LeBron vs Jordan

Mike G · Post by **Mike G** » Wed Sep 03, 2025 7:39 pm

Two guys whose postseasons are even more dominant than their regular seasons, and who are most often said to be greatest of all time.
Comparing their playoff game records. Competition varies and must be considered in playoffs. The one stat that covers this is BPM.
For this exercise (and others) I'm using bpmG which is game BPM * minutes/48.
Their 10 best playoff games:

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bpmG    Jordan     Opp   min   BPM      bpmG    LeBron     Opp   min   BPM
23.7   5/13/1989   NYK   39   29.2      30.3   5/09/2009   ATL   43   33.7
22.4   4/29/1992   MIA   43   25.0      25.4   5/20/2009   ORL   41   29.6
22.2   5/31/1993   NYK   39   27.3      22.0   4/25/2010   CHI   36   29.0
21.8   5/27/1989   DET   45   23.2      21.4   5/31/2007   DET   50   20.4
21.7   5/05/1988   CLE   42   24.8      20.9   6/16/2016   GSW   43   23.5
21.4   4/20/1986   BOS   53   19.4      20.3   10/9/2020   MIA   42   23.2
20.8   6/03/1992   POR   34   29.4      20.1   5/31/2018   GSW   48   20.3
20.7   5/01/1988   CLE   44   22.6      20.1   5/15/2012   IND   43   22.5
20.0   6/05/1991   LAL   36   26.6      20.0   5/05/2009   ATL   34   28.0
18.4   5/10/1991   PHI   42   21.0      20.0   5/22/2023   DEN   48   20.0

Since LeBron has played 292 playoff games to Jordan's 179, we'd expect him to have more good games, bad games, etc. Outside 2 monster games in 2009, they're pretty even here.
The ratio 292/179 is right around 16/10, so we can check every 10th MJ game vs every 16th-ranked game by LBJ.

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LeBron          Jordan
rk    bpmG     bpmG    rk
16    18.7     18.4    10
32    16.8     16.4    20
48    13.9     15.1    30
64    13.0     13.9    40
80    11.7     12.8    50
96    11.0     12.0    60
112   10.2     11.4    70
128    9.8     10.6    80
144    9.1      9.2    90
160    8.3      8.6   100
176    7.3      7.8   110
192    6.3      7.3   120
208    5.7      6.2   130
224    4.3      5.9   140
240    3.0      4.6   150
256    1.9      3.5   160
272    0.2      0.7   170
288   -4.6     -2.8   176

Jordan's career BPM is 11.1 - 10.0 LeBron, so this is right around expectation.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... -advanced/
MJ's playoffs were all from age 21 to 34. LeBron's playoff BPM in that age range was 10.2

LeBron's huge volume of playoff games are assets in the comparison, so here they compare in brief, straight-up; every 20th game:

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Lebron  rk   Mike
18.1    20   16.4
15.2    40   13.9
13.2    60   12.0
11.7    80   10.6
10.9   100    8.6
10.1   120    7.3
9.2    140    5.9
8.3    160    3.5