8. LeBron James
LeBron turned 32 on December 30th, and this new post-30 LeBron isn't the one that dominates the league with individual jaw-dropping stat-lines and PER numbers. He now dominates the league in a different sense: with his team rather than with himself.
By any metric, of course, LeBron James in and of himself is easily enjoying another top-10 individual season: his PER of 26.42 ranks eleventh among all qualified players, and his Value Added and Estimated Wins Added figures are good for eighth across the NBA thus far this season. His season averages of 25.6 points, 8.7 assists, and 7.9 rebounds per game on the surface don't stand out as too jaw-dropping when compared with the stat lines that Russell Westbrook or James Harden are posting these days, and his percentages -- 51.1/38.4/67.8 (FG% / 3P% / FT%) -- are again solid for James' own standards.
[Actually, the free throw percentage, it should be noted, is quite the strange anomaly to a rather consistent 74-ish percentage that James has had in years past and is the lowest such mark of his career; one would reasonably expect that over the course of the season, LeBron's odd 68.4% free throw percentage will regress to his own personal mean].
But its clear that James has molded himself into the ultimate team player. His 38.4 three-point percentage -- a very high mark relative to the league average of one or two percentage points over a third -- is the second-highest such mark of LeBron's career. 38.4%, in fact, is 4.3 percentage points higher than The King's career average and a drastic improvement over last season's dismal 30.9%. Becoming a deadly three-point threat has allowed James to move to more of an off-ball role on offense if need be; after all, he does play on the same team as Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Speaking of which, James' 8.7 assists per game is also the highest of his career, which speaks volumes about his new type of team-first offensive role. Thus James is not quite padding his stats like some of the others on this list, but he does rank among the best in the most important statistic of all: his Cleveland Cavaliers are 26-7 (0.788) and tops in the Eastern Conference.
LeBron turned 32 on December 30th, and this new post-30 LeBron isn't the one that dominates the league with individual jaw-dropping stat-lines and PER numbers. He now dominates the league in a different sense: with his team rather than with himself.
By any metric, of course, LeBron James in and of himself is easily enjoying another top-10 individual season: his PER of 26.42 ranks eleventh among all qualified players, and his Value Added and Estimated Wins Added figures are good for eighth across the NBA thus far this season. His season averages of 25.6 points, 8.7 assists, and 7.9 rebounds per game on the surface don't stand out as too jaw-dropping when compared with the stat lines that Russell Westbrook or James Harden are posting these days, and his percentages -- 51.1/38.4/67.8 (FG% / 3P% / FT%) -- are again solid for James' own standards.
[Actually, the free throw percentage, it should be noted, is quite the strange anomaly to a rather consistent 74-ish percentage that James has had in years past and is the lowest such mark of his career; one would reasonably expect that over the course of the season, LeBron's odd 68.4% free throw percentage will regress to his own personal mean].
But its clear that James has molded himself into the ultimate team player. His 38.4 three-point percentage -- a very high mark relative to the league average of one or two percentage points over a third -- is the second-highest such mark of LeBron's career. 38.4%, in fact, is 4.3 percentage points higher than The King's career average and a drastic improvement over last season's dismal 30.9%. Becoming a deadly three-point threat has allowed James to move to more of an off-ball role on offense if need be; after all, he does play on the same team as Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Speaking of which, James' 8.7 assists per game is also the highest of his career, which speaks volumes about his new type of team-first offensive role. Thus James is not quite padding his stats like some of the others on this list, but he does rank among the best in the most important statistic of all: his Cleveland Cavaliers are 26-7 (0.788) and tops in the Eastern Conference.
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