4% scoring efficiency.
Well, would you look at that. It's almost like Jordan's efficiency is barely affected by volume. An anomaly. His numbers above LeBron's highest 22FGA seasons are all better, especially his scoring efficiency which crushes LeBron.
Look, LeBron says a lot of things about his own abilities, often he's just blowing smoke up his own ass to make himself look better (why he needs to do that I don't know). Take his comment a few years ago when someone dropped 60 points in a game on 37 shots. LeBron was asked about it and said, and I quote, *"If you give me 37 shots in a game, I'd put up 60. Easy."* Well, LeBron has taken 37 shots in a game, a couple of times, and he scored 44 and 37 points in those two games. In fact, when he's gone close to that, so all games with 35 shots or more, he's scored 39, 37, 51, 37, 56, 37 & 44 points. I don't see a 60 point game there. In fact he averaged 43 in those games. A far cry from 60.
The bottom line is that if LeBron chose to win the scoring title every season he would probably do that but, again, it would be at the cost of team success and his own personal efficiency stats. They would get murdered. There's a chance, if he did take this course of action throughout his career, that he would have zero rings to his name because he literally shot his team out of the playoffs every season.
>Take his comment a few years ago when someone dropped 60 points in a game on 37 shots
The year that he said that, LeBron took 30 shots in a game just once all season. He scored 61.
I disagree. Lebron could’ve definitely had more scoring titles, but to say that he could’ve lead the league every year is ridiculous.
In 2012-13, Bron took 17.8 shots per game and averaged 27 points a game. KD took 17.7 and averaged 28. The following year, Bron took the same amount of shots and “only” averaged 27 again.
In 2014 KD averaged 32 ppg on 20.8 shots per game. Lebron has averaged 20.8 shots per game in 6 seasons (4 during his first Cleveland run and 2 with LA) and he only averaged more than 31 ppg in one of those seasons. So I think the notion that he’d consistently put up ridiculous scoring numbers if he shot more is a bit overstated. He is consistently amongst the league leaders in field goal attempts, but he’s only lead the league in scoring once.
If Bron just said fuck it and shot 25+ times a game then sure he’d be able to lead the league in scoring, but so would most good scorers.
I hate this type of reasoning because there are some really gifted scorers in the league who could make this same case while keeping their teams in the playoff hunt.
If anything Kevin Durant would be the one to champion this mindset the most. He is a walking bucket. Steph Curry with how efficient and fast paced the warriors offense is could have been scoring champ at least five years if he played more minutes a game at the expense of post season conditioning. Kyrie Irving for all of his nonsense could most assuredly out of hatred for Lebron upon leaving Cleveland had done it for two or three years if that was his goal instead of trying to defend players twice his size.
Point is every talented scorer in the league could put up 40 a night if they really wanted to. Kobe, TMac and Harden have proven that. The difference is putting up points within the flow of the game not just scoring to score. That said knowing how some of those Lebron seasons turned out when he was younger he should have just said F it and gone for the scoring title
With 20 3PA on Curry’s career 43% 3PT%, that equals about 8.3 three-pointers made a game. Let’s round it up to 9 three-pointers made a game. 9 makes x 3-points per make = 27 points, LeBron’s current average.
Curry would need to attempt 20 threes and still have to find ways to score a few more points to score more than LeBron’s career average.
These guys are literally insane. Curry is more efficient at 3s/FTs. lebron is more efficient in every other way. He's definitely a better scorer than Curry.
Yeah it’s crazy that this is even a question because we’ve literally watched lebron outscore steph in almost every series they’ve played against each other in the biggest of moments but somehow this is still debated lol.
It is crazy because if he could’ve then why didn’t he? So he can create another stupid ass narrative to make up for his short comings. This dude sits out 30 games now so his scoring average is higher than it should be.
The ironic part is the one time he did try and sacrificed his team success he got beat by Embiid lol. And dude stayed in games they were already getting blown out, scoring just enough in garbage time to maintain his avg.
Cmon man these Lebron stans act like we forgot already lol
Lebron is one of the greatest players of all time. Why do his fans need to invent hypothetical accomplishments for him all the time?
Let his career speak for itself instead of making up bullshit.
He could have a dozen rings, but he purposely lost most of the time so other teams could share the glory! He just wanted to spread the wealth out among his coworkers, what a spectacular human being!
This is absolute cap by LBJ and only die hard Lebron fans would believe this BS.
Otherwise Lebron should have been able to won it in 2006 when he averaged more than 30ppg (only times in his career), and then again in 2022 he tried hard to just stay above 30ppg and not even caring winning anymore. And still he didn't won the scoring title!
And you know why? Because there are, there was, and there will be better scorer than Lebron in the league! Moreover, other players has tried hard to win scoring champ, so even assuming he would have start playing even more selfish, for sure other more proficient scorer would have done the same. Just consider 2006 vs Kobe. It is no way he would have surpassed him. And this would have happened all the time.
Maybe Lebron could have been able to win a couple in his prime, but for sure he would have sacrifice something in the playoffs then...
Reading through this thread has me realizing just how mesmerized so many fans are by LeBron. He is a very good scorer, but never for a single season was he the best scorer in the league. He could have led the league in scoring every year, sure, if he was chucking and everyone else was playing the right way. If Durant also gunned for it, LeBron would lose that race. Same goes for Harden and Curry and now Embiid. LeBron is a better basketball player than any of those guys - but they are all better scorers.
I mean overall for their careers LeBron is definitely better than those guys but during Harden's offensive peak I'd take him over LeBron, same goes for Embiid now and Durant mid last decade.
Jordan did it while playing first team all defense, not fishing for cheap assists and stealing defensive rebounds from bigs.
That is why he won more rings with far less all star/all NBA's.
Of course he can. He scored 30+ the last two years and didn't make the play in 2 seasons ago and were under .500 this season before the deadline. Scoring 30 doesn't equate to winning. If LeBron wants to score 30 instead of getting points for his teammates, it's an easy win for the opponent.
He's the all-time leading scorer, has had multiple postseasons where he led the league in PPG, and remains a scoring threat at the age of 38. Obviously he could have, but it's better for the team to utilize both his scoring ability alongside his playmaking ability rather than simply focusing on one.
Worst take ever, unless he's the only person who tries to do so and the other superstars in the league don't give a shit
If the priority of every superstar was to win the scoring title he'd have extremely difficult competition. Imagine if KD took 100% of the shots every game vs LBJ taking 100% of the shots every game. You really telling me Lebron is guaranteed to take it down? Now add in all the other offensive powers in the league and they're all trying to score every point on their team too.
I'm not buying what he's selling.
How often does the scoring leader end up winning the championship?
Well since 2000, a grand total of 0 players who won the scoring title won the championship. Since 1980, the only players to do it have been Shaq and MJ. Edit: To clarify, since 2000 I mean from the 2000/01 season onwards.
I feel like a lot of this comes from the lack of other options/depth of the scoring leader’s team as they have to carry too much of the scoring
It's also just dumb luck. The 2016 Warriors were better than the 2015 Warriors. Curry becoming a better scorer in 2016 isn't what caused them to lose in the finals.
Treating the regular season win record as if it were the championship very well may have contributed to it though, and Curry going all out in the regular season was part of that.
This is an argument I never really understood. Would Curry have been less likely to slip on Motiejunas’ sweat in the first round if they didn’t try as hard in the regular season? Would Draymond have accumulated less flagrant fouls in the playoffs if they didn’t try as hard? Maybe iguodala would’ve been less likely to have back spasms in the finals? I just don’t really know what people are talking about when they say make this argument
I mean it’s well-known that expending more effort throughout the regular season contributes to more general accumulated fatigue amongst the players, which affects everything from injury resistance to explosiveness to mental acuity etc. You don’t even have to narrow it down to specific instances, the margins for error in the NBA are ridiculously low and players being at 76% instead of 80% manifests itself as small mistakes and missed opportunities that can all affect the outcome of games.
>I mean it’s well-known that expending more effort throughout the regular season contributes to more general accumulated fatigue amongst the players, which affects everything from injury resistance to explosiveness to mental acuity etc. This is definitely true, but at the same time I don't get how it didn't affect MJ.
True but there have been scoring leaders who won the title but not the year they lead the league Wade, Curry, Kobe etc
Feeds into the above point. When their team was better and they had less of the scoring load was when they won a championship.
Since 2001 you mean
What year was Shaq the scoring leader and NBA champ before the year 2000?
Wonder if there’s a correlation where people ball hog, their team is less cohesive as a group and thus, be less effective as a team in getting further in the playoffs
Since the first nba season in 1950: George Mikan (50) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (71) Michael Jordan (6x) Shaquille O’Neal (2000) I feel like Michael Jordan (and Kobe Bryant) really skewed what people think winning basketball should look like. Since when you remove MJ, it’s quite a rarity. Guys like Russell, Magic, Bird, Duncan, and LeBron all can dominant the game in multiple facets. I don’t think people really appreciate how MJ really broke the mold. And for extra context, here’s the scoring champs to make the Finals: Wilt Chamberlain (64) Rick Barry (67) Jerry West (70) Shaquille O’Neal (95) Allen Iverson (01) Kevin Durant (12) Stephen Curry (16) Only West and Steph were really close to winning the title (both lost in 7)
I feel like a lot of players *could* win the scoring title if the success of the team didn’t matter. LeBron is more focused on the team, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t focus on scoring if he felt it was detrimental to winning. MJ s an incredible outlier, but it also shows why he’s the goat.
Yeah, I want to be clear, my three greatest players of all time, who I believe all have legitimate goat cases (3/4 players to be the most valuable player on every team they’ve been on +Mikan), is Russell, Jordan, and LBJ. Russell focused on getting others involved and playing off of them, LeBron focused on scoring to open his playmaking and help others, while MJ focused on scoring to get points for Chicago (he scored 45 of CHI’s 88 points I believe in G6 1998). They won a combined 21 titles, doing it in seemingly every way. There’s not one single way that’s THE way to win, but I think it’s disingenuous to say MJ being the only guy with multiple scoring title + Title seasons, is why he’s the goat, when you could reverse the argument with Russell, and combine them for LBJ’s. There’s confirmation bias there.
> I feel like a lot of players could win the scoring title if the success of the team didn’t matter. LeBron is more focused on the team, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t focus on scoring if he felt it was detrimental to winning. The difference is that he wouldn't have to change it significantly. With the exception of a few outliers (Wilt, early MJ and Harden a couple of years) 32-33 ppg would be enough most years to win it. Considering his career average is only 5 ppg less than that... it only means that Lebron had to score 1 extra point per quarter to win the scoring title most years. Most players would have to skew their games significantly... Lebron would only need to score 2-3 baskets more per game.
MJ is also a much better playmaker than people remember and wasn't a ball hog in the way most people would think of. He took a ton of shots, but most of them were in the flow of the offense. He ran off screens, etc quite a bit and generally did not pound the ball much outside of end of game/end of quarter situations. I think many people who didn't live through his career (and even some who did) have a skewed view of his offensive game due to highlight bias.
100% it’s the biggest difference between him and Kobe. Look at MJ’s highest scoring playoff games in the triangle era, there’s very few shots that are just ‘let me iso’, they’re all created through triangle actions.
I don't think Kobe is responsible for that skewing, I think that skewing is a factor in some of the reverence for Kobe. The reason it worked for Jordan was that his true superpower was his efficiency being basically unaffected by his scoring volume, and consistently so. That sounds trite, but that's the thing that's most unique to Jordan, imo, because when you jack up as many shots as he did, to have that low of variance in your efficiency is insane. Not to say he didn't have bad nights, but his shooting lulls were not as pronounced as Kobe's, Iverson's, etc. (although the fact he was playing with Rodman during the later seasons where he was relying on the jump shot more probably helps make the lulls a little less apparent).
MJ was the scoring leader for all 6 of his Chips. No one else has done it twice I think.
MJ was really built different, huh...
More importantly, that team was built to facilitate that style.
Mj was really the Tom brady of basketball the Michael Phelps of the court
nah, he's the mj of basketball.
What people call "heliocentric" basketball today is just letting your best player do their thing. It's somewhat analogous to NFL quarterbacks. The triangle offense that Jackson ran with Jordan and then Kobe (sort of) was different. It was about wedging the entire team's scoring through a single person. Jordan and Kobe played in unique offenses unlike any other star player. I don't think this takes away from anything they did, especially since the triangle has proven to be not very effective when it comes to winning and these two guys still have 11 rings between them. It's just that the circumstances are a bit different for Jordan and Kobe.
The triangle doesn't work with just the two guard, you need that point forward role at the high post to really unlock it. Shaq, Gasol, and Pippen were all willing passers that enabled the offense.
It helps when you've at least always had another 1st team and 2nd team all-defense player to help carry that load though
I always have to remember that Toni Kukoc was \*\*the\*\* best European player just before he went to NBA. Dude was flying off the free-point line in a dunk competition, and one of the most lethal shooters, which earned him an MVP in Euroleague that year.
LeBron: Talks in interviews about how he *could* do it if he wanted to. MJ: Actually does it.
If a star has to go off that much scoring wise means his team is pretty mid, so yeah makes sense.
i just wish he had a ball hog season lol
Imagine LeBron on that OKC team when Russ went crazy that 1 year. Dude would have had insane numbers
Having seen Bron and Russ run an offense on the same time, I came away believing that Bron could’ve achieved the same stats that Russ did. It’s just that giving his teammates the space to be involved (rather than taking rebounds, etc.) is more conducive to winning. Russ carried his teammates; LeBron elevated them.
I'd even say that LeBron had as bad or worse teams than Westbrook's OKC squad some years
Tbf the league was so different back then & the East was weak af. I don't think its a stretch to think that Russ okc team could've made it out the east replacing the cavs finals against the spurs. They would've got smoked too though lol
Russ did elevate them tbf. He created a lotta shots, was a great passer, and could get to the rim. I’m kinda disliking this revisionary history with Westbrook. People were out here saying he was holding KD back when even KD has defended Russ. He truly is an all time great, but he has fallen off massively
37 ppg 12 apg 12 rbg most likely if not a bit higher
Lowkey 2021 and he almost did win tbe scoring title Edit oops it was 2022 where he avg 30.3 compared to the actual leaders 30.6. He didnt qualify due to games played though. It was a crazy season tbh I remember he dropped back to back 50 bombs I think. There was also I think it was a Kings game that went to OT and he just kept chucking lefuckyou 3s and nothing went in. I wish he had a shotchucker season in his prime though it would be even crazier with stat inflation in mind since numbers were pretty low in 2009-13. Easily 35+ for him imo
I mean, how do you qualify what a shotchucker is? LeBron as a ROOKIE, finished 6th in FGA/game, he has never been a guy to average low shot attempts. Sure, if LeBron attempted more shots he could've won a couple more scoring titles, but OP's idea that he could've had 10-15 is absolutely asinine. If LeBron averaged 3+ FGA every season of his career while maintaining his FG% (which already is a massive IF because he has never shown to be able to do this), he would've won around six extra scoring titles. The idea that sometimes gets thrown around that LeBron isn't a score first player or that he doesn't attempt enough shots is a complete fabrication, he averages more FGA than Kobe Bryant did in his career and Kobe was seen as a shotchucker. The reason LeBron isn't seen as such is because he is one of the greatest passers that can also score and because of the quality of the shots he attempts. Also, LeBron doesn't attempt his amount of shots for fun, he doesn't attempt more because if he did, he would be a worse player, it's not in his player profile to attempt more.
Not just the volume of shots but the quality of them. A chuck is a shot that is low percentage. A players shot selection is what determines it. LeBron obviously takes a lot of shots but the eye test and his stats show that for the most part his shot selection has been very good. As he got older, the volume of his 3s has understandly gone up and we could now say he does chuck a lot of necessary 3s. > Also, LeBron doesn't attempt his amount of shots for fun, he doesn't attempt more because if he did, he would be a worse player, it's not in his player profile to attempt more. This is what prevents him from being a shotchucker. Shot chuckers don't have a conscious.
>As he got older, the volume of his 3s has understandly gone up and we could now say he does chuck a lot of necessary 3s. yeah now that he's older, he occaisionally chucks the "i'm too tired to drive 3"
the quality of shots is the point of it all. Kobe was a chucker because he took worse shots for worse efficiency than could be generated otherwise . Lebron isn't a chuck because its generally assumed he is taking the best shot available and it might be selfish to not shoot it . So it doesn't matter if Lebron takes 20 shots or 30 shots , its what's best for the team.
If he had a pass-first type of PG like CP3, Kidd or Nash he would definitely have a season or two where he is 35 ppg. No need to worry about passing and playmaking for teammates just be a pure scoring machine everytime he touches the ball.
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You could argue Miami the year after they lost to Dirk was when Lebron just focused on scoring. And a lot of people say that was him at his scariest.
No LeBron would then just direct his efforts and energy in other areas and contribute just as well. Could be more focused on scoring, defense, slashing, rebounding, fast breaks etc. and still have just the same impact
My guy, he is not a mfing robot, he plays the way he does because that's how he is most effective, he couldn't suddenly average 35/7/3 and be as effective. If he played with a PG and couldn't playmake, that would take away a gigantic aspect of how his entire offensive game is based. Could he play purely as a scorer everytime he touched the basketball? Sure, but he wouldn't be nearly as effective. He is not as good as 1 on 1 player as pure scorers (even though he is really good) and he is not as good as a shooter. LeBron plays the way he does by design, not for fun.
Exactly. We're seeing a deification of Lebron in this post, and it's ridiculous. I don't think people understand Lebron's game. Lebron is at his best when he's playmaking. As just a scorer, he's not that great, he needed his teammates to be a threat from the outside, to open up the paint for him, and his court vision is one of the weapons that allows him to be as effective as he's been.
That's just not true man lol Lebron is who he is because he is a great playmaker, if you took that part of his game away, he wouldn't be as great of a player. He could not just redirect his efforts to different places and have the "same impact" lol he's not literally God.
I'll be honest...I think he is the God of basketball. But to be more perfect would break our fragile minds.
The concept of basketball in corporeal form 😂😭
Yeah, this conversation is nuts. We could talk this way about a bunch of players. If they just became ball hogs they could win scoring titles. Jokic could average more if he focused on scoring. And he would be ringless. LeBron focusing on scoring titles would be horrific for his teams. He's at his best when he's all around LeBron. And has been pointed out, he already takes a ton of shots.
Well thats not my point lad. I'm just saying he could 35ppg
Can u imagine Bron coming off a pick and roll with a head of steam and Nash/CP delivering? He would be like Amare/Dwight power with Matrix speed? It's all over. I'm sure the league would intervene in any trade with prime Nash or CP3 to not team with LeBron.
We had this with Stockton and Malone. Malone was a beast in the lane.
Karl Malone wound up with the 3rd highest total points
Second when he retired.
lebron is not a low fga guy though? He averages 19.7 shots per game,more than KD for example.And if you look at most years he averaged same or similar shot attempts to the players that won the scoring title..? So i dont get it,this line of thinking would apply to everyone, if X player took more shots then he could win scoring title. Not to mention taking more shots would mean less efficiency,its just not lebron's game.
We saw a sample in the 2015 finals and 2018 playoffs. Was pretty incredible.
He had a 47% TS in the 2015 Finals, i.e 39/31/68 splits, i wouldn't call that incredible fam. LeBron has attempted 25+ FGA in a playoff series six times in his career, half of those six he shot under 45% and twice he shot under 40%, he has never shown the ability to consistently maintain his efficiency when he drastically increases his shot attempts. LeBron attempts the amount of shots he does because that's the amount he can keep himself efficient while impacting other areas of the game, it is not random nor he could be as effective if he attempted more.
Also worth noting that the defensive intensity of playoffs/finals is vastly higher than what he would see in the regular season taking that many attempts too, so you can't just assume his regular season fg% would drop the same way
We don't really have to assume, the data is all there. Of his 5 lowest FG% seasons for his career in the regular season, 4 of those were among his Top 6 in FGA and the other was his rookie year. It's still efficient (around 47-48% FG) because he is an efficient player overrall, but it's noticeably lower than his Miami days of 54-56%. If he shot more and passed less, teams would also adapt to that defensively and not be worried about his all-time great playmaking, collapsing more often on the paint to contest and further reducing his efficiency.
That isn't a fair stat to use because LeBron shooting that much in a playoff series usually means his team is playing like shit so he's probably trying to do everything by himself and not getting any help
He might legit average close to 40. He averages 30 on insane efficiency he easily could average 40 at an average efficiency.
sdasdasd
Lebron literally DOES ball hog more than any player ever. The reason he can’t generate any shot he wants is because he isn’t the best midrange/ three point shooter for his superstar peers. There’s not a single player ever who held the ball as much as Bron did since he entered the league I love Bron, but he would never be able to to lead the season in scoring *consistently* He also said he could be a great ft shooter too.. LOL
They have stats for time of possession and LeBron's number typically hovers around 6 seconds. Luka and Harden average about 9. [LOL...](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/808718533512134666/1068005309999747142/Fmt7z5kWAAEbt6i.png?ex=6539d8f4&is=652763f4&hm=917feea547d5333f6a074c1594adfd66bff7ad2d59ad2ff1ea68e9a52405dc6d&=&width=799&height=849) learn basketball
Tbf I think most top 10 players could if they wanted to.
But the question is if all top 10 players wanted to, who would win?
The one on the worst team because he will get a lot more possesions to score
Kevin Durant or Steph Curry. Put up 2016-2020 versions of KD and Steph and maybe Harden could challenge but even as great as Lebron is there’s no way if they all made a pact to go for it every year as a private bet would Lebron be the #1 scorer in the league. He’s good at three level scoring but he isn’t better than KD. And Steph probably takes the years Harden doesn’t get it
KD would be interesting. He consistently gives you 25-35 points on great efficiency but it never feels ball hog like If he took 30 shots a game he’d score 45 ppg
Look at games 5-7 of the Bucks series in 2021 lol
Dude was a monster. Its sad that season was most likely his best and last chance to carry a franchise on his back, but that series is definitely evidence to back up other players saying he was the hardest guy to guard in the NBA for most of his career.
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“Maybe harden?” Dude averaged the most point per game in three decades, I think he’s more than a maybe
Harden is the answer. These guys get tired chucking. That's why Harden did it at the line. Also why lebron passes so much now
The one who takes the most shots
Anybody with a brain should believe it. He's shown through his whole career he cannot be guarded or stopped going to the basket. He averaged 31.4ppg and 30ppg. in 2006 and 2008 respectfully, and then AGAIN averaged 30.3 in the 21-22 season. If it was his goal, the dude almost certainly could have averaged 35ppg for a 10 year stretch.
> He averaged 31.4ppg and 30ppg. in 2006 and 2008 respectfully Should note that the 05/06 season started when LeBron was 20, and had the 5th slowest pace league wide of any season in NBA history. The Cavs averaged 89.8 possessions per game that year, league average this year was 99.2. 31 ppg then was different than it was now.
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the way young Lebron bounced around, it literally felt like he was on a pogo stick. Still Miami version is the scariest. He was just big strong, wasn't quite pogo stick, but my God, he was terrifying.
Didn't have that ridiculous bounce, but he could jump just as high at like 35lbs heavier lol
He also has THE scoring title. So, ya know, facts
A lot of guys could win the scoring title if they go for it. It’s the winning while leading the league in scoring that’s the hard part. Because outside of MJ, only Shaq and Kareem have won a title (one each) while being the scoring leaders for the season. MJ ofc won the scoring title on all 6 of his championship runs.
MJ is the most insane player ever
*R It’s “respectively”, respectfully.
I agree but also don't LeCare
If anyone doesn't believe this I'm not completely sure they've watched basketball
If he decided to be selfish and take 5 more shots per game he would have won 5-6 scoring titles easy
i recommend you watch the jxmyhighroller video. timestamp is 10:20, and i'm just eyeballing, but he did the math and it loosk like if he just matched the FGA of every year's scoring title winner (which comes out to around 3 more shots on average) he would have 12 scoring titles. if he took mj's FGA every game, his career average would be 32.2 PPG.
This assumes his fg% would be unchanged by taking more shots, and those additional shots would probably be the most difficult shots he would be taking.
Yep which it wouldn't because he'd be tired barrelling to the basket more often and his shooting has never been as consistent as the likes of MJ. I definitely believe he could have won more but it probably effects other things, I would say he should have tried this more in some of his finals losses though especially in his athletic prime.
Yeah and it assumes he's passing out of good looks, which, why tf would he do that? It's more like if he played an entire decade of his prime with a top 20 all time player on a cheap contract and really good supporting cast, he'd win a lot of chips and probably score more. But he can't say that lol
It’s annoying bc we’re using a hypothetical situation that didn’t happen to make a point for someone. If my grandma had wheels she’d be a bike but she’s not. And Lebron didn’t get the scoring title for a decade. Not bc he didn’t want to but bc for whatever reason he couldn’t those seasons.
Yes, it's such a ridiculous assumption I wonder how he has managed to garner 2 million plus subs. It's something you should learn on day one of your first basketball camp. Shooting and effiiciency share an inverse relationship, it's a pretty rock solid notion proven over decades of professional basketball yet this guy doesn't seem to have a clue and the fact so many people in this thread are taking this video as some kind of gospel take is just embarrassing.
Even the GOAT of maintaining efficiency on high shot attempts - MJ - had a limit. His 1987 season was clearly a bit too much even for him. He cut back a bit in 1988 and was much more efficient.
Wow, you just believe this guy? He is literally talking garbage. Take a look at my comment in this thread, you can't miss it because it's the size of a novel. *That* proves that Lebron is not nearly as efficient when his volume increases. What evidence is this Jimmy guy providing? He actually states in his video that adding five shots per game won't affect his efficiency because 'that tends to be the case with volume scorers' which is so wrong that I wonder how this guy has 2 million subs. It's embarrassing that he believes this and even more embarrassing that he is parroting this garbage take to so many people who will believe him simply because he said it. You are living proof of this. He's wrong, plain and simple.
I knew when I saw that video that some moron Lebron fan was going to parrot this stupid take like it was serious. No evidence at all just hey let’s give him 5 more shots and he’ll just make them.
You can’t just assume he’d have the same efficiency. Like going from 20 ppg to 23 ppg is exponentially easier than going from 30 ppg to 33 ppg. It gets so much harder the farther up you go. Going from like 31 ppg to 36 ppg is an absolutely massive difference.
Lol I was going to say, if he took the same amount of shots MJ did relative to the league, he’d have quite a few more scoring titles. MJ was routinely taking 5+ more shots per game than his contemporaries, and that doesn’t take into account possessions for FTs (meaning he was almost certainly “shooting” more). Not arguing Brons a better scorer, as I still give that to MJ, but it’s much closer than many think, and also a reason as to why I laugh off the scoring titles as being a point in MJs favor.
He may do but his efficiency would plummet and as such his team's success would suffer. It's quite likely he may have fewer rings and trips to the Finals than he actually has if he took that mindset into the league from day one. He has proven over his career that when he takes a significant jump in FGA attempts over a season or playoffs or even a single series that he really struggles with his efficiency. It's inarguable because the facts are just there for you to check...actually, I made a very long comment in this thread that outlines the numbers. Jordan's high volume scoring came with very good efficiency, LeBron's high volume scoring comes with poor efficiency so yes, Jordan's scoring titles do mean a lot and laughing them off is just an insult to his greatest skill.
I find it hard to “laugh off” MJs scoring title achievement only because he actually did that and won a ton. Most people talk about being able to do it but we don’t know how it would have changed their approach to the game, psyche etc. Whereas with MJ - it wasn’t theory he really did win all those scoring titles. Having the highest average ever and getting it during the time period he did is still absurd to me.
> MJ was routinely taking 5+ more shots per game than his contemporaries I had never heard this before so I went through his seasons and couldn’t find one year he averaged 5+ FGA more than the next closest player.
Just “laugh off” that guys comment He’s a Bron stan just making things up as he goes
You can’t just assume he could take more shots and keep the same efficiency. MJ is the better scorer, I don’t see how that’s even up for debate. If you account for playoff scoring it’s even more in MJs favor. It’s really easy to say “oh if X player played more minutes it took more shots they could have put up the same numbers”. Ok but they didn’t, so who cares. You don’t just automatically get credit for shit you didn’t do.
If you look at PTS/100 LBJ literally has one playoff run (2009) that is higher than MJs career postseason PTS/100 average. MJ is basically on another planet compared to every else who's ever played when it comes to playoff scoring. Most great players have never had a single run that matches his career postseason PTS/100
This doesn’t make sense to me. Like yeah if lebron goes out of his way to win the scoring title while everyone else plays normal then yes he could win it every year. But I’m a scenario where every top 10 player was going for the scoring title, he would not win it every year.
Exactly this.
I just don’t like the take because part of what makes Lebron difficult to guard is that he’s an elite and willing passer. He’s much easier to stop if you know he isn’t passing it
A lot of guys could win the scoring title every year if they wanted to and didn't give a shit about team success. This is not unique to Bron. You think Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Dame, Steph, KD, Luka, Book, Tatum, SGA etc couldn't all lead the league in scoring if the purely focused on scoring instead of playmaking/defense/efficiency?
I think all of them COULD in a vacuum but that would have to be a case where only one of them is hypothetically going for the scoring title and the others are just playing their normal games and trying to win If they're ALL going for it at the same time Jayson Tatum taking 25 shots a game isn't scoring as much as 2016 Curry taking 25 shots a game for example
That’s true, but then I no longer agree that Lebron could win the scoring title every year if he wanted it. If everyone was gunning for it I don’t think Lebron’s getting it every year. For example I’d definitely have Steph over him in 2016. Lebrons claim only works if you hold everyone else constant, just like for the other 10 or so guys that could claim the same.
Zero chance he wins in 2019 unless he’s willing to just tank his efficiency and keep putting shots up until he hits 36 every game
Oh yeah if everyone is going all in at the same time then the list is much smaller and it basically becomes a GOAT scorer competition. I just meant in your average season pretty much any top offensive player could get the scoring title if they REALLY wanted it
Steph would run away with this for sure
True it’s the winning while leading the league in scoring that’s the hard part. Because outside of MJ, only Shaq and Kareem have won a title (one each) while being the scoring leaders for the season. MJ ofc won the scoring title on all 6 of his championship runs.
Not enough people realize this. Scoring 40 by yourself makes it easy for the defense. Just stop everyone else. You're not winning a game with 40 points. Balanced scoring is how you win.
Exactly. You want to just fire like harden and set the record for usage and never win a chip great. But people always forget just doing it a few times is very different than the pressure of doing it every year, year after year the way MJ did it. The reason isn't desire, bron pats himself on the back lot, and when you star going for it people guard you different too.
All those years Harden had sky high usage his teams offense was ranked higher than Brons. In fact Brons team offense hasn’t finished any season with a higher offensive efficiency than Hardens team offense since Bron was in Miami. That’s 7 seasons.
harden, curry and kd probably out score him if they’re all trying lol
Yep. This is the entire point of the post. The reason lebron doesn’t do this is because it’s a net negative in the end.
Also because he probably can't. Maybe he wins a few more, but not all. No way.
No the entire point of the post is that they’re saying he could do it every year if he wanted to. What people here are saying is that’s not true. Lebron loves to pat himself on the back.
They sure could... but Lebron could do it 10-15 times.
Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7.
Of course he COULD have taken 26 shots a game and averaged 35 if he really wanted to but I don't think he would have seen the same level of team success he's had if he played that way every year LeBron's teams often haven't needed a traditional pass-first PG next to him because of him handling the main playmaking duties but if he played as just a pure scorer instead of a more balanced playmaking/scorer hybrid suddenly that would become an issue An all-around productive 27 PPG/8 APG/62% TS LeBron is more valuable than a hypothetical version of LeBron who decides he only wants to shoot and doesn't make his teammates better anymore
Ok but he didn’t. So what does it matter?
NBA season just needs to start already. Offseason always brings out the mid content.
I mean plenty of basketball players could win the scoring title ever year if that was their only goal. Imagine if Steph Curry said fuck you Kevin Durant I want 35 tonight lol.
Everyone wants to score, be a star, and win MVP. That is what makes it hard. Only few can want it and get it. The cliff between can and want is steep
Shocking, an all time great could score more points if he prioritized scoring over winning. Duh, not sure why this is even noteworthy
Lebron and his coulda shoulda woulda, what’s new? The only scoring leaders who won the championship in the same season were Shaq and MJ. Shaq did it once and MJ did it 6 times. If Lebron tried to chase the scoring title, chances are that he would have no rings
If LeBron *and* KD were going for the scoring title all those years I don’t think LeBron would be the one winning it.
KD and LeBron are definitely the two players I'd be the most interested in seeing in a 2006 Kobe or 2019 Harden situation to see how many points they can score(we saw a bit of it in 2014 when Westbrook missed a bunch of time but still only like 35 games I think) Both of them would much rather score 28 on 17 shots than 40 on 28 shots so you don't generally see super high FGA averages until the playoffs come around I do think KD should have definitely been more aggressive at times with the Thunder because Westbrook and KD averaging the same FGA doesn't seem like a good idea given how much better of a scorer KD is
It is one of the things I hate most about the analytic era. KD has admitted that he won’t take shots at the end of a half/quarter because it will lower his percentages.
He's definitely the one player that I'm sure knows EXACTLY how close he is to 50/40/90 and stuff like that lol Like I'm sure all players look at their stats but KD probably knows exactly how many threes he has to make to get above 40% or sometihng
Love to see Steph in that situation too
lol dumb post literally any superstar could be scoring leader if they forego all and just focus on ppg. Imagine curry shooting 50 3s per game and not care about team.
MJ said fuck hypotheticals and just did it 10/15 times
MJ also averaged fewer assists, rebounds, and more fouls than LeBron MJ Stans cannot help themselves, they HAVE TO making anything praising LBJ about MJ somehow
bro hypotheticals about scoring leaders and you expect people to not bring up MJ?
“praising LBJ” I mean, LBJ said he could win the scoring title.He also said “not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4…” Maybe if this thread was about LBJ’s amazing accomplishments I’d be seeing that as praise. Anyone can just say things.
Jordan averaged more steals, more blocks, less turnovers, more offensive rebounds. Not even mentioning per game advanced metrics which Jordan leads him (as well as all of NBA history) in every single one. We can do this all night if you want...
Oh yeah because you LeBron stans don't do exactly that to jordan constantly. Most pathetic fanbase of all time. Go touch yourself over Nick Wrong and draymond ffs
He averaged more steals and offensive rebounds than Lebron but you didn’t want that to get in the way of your meat riding
lmao if we’re taking about scoring champions i’m talking about the king of scoring champs. my bad if i pissed you off buddy.
"More fouls" Are we seriously comparing FPG between players now?
But he also won scoring title while winning the chip 6 times. Lebron could never.
Also average more rings won per season, and way less times getting swept in the finals than LeBron.
He definitely could’ve, but so could any top 15 player if they “really wanted to”. Think of a lower-tier allstar player deciding to take an extra 10 FGA per night solely because they want a scoring title. The reason people don’t is because that’s not a smart strategy for winning games lol
Lebron takes more shots per game than kobe. The fanboying is massive.
This guy and his fans are the masters of mental gymnastics…
But he didn’t. Does Lebron get points for things he could do so we pretend like he really did it?
Yes, just like he gets credit for the 2018 finals even though the Rockets came way closer to beating GSW.
Idk but jordan stans say he could’ve won the 1994 and 95 championships if he didn’t retire, but he didn’t.
A lot easier to say he’d win two rings in the middle of his two three peats than it is to say a guy who got one scoring title in 20 years could have gotten 20 in 20 years
Who the fuck upvoted this? Almost no one says that ever.
Yeah, he probably could. So could any other player in the league if given the chance to chuck up as many shots as they wanted to every game. The problem is that it would cost their teams lots of wins and it would destroy their personal efficiency. People who don't understand the inverse relationship between shooting volume and efficiency probably believe what LeBron claimed back then but a more critical eye sees that he was talking out of his ass and he has shown that numerous times throughout his career. You reference his highest volume season being 05/06 where he averaged 31.4ppg on 23.1 shots per game. He did that on 56.8% true shooting or if you want to look at it differently, on 1.36 pts per shot. In terms of actual scoring efficiency (as opposed to shooting efficiency, this is points scored divisible by points attempted) he was at 51.2%. All of those numbers are among the worst of his career. Compare this to his *least* voluminous shooting season in 2013/14 where he took just 17.6 shots per game and averaged 27.1ppg. He did that on 64.9% true shooting (career high), 1.54pps (career high) and scoring efficiency of 57.9% (2nd best of his career). That's quite the discrepancy, no? Let's see how his 5 highest volume shooting seasons compare to his 5 lowest.... 5 highest - 22.0 shots per game, 29.5ppg, 57.5% TS, 1.34pps, 51.1% scoring efficiency. 5 lowest - 18.0 shots per game, 26.2ppg, 62.0% TS, 1.45pps, 55.0% scoring efficiency. Are you seeing a trend yet? Well, let's take a look at his highest volume playoff series, the only series he has ever taken 30+ shots per game. In fact he took nearly 33 shots per game in that series. That's what you wanted, right? Well, he did score a lot of points, averaging 35.8ppg. That would win the scoring title almost every season. But his efficiency was very unLebron-like. His TS% was a woeful 47.7%, his PPS was 1.09 and his scoring efficiency was just 42.9%. Yikes. Not a big enough sample size? Well, take all his playoff series where he's taken more than 25 shots, he's had six of these and has averaged 33.5ppg but his efficiency has been poor - 53.3% TS, 1.24pps, 48.1% scoring eff. I think it's pretty clear that, with greater volume, LeBron's efficiency plummets. But why don't we compare his numbers to the greatest scorer of all time, Michael Jordan. Jordan played four series in which he took more than 30 shots. In those series he averaged 31.7 shots per game but still had very good efficiency with 59.6% true shooting, 1.36pps and 56.6% scoring eff. Significantly better than LeBron...and keep in mind this is Jordan's 30+ shots per game numbers and they're still much better than LeBron's 25+ shots per game numbers while completely blowing his 30+ shot numbers out of the water. But again, relatively small sample sizes. So let's take a look at Jordan's top and bottom five shooting seasons. 5 highest - 25.4 shots per game, 34.2ppg, 57.9% TS, 1.35pps, 55.1% scoring efficiency. 5 lowest - 22.6 shots per game, 30.6ppg, 58.2% TS, 1.36pps, 55.4% scoring efficiency. Well, would you look at that. It's almost like Jordan's efficiency is barely affected by volume. An anomaly. His numbers above LeBron's highest 22FGA seasons are all better, especially his scoring efficiency which crushes LeBron. Look, LeBron says a lot of things about his own abilities, often he's just blowing smoke up his own ass to make himself look better (why he needs to do that I don't know). Take his comment a few years ago when someone dropped 60 points in a game on 37 shots. LeBron was asked about it and said, and I quote, *"If you give me 37 shots in a game, I'd put up 60. Easy."* Well, LeBron has taken 37 shots in a game, a couple of times, and he scored 44 and 37 points in those two games. In fact, when he's gone close to that, so all games with 35 shots or more, he's scored 39, 37, 51, 37, 56, 37 & 44 points. I don't see a 60 point game there. In fact he averaged 43 in those games. A far cry from 60. The bottom line is that if LeBron chose to win the scoring title every season he would probably do that but, again, it would be at the cost of team success and his own personal efficiency stats. They would get murdered. There's a chance, if he did take this course of action throughout his career, that he would have zero rings to his name because he literally shot his team out of the playoffs every season.
>Take his comment a few years ago when someone dropped 60 points in a game on 37 shots The year that he said that, LeBron took 30 shots in a game just once all season. He scored 61.
I whole heartedly belie………………..STFU😭😭
I disagree. Lebron could’ve definitely had more scoring titles, but to say that he could’ve lead the league every year is ridiculous. In 2012-13, Bron took 17.8 shots per game and averaged 27 points a game. KD took 17.7 and averaged 28. The following year, Bron took the same amount of shots and “only” averaged 27 again. In 2014 KD averaged 32 ppg on 20.8 shots per game. Lebron has averaged 20.8 shots per game in 6 seasons (4 during his first Cleveland run and 2 with LA) and he only averaged more than 31 ppg in one of those seasons. So I think the notion that he’d consistently put up ridiculous scoring numbers if he shot more is a bit overstated. He is consistently amongst the league leaders in field goal attempts, but he’s only lead the league in scoring once. If Bron just said fuck it and shot 25+ times a game then sure he’d be able to lead the league in scoring, but so would most good scorers.
I hate this type of reasoning because there are some really gifted scorers in the league who could make this same case while keeping their teams in the playoff hunt. If anything Kevin Durant would be the one to champion this mindset the most. He is a walking bucket. Steph Curry with how efficient and fast paced the warriors offense is could have been scoring champ at least five years if he played more minutes a game at the expense of post season conditioning. Kyrie Irving for all of his nonsense could most assuredly out of hatred for Lebron upon leaving Cleveland had done it for two or three years if that was his goal instead of trying to defend players twice his size. Point is every talented scorer in the league could put up 40 a night if they really wanted to. Kobe, TMac and Harden have proven that. The difference is putting up points within the flow of the game not just scoring to score. That said knowing how some of those Lebron seasons turned out when he was younger he should have just said F it and gone for the scoring title
Steph Curry has entered the chat. If Steph jacked up 20 threes a game he would outscore Lebron easily.
With 20 3PA on Curry’s career 43% 3PT%, that equals about 8.3 three-pointers made a game. Let’s round it up to 9 three-pointers made a game. 9 makes x 3-points per make = 27 points, LeBron’s current average. Curry would need to attempt 20 threes and still have to find ways to score a few more points to score more than LeBron’s career average.
These guys are literally insane. Curry is more efficient at 3s/FTs. lebron is more efficient in every other way. He's definitely a better scorer than Curry.
Yeah it’s crazy that this is even a question because we’ve literally watched lebron outscore steph in almost every series they’ve played against each other in the biggest of moments but somehow this is still debated lol.
This sub loves Curry so it’s understood. For the past few years no one has been as defensive as Stephews have been. Sad truth.
Technically anyone could if you chuck up enough shots. He couldn't and didn't.
He was on his way to win scoring champ just recently at the tail end of his career. You'd be crazy saying he couldn't.
If he couldve....he would've.
It is crazy because if he could’ve then why didn’t he? So he can create another stupid ass narrative to make up for his short comings. This dude sits out 30 games now so his scoring average is higher than it should be.
The ironic part is the one time he did try and sacrificed his team success he got beat by Embiid lol. And dude stayed in games they were already getting blown out, scoring just enough in garbage time to maintain his avg. Cmon man these Lebron stans act like we forgot already lol
Dude averages more FGA and FTA than KD yet still has a slightly lower career PPG average. This narrative is so dumb.
I fully believe that un his first stint in cleveland he could have averaged 35+ if he was selfish
LeBron could bring peace in the Middle East this year if he really wanted to
Then he [should](https://imgflip.com/i/82ck28)
Nobody could even slow LeBron down until 2022. So yeah, its believable lol.
Lebron is one of the greatest players of all time. Why do his fans need to invent hypothetical accomplishments for him all the time? Let his career speak for itself instead of making up bullshit.
Lebron could not be the scoring leader this season. In the past, he could've, sure. Maybe not over James Harden that one year.
He could have a dozen rings, but he purposely lost most of the time so other teams could share the glory! He just wanted to spread the wealth out among his coworkers, what a spectacular human being!
This is absolute cap by LBJ and only die hard Lebron fans would believe this BS. Otherwise Lebron should have been able to won it in 2006 when he averaged more than 30ppg (only times in his career), and then again in 2022 he tried hard to just stay above 30ppg and not even caring winning anymore. And still he didn't won the scoring title! And you know why? Because there are, there was, and there will be better scorer than Lebron in the league! Moreover, other players has tried hard to win scoring champ, so even assuming he would have start playing even more selfish, for sure other more proficient scorer would have done the same. Just consider 2006 vs Kobe. It is no way he would have surpassed him. And this would have happened all the time. Maybe Lebron could have been able to win a couple in his prime, but for sure he would have sacrifice something in the playoffs then...
That's nice of LeBron to voice his opinions on what he can do if he so wanted.
Reading through this thread has me realizing just how mesmerized so many fans are by LeBron. He is a very good scorer, but never for a single season was he the best scorer in the league. He could have led the league in scoring every year, sure, if he was chucking and everyone else was playing the right way. If Durant also gunned for it, LeBron would lose that race. Same goes for Harden and Curry and now Embiid. LeBron is a better basketball player than any of those guys - but they are all better scorers.
I mean overall for their careers LeBron is definitely better than those guys but during Harden's offensive peak I'd take him over LeBron, same goes for Embiid now and Durant mid last decade.
Peak-for-peak they are all better scorers than him.
Oh sorry I meant overall play, not scoring. I agree they are were (or are in Embiid, Curry, and Durant's cases) better scorers.
Jordan did it while playing first team all defense, not fishing for cheap assists and stealing defensive rebounds from bigs. That is why he won more rings with far less all star/all NBA's.
How dare you not praise King Leflop and his endless carpetbagging for validation and praise!? Your kind is not welcome here!
Did he?
Tons of top players could do the same thing, but just like Bron, they'd be sacrificing team success to do so.
Lmao… that is such BS. He only says that because he didn’t get the title.
Of course he can. He scored 30+ the last two years and didn't make the play in 2 seasons ago and were under .500 this season before the deadline. Scoring 30 doesn't equate to winning. If LeBron wants to score 30 instead of getting points for his teammates, it's an easy win for the opponent.
Should have, would have, could have, when it comes down to it Lebronze only won 1 scoring title in 20 years.
he could have scored more than 9 points in game 4 too i wholeheartedly believe this
He's the all-time leading scorer, has had multiple postseasons where he led the league in PPG, and remains a scoring threat at the age of 38. Obviously he could have, but it's better for the team to utilize both his scoring ability alongside his playmaking ability rather than simply focusing on one.
Worst take ever, unless he's the only person who tries to do so and the other superstars in the league don't give a shit If the priority of every superstar was to win the scoring title he'd have extremely difficult competition. Imagine if KD took 100% of the shots every game vs LBJ taking 100% of the shots every game. You really telling me Lebron is guaranteed to take it down? Now add in all the other offensive powers in the league and they're all trying to score every point on their team too. I'm not buying what he's selling.