LeBron vs Jordan, One-on-One, in Their Primes

With LeBron reaching his seventh straight NBA Finals, the age-old debate remains: who is better? LeBron or Jordan?

This post isn't looking to answer that question. What it does attempt to answer is this: who would win a game of one-on-one? Last year I created a play-by-play basketball simulator and adapted it to simulate games of pickup, projecting Steph Curry to beat LeBron James in a battle of the best players in the NBA. I've adapted this simulator again, pairing off LeBron and Jordan in their primes in a game of one-on-one.

The first step though is identifying their respective "primes". I compiled the career statistics for each player from Basketball Reference and looked at the best PER seasons for each. I took the top three seasons (per PER) to get metrics such as shooting percentages, rebounding rates, steal rates, etc and averaged them to use as the inputs into the simulator. One thing that is incredibly striking is the eerie similarity for these two GOAT candidates in their top seasons:

Player	Year	Age	PER		Player	Year	Age	PER
Jordan	1987-88	24	31.7		LeBron	2008-09	24	31.7
Jordan	1988-89	25	31.1		LeBron	2009-10	25	31.1
Jordan	1990-91	27	31.6		LeBron	2012-13	28	31.6
Jordan			31.5		LeBron			31.5

Their top 3 PER seasons are exactly the same, at virtually the same ages. 

As before, the pickup rules I used are as follows: 

1. Standard pickup scoring is applied: 2's and 1's (3-pointers count as 2, 2-pointers count as 1)
2. No free throws. You don't shoot free throws in pickup
3. The games are to 21, win by 2

Jordan has a definitive defensive edge, and even though LeBron isn't exactly considered a sharp shooting three-point shooter, he shoots them way more often than Jordan did in his day.

Player	Year	Age	PER	3P Avg	2P Avg	3P Ratio	OReb	DReb	Steal	Block
Jordan	1987-88	24	31.7	13.21%	54.60%	2.65%	4.80%	10.70%	3.90%	2.40%
Jordan	1988-89	25	31.1	27.55%	55.33%	5.46%	5.50%	17.30%	3.60%	1.20%
Jordan	1990-91	27	31.6	31.18%	55.10%	5.06%	4.60%	14.30%	3.70%	1.70%
Jordan			31.5	23.98%	55.01%	4.39%	4.97%	14.10%	3.73%	1.77%
Player	Year	Age	PER	3P Avg	2P Avg	3P Ratio	OReb	DReb	Steal	Block
LeBron	2008-09	24	31.7	34.38%	53.46%	23.81%	4.30%	19.00%	2.40%	2.40%
LeBron	2009-10	25	31.1	33.33%	56.00%	25.33%	3.00%	18.50%	2.20%	2.00%
LeBron	2012-13	28	31.6	40.55%	60.18%	18.76%	4.40%	20.80%	2.40%	1.90%
LeBron			31.5	36.09%	56.55%	22.63%	3.90%	19.43%	2.33%	2.10%

LeBron benefits immensely from the 2's and 1's scoring, and over 10,000 simulations he wins the game of pickup 55.75% of the time by an average score of 21-19.