LeBron James: Twenty Years of Dominance

LeBron's 20-year career is remarkable for its consistency. Let me pull his averages across all seasons.

The orange line shows his scoring - started at 20.6 PPG as a rookie, peaked at 30.8 in his third year, and has stayed between 23-28 for essentially his entire career. Most players decline sharply after 30. LeBron barely dipped. His rebounds and assists have been steady around 7-8 per game throughout.

Three teams across his career - but the distribution is heavily weighted toward Cleveland.

Over 1,000 games in Cleveland across two stints (2003-2010, 2014-2018), 412 with the Miami Heat during the championship years (2010-2014), and 311 with the Lakers (2018-2022). He's essentially a Cavalier who took two extended road trips.

Great question. Let me look at his three-point attempt rate over time.

He absolutely evolved with the league. Started at 2.7 three-point attempts per game in 2003, dipped to 2.6 during the 2011 lockout-shortened season, then climbed steadily - hitting 7.0 attempts per game in 2021. That's a 160% increase. He went from a player who attacked the rim to someone comfortable launching from deep.

This is where his longevity really shows.

46,600 points in this dataset - 14,000 more than Kevin Durant in second place. That's not a gap, that's a canyon. Durant, Carmelo Anthony, James Harden, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry - all all-time greats - and none of them are even close. Longevity at elite performance creates separation that's almost impossible to overcome.

His peak scoring years were concentrated in his first Cleveland stint, but he's had top-10 seasons across all three teams.

2005 Cleveland was his scoring peak - 30.8 PPG at age 20. Six of his top 10 scoring seasons came with Cleveland, two with Miami, and one each with LA and his second Cleveland run. What stands out is the consistency - his 10th-best season (26.3 PPG) would still be the career peak for most players. He's never had a 'down' year by normal standards.