The Argument That Lebron is the GOAT Is Running Out of Time
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game
12 min read
The article directly references this historic game and the conspiracy theories around it as a 'metonym' for how older basketball achievements are perceived. Understanding the full context of this legendary 1962 performance would enrich the reader's grasp of the legacy debate.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
14 min read
The article opens by comparing LeBron's current phase to 'Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar-in-goggles phase' - a reference to Kareem's own late-career longevity. Understanding Kareem's career arc and his own GOAT credentials provides valuable context for the longevity-vs-peak debate.
At 40 years old, LeBron James is in the Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar-in-goggles phase of his career. He has not committed to anything regarding his future next season; his basic character would suggest that he’ll be back, and the Los Angeles Lakers are a team uniquely addicted to stardom, so I’m guessing he’ll come back and with LA. If he doesn’t, there will be plenty of other teams who would love to host his farewell tour, whether that’s in 2026-2027, the following year, or who knows when. But he’s finally really diminishing as a player, with a dramatic decline in his shooting efficiency even on less volume, and he’s not playing well with the team’s best players. (He is now clearly the third-best player on the Lakers, after Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and any debate about this fact is based on nostalgia and tribalism.) This excellent deep dive looks into all the numbers. Of course, he’s still a useful player, and a unique one. To me, the absurd spectacle of him forcing his undeserving son onto his team’s roster in an act of bald nepotism is an embarrassing stain on his legacy, but his stature as a player is considerable.
Considerable, but not secured, and this is what I’ve come to tell you today. The “LeBron is the GOAT” people have been feeling emboldened in the last few years, as he’s played long enough to rack up a lot of counting-based stat records, even as his efficiency keeps slipping. (It was pretty funny when LeBron broke the record for most 30-point games in a career last season and his fans celebrated; it took him almost 500 more career games to surpass Michael Jordan’s record.) I think big LeBron James partisans, like Nick Wright of FS1, think that he’s building an unassailable legacy as the greatest ever. But in fact, the moment he retires, his case will begin to crumble. They all do, over time. After all, after Jordan retired in 1999, the idea that he could ever be surpassed as the greatest player ever was treated as an absurdity. Four years later, the player who many believe surpassed him was drafted. What I’m here to tell you today is that this is an inevitable process; in 20 years, surely, and maybe in 10, LeBron’s stature will have slipped considerably. Because perceptions of sports greatness are like grains of sand in an hourglass,
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