The Historic Case of LeBron James

Tonight LeBron James has a chance at reaching both 20,000 points and 5000 assists. For his age, this is unprecedented. Kobe was 29 when he hit 20,000, and LeBron is still 28. Everyone will focus on his scoring tonight, which is undoubtedly impressive, but what's most impressive are his assists and rebounds.

Who holds the record for most assists by a non-point guard? Scottie Pippen with ... 6135. Given that LeBron regularly collects seasons of plus 500 assists, this won't stand very long. We're used to this, but averaging around 27-7-7 as he does every year, especially taking into account the slower pace of the modern game, is astounding. That is not supposed to be your standard; that's supposed to be your fluke, peak year. Outside of one season with 8 assists, Jordan's top per game number is 6.1. Who has the most seasons with 25 points, 6 assists and 6 rebounds? LeBron ... tied with Oscar Robertson, who played in an era where you could average 15 rebounds and still be second on your team. Larry Bird is third with four such seasons. Given his durability and the fact that he came into the league out of high school, he has a chance to put up career totals in assists like no one has given his position -- and to think he's starting to play more power forward. He has as many career assists as Deron Williams and he's a whisker behind Chris Paul and Tony Parker. Let that fact sink in. Those are point guards roughly the same age known for racking up a ton of assists.

What makes LeBron special, however, is how he's able to do this while rebounding like a power forward. If he stays healthy, he has a decent shot at 10,000 rebounds, which is a hallowed number previously reserved for interior players, not someone who shoots long jumpers, guards the perimeter and leads the team in assists. Oh and he's also the leading scorer. And he has a great shot at over 2000 steals, which only 11 other players have done.

This is more common in baseball, but you can mark exclusive groups with career stats. There are arbitrary cut-offs (people like round numbers), but it's a quick way to sort out the amazing careers. Let's choose 20,000 points, 5000 assists and 5000 rebounds. Who's there?

	1st season	Last season	Games	Minutes	Points	Rebounds	Assists
Jerry West	1961	1974	932	36571	25192	5366	6238
Oscar Robertson	1961	1974	1040	43886	26710	7804	9887
John Havlicek	1963	1978	1270	46471	26395	8007	6114
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1970	1989	1560	57446	38387	17440	5660
Larry Bird	1980	1992	897	34443	21791	8974	5695
Clyde Drexler	1984	1998	1086	37537	22195	6677	6125
Michael Jordan	1985	2003	1072	41011	32292	6672	5633
Karl Malone	1986	2004	1476	54852	36928	14968	5248
Gary Payton	1991	2007	1335	47117	21813	5269	8966
Kevin Garnett	1996	2013	1292	46872	24809	13576	5146
Kobe Bryant	1997	2013	1199	43845	30619	6330	5602

The group has only 11 members (12 very soon counting Lebron) and it's a storied group of tough point guards, super skilled or athletic wings and multi-faceted frontcourt players. Drexler is probably the biggest surprise, but he was an extremely good shooting guard who was overshadowed by someone named Jordan. If you look at the minutes here, most guys need exceptionally long careers to reach these marks with the exception of West and Bird. LeBron, however, is about to enter this group with under 29,000 minutes in his career.

You can make the group more "elite" by moving the filter up to 6000 rebounds and assists, and then it's only Robertson, Havlicek and Drexler. Robertson was a huge point guard known for averaging a triple double; Havlicek played super-human minutes and huge numbers of games; and Drexler was a better passer than people remember. Only Robertson makes for the "7000 group". You can also disqualify Drexler with a 25,000 points barrier.

Why does this matter? Is this just screwing around too much with numbers? Partially, but given LeBron's ironman reputation, his clean history of health, size and wealth of skills, if he does well in his 30's he could put together career totals that are singular and ridiculously amazing. Using John Hollinger's method of projecting career stats adapted from Bill James' favorite toy, you can estimate where LeBron's stats will end up and what chances he has of reaching certain milestones.

Given his age, height and expected level of output from his recent seasons, LeBron's on pace for 35,379 points, 9887 rebounds and 8897 assists. As you can surmise from the table, no one is even close to those numbers. If you include Kobe, only three players are in the 35,000 point range, only frontcourt players collect 10,000 rebounds and few point guards will have collected that many assists. In fact, Steve Nash was only the fifth guy to reach 10,000 assists, and LeBron (according to this method) has a 26% chance of reaching that group.

And Kareem's points records? He has a 33% chance of breaking that. No, it's not a remote possibility; it's one in three. There's actually a decent chance LeBron could break Kareem's record while netting 10,000 rebounds and assisting, carving out a niche that no one in history can even approach. Oscar Robertson is the closest, but given the insane pace of the 60's, meaning each game has more opportunities for picking up stats, his numbers are deflated. So essentially, LeBron is some accelerated version of Oscar Robertson, except that he plays defense and appears to have the body of Karl Malone. He's going to reach 20,000 points at a younger age than anyone else did, but it's the breadth of his career that's truly stunning.

(Durant? He actually has a lower chance at breaking the record, but that's probably because the method is conservative with young players. Kobe's even lower, but he's still at 28%. What this means is that the race to break Kareem's record could be crowded.)

Addendum: well, he did it. It's pretty amazing to consider he hit these marks in his prime, and he accomplished these in the same game. That's a big coincidence. It's a game for history.