LeBron vs MJ: Who's More Clutch by the Numbers?

Boneman9000

LeBron vs MJ

Who’s More Clutch by the Numbers?

If you haven’t seen LeBron James’ 25 foot game winner to lift The Cavaliers over the Pacers in last night’s game five of the first round, stop reading this and take a look. I’ll wait…. OK, now that you’re back lets talk. I don’t think there’s anyone in the cities of Cleveland or Indianapolis for that matter that would disagree with this statement, “THAT was clutch!” LeBron led all players in points (44),  assists (8), and made free throws (15-15). Interestingly enough, he only attempted 4 three point shots while shooting 25% from the arch. If you haven’t done the math yet, *spoiler alert* the only three point shot he made was the buzzer beating-game winner over Thaddeus Young (who was subbed in specifically to guard LeBron. He never had a chance.) Even with all of that, the majority of NBA fans are not ready to say that LeBron “The King” James isn’t more clutch than Michael “Air Jeffrey” Jordan. Why not? maybe I can help you formulate your own opinion on the matter. 

Before we continue we need a measuring stick for clutch. For the sake of this comparison, I have chosen statistics that counted during clutch time. Lets review the NBA’s definition of clutch. The league defines clutch as the last five minutes of a game in which the point differential is 5 or less. Folks have discredited the theory of a player being “on fire”, but I disagree. Players can absolutely enter big head mode. Even NBA Jam tells us that! Inside of clutch-time gameplay I have chosen to pit the following stats against each other to see how they stack up: Clutch Games Played (minimum of 6), Win Percentage of those games, Points Per Game (and player’s rank for that time period), Field Goal percentage, Three Point percentage, Free Throw Percentage, and Double Doubles/Triple Doubles. I decided to take years in which both players won back to back championships. For MJ that means the ’96-’98 and for LeBron that means the ’11-’13 seasons.

Since LeBron James is the challenger in this argument, let’s start with his clutch-time games. During the time I measured above, LBJ played in 61 Regular season clutch games. In those games the Miami Heat had a record of 45-16 thus winning 74% of the time. In the playoffs of those years Miami had a 12-9 record in clutch-time games. They were able to squeeze out a win 57% of the time. Point taken. It’s harder to runaway with a playoff game unless you’re shooting a bunch of threes. We’re looking at you Golden State and Houston. Let’s look back to the mid 90’s Bulls for a second. During the period mentioned above the Jordan led Bulls weren’t shredding teams in clutch time. They were getting their work done early. During those two regular seasons, the Bulls combined to play in only 44 qualifying games with a respectable 64% win percentage. Looking at the Bulls playoff performance in those two seasons pulls back the curtain to reveal a possible point scored for MJ in this debate. The Bulls played 25 qualifying games and actually improved their win percentage from the regular season in these scenarios to 68%. In all four cases our candidates took home the Larry O’Brien championship and the Bill Russell MVP trophies, but one team did it better… Take that for data.

On to the next category which is always the first brought up in all arguments of this stature, that good ol’ PPG. Regular season LeBron scored 3.6 ppg on 44.5% shooting coupled with 33% from beyond the arch. In year one, he was 8th behind Kevin Durant, Joe Johnson, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Kyrie Irving , Jason Terry, and Kobe Bryant. OUCH! He came out on top at the end but you cant say his supporting cast didn’t carry some of the load as well. In year two he jumped up to 4th only behind CP3, KD, and Kyrie. Playoff LeBron scored 4 ppg on 40.5% from the floor. He was able to improve his 3pt percentage to a respectable 37% during the playoffs. During playoffs year one he was 3rd in scoring behind Kobe and CP3 while in year two, he led the league in clutch time playoff scoring. And Here comes MJ! I knew before gathering the data that this category should be a win for His Airness but it was fun to find out. In the measured regular seasons, MJ combined for 4.9 ppg on 41.8% from the floor. Do you really want to know his combined 3pt percentage? I know he couldn’t shoot but I didn’t think it’d be that bad (17.5%). Sheesh! Not even the shortened 3pt line of the ’96-’97 season would help him here! Lets move on. During each of the regular seasons MJ was either 1st in clutch scoring or tied for 1st. Honorable mention for the great Hakeem Olajuwon for tying MJ in that first regular season. Playoff MJ aka ‘The Goat’, was able to boost his scoring output to 5.2 ppg while also improving his Field Goal percentage drastically to 47.5%. Jordan Rules? I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned that playoff MJ was able to find a way to capitalize on the shortened 3pt line in the ’97 playoffs by improving to 25%. A player playing by his own set of rules between he and the refs while shooting above 45% from the floor AND hitting from deep on occasion? Talk about being on pins and needles as a defender.

Let me ask you a question. If someone told you you could take something from them for free just because of your skill level/status in your profession, would you take it? If you answered No, your name might be LeBron James. His struggles at the Free Throw line have been well documented. He drives the lane too often/hard to not perform well at the charity stripe. If I were a coach with my team needing to foul, I would point out the players shooting under 80%. In the ’11-’12 regular season and playoffs, that was LeBron James. He shot 71% and 74% respectively. In the playoffs of the measured seasons he was able to get his FT% up to a combined 79.3%. In a playoff environment, that’s enough for a team to pick someone else to foul. Micheal Jordan was the model of consistency at the stripe shooting a combined 80% for the the measured regular and post seasons.

Now we all know in crunch time the motto was get the ball to Jordan and get out of the way. I feel as though I’d be missing something if I didn’t add this wrinkle into the piece. Everyone knew the ball was going to Jordan and you couldn’t stop him. With LeBron you know you have to play the passing lanes as well but for some reason his assists per game dropped between the measured regular seasons and post seasons. This is once again a knock on the argument that LeBron may be close to passing MJ for the title of Mr. Clutch. It's not that LeBron wasn’t passing the ball, its just that his teammates outside of Mike Miller and Ray Allen couldn’t hit a shot after receiving one of his many nerve racking passes in crunch time. As a Heat fan, seeing LeBron leap in the air for a contested layup knowing that the two best shooters on the team are being hugged to death then deciding last minute to pass out to one of the other players tasking them with a potential game winning jump shot just wasn’t fair. Often times the result was not desirable. Seems like his court vision wouldn’t receive the playoff LeBron Bump that everything else did. He was able to average 1.1 assists during the combined regular seasons but that number dropped in the playoffs to .7 assists.

So far LeBron has the edge when it comes to putting the team on his back in close games and gutting out a win. I’ve come to that conclusion by my observations in Clutch Games Played and his win percentages. Some of this edge is due to the amount of games each candidate has played. Some of it is due to the changing in the style of the NBA at large. Whichever case you believe in more strongly, one cannot ignore the fact that LeBron combined for 28 double doubles and 3 triple doubles in the measured regular seasons. Did you catch that? LeBron had a double double in 46% of his clutch time performances those two seasons. In the playoffs He was able to gobble up 11 double doubles. The King was able to show up when the Heat needed him most with 3 playoff triple doubles all in the 2013 post season. All the categories point back to Michael Jordan to continue to sit upon the throne surrounded by his 6 Larry O’Briens each with a Bill Russell attached, and the scepter that reads Mr. Clutch.