Michael Jordan is the Greatest Scorer Ever.... And Its Not Even Close 

Numbers are accurate as of early December

Jordan wasn't spending a million dollars a year to keep his body healthy so he could pile up stats hoping that eventually everyone would say he was the greatest. He knew he was and he never had to say it

MJ did this in hand checking era without proper spacing on offense. era where 3 pointers are not as prevalent with athletic big men roaming in the paint. 90s and early 2000s are also probably the slowest pace era which means less easy buckets because defenses are already set when crossing the half court most of the time. I guess he was truly one of a kind, makes sense why people think he is the GOAT.

For me you ca't be the greatest scorer of all time if you can't even be the greatest scorer of a season. Dude has only one scoring champ title. And isn't he supposed to be a "first pass" player? Or that just works when it's appropiate for the narrative you're pushing? And, of course, players nowadays score more. The league is oriented to that. Greenlight to shoot and put points on the scoreboard and punish defence, if anyone defends.

Nice work. I would concentrate more on rTS%, or TS% relative to league average for the era. MJ's prime was around 58% but in an era where the average was 52-53%. KD and LeBron are in the low 60s in an era where the average is closer to 58%. There's a few reasons why efficiency has skyrocketed, for a long time the 3 point shot was much more efficient than the two, it was just worth more than its difficulty implied. As teams started to appreciate this fact they started shooting the three more and more and more. So it inflates TS%. You also need to consider how the league treats its defensive players....in the early 2000s they were the gods of the court, allowed to run riot....now they are treated like lepers, barely allowed to do anything lest they be whistled for a foul. It's so, so much easier to score nowadays.....I mean, even Luka has said as much. It's a big reason why you are seeing so many modern players in your lists....well that and the fact they are all in or near their primes and their numbers have yet to be dealt the devastating blow that a player's twilight years delivers to a player's career stats. It's amazing that despite all those advantages the modern players are blessed with, that MJ still comes out on top. Crazy. You could somewhat compensate for this by, as you suggest, looking at pace but also by looking at team scoring and, again, relative true shooting percentages. Combine the three to normalise scoring across eras. Not perfect, and probably something a statistician would poke a thousand holes in but at least it works as a rough guide.... So, taking LeBron and Jordan's age 38/39 season for instance. One is being played this current season, with all those advantages I outlined above, the other was played in the early 2000s, the absolute peak era of defensive basketball and incredibly slow pace. Jordan though suffered a bad knee injury during this season which severely hampered his play, so lets look at his numbers prior to the injury. The raw numbers: Lebron - 25.2ppg on 63.7% true shooting MJ - 24.6ppg on 47.1% true shooting Similar scoring, massive difference in efficiency. But let's take pace into consideration: Lakers play at a 100.4 pace so LeBron's numbers convert to a scoring rate of 25.1ppg for a standardised pace of 100. Wizards pace was 88.3 which converts Jordan's scoring to 27.9ppg at a 100 pace. Now we need to look at team scoring because scoring 30 a game on a team scoring 90 a game is much more impressive than doing it on a team scoring 120 a night. Team scoring is a reflection of the overall ease or difficulty for scoring at the time. Lakers score 114.0ppg. LeBron's 25.2ppg represents 22.1% of his team's scoring. Again, using 100 as the standard, and using the pace adjusted number, that converts to 22.0ppg. Wizards scored 92.8ppg so MJ's scoring, at a pace and team scoring rate of 100, converts to 30.1ppg. Big difference so far.....but, we need to make our final consideration, rTS% and it's lucky MJ has that big lead. LeBron's efficiency is elite, his 63.7% true shooting is great even in a league that averages 57.8%. His rTS% is 110% (or +10%). His final normalised scoring average is therefore 24.2ppg. Jordan's 47.1% came in a league averaging 52.0%, his rTS% was therefore just 90% (-10%) so his final scoring average adjusts to 27.1ppg. With everything considered, along with the fact MJ was coming back from 3 years of retirement, not anywhere near basketball shape, with broken ribs thanks to MWP and that nagging knee which needed to be drained every other night, to still score at that adjusted rate is just phenomenal.

Based on the raw numbers, Chamberlain is the best in the season and Jordan is the best in the playoffs. When we adjust the raw numbers for contextual differences in each era, Jordan is clearly superior in both the season and playoffs.

Lebroon scored average is 27 PPG in the 110 Points games MJ scored 30 PPG in the only 90 PPG era

Problem with lebron is he's like 37% from outside of 3 feet. It works because there's no bigs in the nba today. Lebron is literally usually the biggest dude on the court. But if people like d robinson, ewing, or shaq were parked down low, he couldnt get away with that

He doesnt have enough scoring titles. He just has longevity.

I hope everyone has a great time with their dads on Father's Day yesterday. Life is short, life hard, great video, encourage others, keep grinding, keep it up, keep your head up when life brings you down, and don't pretend to be anyone but yourself.

I’m so glad you made this video. This exactly mirrors how I think of scoring and I’ve never heard it explained better with as much nuance in a video. Why do you think most people underrate LeBron as a scorer when it should be clear as day? There’s always something to discredit him and it usually has to do with the kinds of shots he creates being easier looks, but that argument sounds completely backwards to me.

Stats are funny because... players score more points (per 100 possessions) today than they did in the 90's 😂😂 So what we need is, per 100 stats relative to era. As a whole the league scores more on a per possession bases, so this doesn't properly take ERA into account. In my opinion.

Dont get me wrong LeBron can put the ball in the hoop and is the all time leading scorer, and this isnt me trashing him just giving my honest take, but he's tier 3 and should be swapped with Kobe. This isnt a Kobe>LBJ thing either, but you conveniently left out shooting % from certain spots on the floor. You have to be able to score outside of the restricted area, which LeBron does at 37%, to where Kobe shoots 40%+. Like i said Bron is the leading scorer, but he shoots 70%+ within 0-3 feet otherwise he shoots 37% outside of that, without even mentioning his FT%. I value scoring in a variety of ways at an efficient clip over mass scoring in 1 or 2 ways when conversing the greatest scorer of all time.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today.

God bless you and your family and friends too, God is real, God loves you, God never leaves you nor forsake you, and God is your best friend ever.

The only big change I would make in this list would be to put Kobe up one tier with Lebron and KD

Total points are pointless if they don’t harvest a championship!!😂😂😂 It is like saying that farmer is the best because he throws the most seed in the field!😂😂

Love this breakdown! The only major difference I would make is to move Steph up by at least one tier!

30 ppg is where the bar was set. Lebron has been coming up short for 20+ years

You have to factor in the lacc of defense in the modern game. Scoring 30 today is nowhere near as difficult as scoring 30 in 1997. You put any old school scorer in todays game and they put up 2k numbers as well. I hate where the game is going with everybody scoring ridiculous amount of points, it waters down the impact of scoring stats in general

Rules on how you score boost today's numbers

With the modern day weak, soft NBA rules many players will get to be able to play more years. Giannis, Curry, Luka, Jokic can all play till old age and average 20 to 25 pts a night easy.

In points per minute LeBron is 10th, MJ is 3rd WITHOUT TRIPLES!!!!! Embid is first, Doncic second... And most of the top 10 are still active, so they can go down...

LeBron better than KD? LMFAO

High level scoring?! (0-3ft), can't shoot free throws, teams dare him to shoot 3 cuz he wasnt gonna make em, travelling...what to look for the perfect

Real Stats: Per 100 points x TS%... Relative to the rest of the league. Take that number and make it relative. Even these advanced stats clearly favor modern players, I feel like I'm the only one who can do the math.

This is a fairly good video. However, a truely perfect best scorer comparison is impossible due to rule changes in different eras. You can get a shooting foul for barely touching a guy during a shot these days. People clear a path when someone is running at the basket to dunk. It's rare to see dunks contested. Nobody wants to be on a poster because it's bad for business. That's why IMO there are so many current players on the per 100 list.

MJ 30.1 best all time 10scoring titles debate over🤷 oh yeah and 33.3 in playoffs...

Thank you for creating and sharing this video. Let me add on to further understand how today's players are scoring more please see the video "The Evolution of the Rules" that has video evidence how the rules of the game have changed, been blurred and outright ignored, thus enabling the players on offense to have a distinct advantage. Thanks!!!

whatare the asterisks

@9:06 You gotta be trolling right? Like this is not a serious point you were trying to make no way. Also what is this video even about? Is anybody trying to argue Bron is a better scorer than MJ? Bron wouldn’t even argue that.

The only Problem MJ had was that no one set a bar for him to overachieve like he himself did for Kobe, LeBron and all the other guys that came after him. He never wanted to set a record by stats.. and even more impressive than his ppg stat is that he could score no matter what it wasn’t like harden where everybody knew guard him and the rockets are off.. you just couldn’t handle Jordan if you play defense on him hard he would even play better this man was a maniac. No disrespect LeBron is the second greatest of all time everyone denying that is as stupid as not taking MJ as there GOAT. 1. MJ 2. LeBron Everyone below is debatable.

Whether your GOAT is Bron, MJ, Wilt, Magic/Bird (I refuse to separate them), Russell, TD, Russell, Kareem... one thing any reasonable person can agree on is that LeBron is the greatest 38-39 year old player of all time. And yeah - he was also the greatest 18-19 year old ever. I still say Jordan is the GOAT. His prime is just that much better. But i can honestly say LeBron James is the best teenager the NBA has ever known; and next year he'll be the best 40 year old ever. It's not just the longevity, it's that he's never not been great. That's messed up 😅 even MJ was shitty by his standards in the Wizards Years.

Wow, that's surprising that this era scores a lot, specifically there's no defense at all, 😂😂😂

All the MJ meat riders in this comment section. It’s so embarrassing. If yall were so confident in MJ, you wouldn’t discredit LeBron every second you get.

MJ=goat

No. No no no. Nope. Nuh uh. Never.

Melo was the best USA player ever 30 in a quarter smh top 10 all time scoring ask players melo is in yhe top 5 scorer

Stop it basketball is more than just scoring

Easier scoring league.....

Wtf 25 its mediocre thats it

Lebron cant score score 😂

It's all a waste of energy 🤷he the worst scorer we've ever seen

What’s this? Anther jokeof a video