The Weird Greatness of LeBron James

LeBron James is about to achieve one of the biggest feats in professional sports—he is going to become the all-time leading scorer in NBA history. In the next couple of weeks he will pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and have the record for most points ever. Nobody thought that record would ever be broken—and nobody really thought LeBron would come close to it. He did it through sheer longevity. He’s in his 20th season, and he is still playing at a high level. He was never considered all that great as a pure scorer, in the way that Kevin Durant is. LeBron was always considered a great player—especially a passer—but he wasn’t known as a pure scorer with all-time shot-making skills. He doesn’t even have a signature move. Kareem had the skyhook, and Karl Malone (the #3 all-time scoring leader) had a turnaround/fadeaway that was unstoppable. What’s LeBron’s move? He doesn’t have one.

Yet he’s the greatest scorer of all-time (or will be in a couple weeks). But it doesn’t feel like it. I saw some article a while ago that ranked the three most influential NBA players of the last 20 years (basically the post-Jordan era). And LeBron wasn’t one of them. It was Kobe, Allen Iverson, and Steph Curry. And as crazy as it seems for LeBron to be left off, it still seems right. Kobe, Iverson, and Curry were more influential than LeBron. LeBron was (still is) better than all of them. But he isn’t as influential.

Why is that? Well part of it is that he doesn’t have a signature move. AI had the crossover. Kobe was Kobe. He’s beyond even needing a signature move (though he had plenty). And Curry changed the game with his outside shooting.

A whole generation of kids grew up wanting to play like Kobe, Iverson, and Curry. But I don’t think that’s the case with LeBron. Nobody watches LeBron and thinks, yeah, that’s how I want to play.

It isn’t that his playing style is unappealing, it’s just that it’s so inaccessible. You have to be LeBron to play like LeBron. It isn’t something that can be replicated. To play like LeBron, you must have the strength of Wilt Chamberlain crossed with the athleticism of Julius Erving and the court vision of Magic Johnson. It’s doubtful that any mortal will be blessed with all of those things that LeBron has ever again.

Everyone agrees that LeBron is the greatest. He’s right after Michael Jordan in the all-time rankings. But even that is unfair to LeBron. His numbers are better than Jordan’s except for championships (MJ has 6 and LeBron has 5). By any reasonable measure, LeBron is the #1 of all-time. But Jordan of course was more influential than any athlete ever, with the possible exception of Babe Ruth.

LeBron isn’t like that though. He has a greatness that is removed from us. We can all see it, but it isn’t something that we can take hold of like we can with the greatness of other players. It’s a purely objective greatness. No kids are out there dreaming about being the next LeBron. You can’t step onto a basketball court and feel the influence of LeBron while you’re playing, like you can with Kobe, Iverson, or Curry.

But as objective as LeBron’s greatness is, it isn’t even something you can really enjoy. He complains so much that it kind of ruins it and makes it all absurd. He’s played on four teams, more than any of the all-time great players. Kareem just played for two (the Bucks and Lakers). Kobe was just a Laker his whole career, Karl Malone was just in Utah. Larry Bird and Bill Russell were just in Boston. Jordan was just in Chicago (his weird couple years as a 45 year old on the Wizards don’t count). And LeBron had to make a superteam to win his first title. (He started the superteam trend). No other great player really did that. So his greatness is compromised in those ways too.

So LeBron is the leading scorer of all time, and one of the top 3 greatest players ever. But his greatness isn’t something that has really influenced people. And though his greatness is an objective fact, it feels cheap because he played on four teams and had to make a superteam to win.

In all of this, he feels like the perfect superstar for the neoliberal period. Efficiency that is objectively effective but somehow distant from us, and cold; individualistic and mostly just about an individual’s journey from place to place rather than a collective team effort. Maybe the defining thing about LeBron will always be The Decision, when he held a TV special announcing if he was going to leave his hometown Cleveland team or stay there, and he said he was “taking his talents to South Beach” (meaning the Miami Heat). This was one of the most narcissistic and tone-deaf things ever.

And this is the weird thing about LeBron—even though he is all about himself, he still isn’t that influential on the players of tomorrow. Or maybe that isn’t surprising—he is so self-contained and self-focused, that nobody can find any way in.