It is the question that has raged on since the turn of the century, “Is Lebron James the second coming of Michael Jordan?” Why this question has raged on, I have on idea, because it seems as though no matter who you ask, the answer is “No.” Of course, the real question is “Why?” and THIS is where the real debate begins. Pretty much anyone over the age of 35 will tell you that Jordan is the unquestioned, unmitigated sex-god of basketball, whereas those who fall under that age cap will argue that Lebron is a more athletic, stronger, faster, smarter player than Jordan ever was. And so we go on and on with a discussion of championships, era, defense, passing, and scoring. It’s horrible.
Personally, I don’t understand why the older generation gets so tight about the whole situation. We all know that there will never be another Jordan, really we do. But at the same time Lebron’s talent is undeniable, and thats what you do – you deny. I’m not one to get all quippy about how great Lebron is, but it really does bother me when he gets disrespected by a generation of guys who are stuck in the past. I decided to solve this dilemma in the only way that I know how to: through the use of advanced multivariate statistics!
My Method
Okay, so here’s what I did. I examined 5 post-ABA merger players: Lebron James, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Kobe Bryant. I chose these five because they are widely considered the most dominant players since the Merger. It was inappropriate to choose a guy like Tim Duncan or Steve Nash for this particular exploration, because their style of play is too lacking in one of my categories of interest (assists and rebounds, respectively). Besides, fuck you its my study – I’ll do what I want.
I looked at these five players’ career averages in points, assists, rebounds, and player efficiency rating. In order to make sure that fair is fair, I added up their years played, and averaged everything out so that it was as if each of them played for 19 years (as Kobe has, the most of the five). I conducted what is called a “Multivariate Analysis Of Variance” (MANOVA), which is a fancy way of saying I compared the means of these five players across those four categories in order to see if there was a statistically significant difference. “Statistically significant” basically means that I can say with 95% confidence that these numbers are different for some reason other than random chance. Still with me?
Perfect! Let’s move on.
Results
Okay so the first thing that I have to do is make sure that there is an overall significant difference. I look at my multivariate results in order to do this. Basically what I’m looking for here is the ability to say “okay I’m 95% confident that these five players differ in some way across one of these four stats.
Boom! These zeros tell me that there is a < .001% chance that my difference is due to random chance. Okay, great, now what? Now I look at the univariate stats, meaning that I look at how the five players differ on all four stats – one at a time.
Okay NOW we’re talking! Two circles here, the red one is just like the circle above, it tells me that in all four categories, individually, there is a <.001% chance that the difference between these five players is due to random chance. I like-a those odds. Now, the blue circle is even more important. It tells me the % of variance that I have accounted for. For example, in the case of assists (AST) I can say that 79% of the reason that these players differed in their assists was because of who they are (as apposed to when they played or who was on their team – more about this later!).
Post-hoc Tests
Okie dokie, we know that these 5 players are different in all four categories, but we don’t know how they differ. We don’t know who was the best scorer, rebounder, etc. So, now we’re going to run something called a “post hoc” test, which basically answers that exact question. In this case, I ran a Tukey test, which is what you run when you know that there is a difference, but you don’t know what the difference is. Lets look, shall we!!
Points:
You’ll see we have four “subsets” here. These subsets basically tell us where the “significant” differences occur. The rule of thumb here is that if two scores are in the same box, they do not differ statistically. So, in the case of points we say that MJ was the highest scorer; however, he is not significantly better than lebron at scoring. Lebron is better than Kobe at scoring, but not by a significant amount. In the end, our Tukey leaves us with these rankings:
- Jordan/Lebron*
- Lebron*/Kobe
- Kobe/Bird
- Magic
This means that Jordan was better than everyone at scoring, except Lebron. So, in this case, Lebron and Jordan are even. Lebron and Kobe are also even, but Jordan is better than Kobe. Make sense?
Excellent, moving right along…
Assists:
Okay, here we see that Magic clearly stands out. He’s the best. Who’s next? Lebron and Larry. After that, Jordan and Kobe. This is not surprising, as Jordan and Kobe were both notorious ball-hogs
- Magic
- Lebron/Bird
- Jordan/Kobe
Rebounds:
Again, we have a clear winner. Larry is the winner here, followed by Magic and Lebron, then Jordan, then Kobe. It’s starting to look like Kobe shouldn’t even be in this conversation, despite his 5 championships.
- Bird
- Magic/Lebron
- Jordan
- Kobe
PER:
:
Okay! So, here’s the big one, the most “important” stat. In this case there’s only one real difference. The cream has risen to the top, Lebron and Jordan Stand alone.
- Lebron/Jordan
- Magic/Bird/Kobe
“Okay, that was extremely boring, what the fuck does it mean?”
Glad you asked! If we consider our subsets to be rankings, what we see is that Lebron and Jordan both have two “first place” finishes, more than any other player. They are also the only two players without any “last place” finishes. So, lets do it like this: you get one point for each spot in the rankings, fewest points wins, and you cannot get points twice in the same category – essentially, its “best subset wins”. What do we see?
Lebron: 6 points
Jordan: 8 points
Bird: 8 points
Magic: 9 points
Kobe: 12 points.
Winner? Lebron. Its obvious, he’s the most well rounded player we’ve seen since the ABA Merger. He doesn’t have the most titles, he isn’t the “meanest” guy out there, but he’s the best “pure” basketball player.
“JAMES, YOU IGNORANT CUNT, YOU FUDGED YOUR STATS!!!”
Listen to the man, reader, calm down, just calm down!
Okay, Okay, you got me, but only kinda. There are a few things that I simply couldn’t take into account. In basketball we have this thing called “PER +” which compares a players PER to the average PER in the league throughout their career. I don’t have access to that stat (nor do I have access to points+ assists+ or rebounds+). This particular stat is the way in which you compare across generations, because it takes into account the entire rest of the NBA. If someone knows where I can get those stats I’ll gladly run them over!
Also, it’s impossible for me to take into account things like training programs, injury, and position played. These are things I just cant do. What I can do is tell you that Lebron is the best when it comes to statistically significant differences in rebounds, assists, scoring, and PER. You can scream about championships, competitiveness, and “clutch” until you’re blue in the face, but the facts are what they are.
Especially you, Kobe fans, he ain’t even that nice.
*Because Lebron is neither different from Kobe nor Jordan, it is safe to say that he is just as good of a scorer as either one of them. However, Jordan is a better scorer than Kobe
icannnotbrain 