LeBron James is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer across all schedules, both regular season and playoffs, a feat that only adds to the 21-year legacy of the league. At 38 years old, he averaged 29 points per game, which is unprecedented for a player of his age.
However, as time went on, the controversy over positioning the “King” as a complaining player grew more intense. But what do advanced statistics say about the fouls he received?
There’s an idea that LeBron James is a player protected by the referees and has some favoritism, so we wanted to know if that’s the case: The answer is no.
Throughout his career, LeBron’s shooting foul rate has averaged 15.7%. In other words, as an NBA player, the Los Angeles Lakers star has been fouled by referees in his favor nearly 16 times for every 100 times he drives to the basket. The plain fact is this: Over the past three years, the rate has dropped to 12.2%.
This means that over the past three years, James has been called for fewer fouls and therefore has been to the free throw line less often. This statistic stands in stark contrast to the notion that referees showed some favoritism toward LeBron and that his complaints were taken seriously.
But that’s not all. Taking into account the past three years, LeBron James is the second player to score the most points near the basket (0 to 4 feet, or just over 1 meter) with 1,496 points. Just behind him is Giannis Antetokounmpo, who scored 2,032 goals in the final zone.
However, despite James scoring so many points at the rim, he has the second-highest foul rate behind Anthony Edwards, who was called for a foul only 11.1 percent of the time he scored in that area.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are still far away from a collection rate that would benefit LeBron James. The highest number of payments in his favor was in the 2009-2010 season, reaching almost 20%. From there, the numbers began to decline until he played for the Miami Heat during the 2012-2013 season. When he returned to Ohio State, the collection rate in his favor rose again to 17% during the 2016-2017 season.
What does LeBron James’ 2023-202 season look like?
In his 21st season as an NBA player, LeBron James averaged no less than 25.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists in 35.9 minutes per game, scoring in two of the six games he played. Over 30 points. Additionally, there’s a statistic that proves his effectiveness: He joins Michael Jordan as the only player over the age of 38 to average more than 24 points per game.