LeBron vs Jordan
Posted: 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: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.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:
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:
Code: Select all
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
The ratio 292/179 is right around 16/10, so we can check every 10th MJ game vs every 16th-ranked game by LBJ.
Code: Select all
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
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:
Code: Select all
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