Player Rank: LeBron & Jordan At Age 39

LeBron James just turned 39 years old a few days ago. Let’s take a look at where he ranks as he enters the last year in his thirties. We will also retroactively take a look back at where Michael Jordan was at the same point in his career as well for a comparison.

Preseason

Back in the preseason we ranking LeBron 12th heading into the season. LeBron was coming off of a foot injury late in the 2022-23 season, and had seen an ever so slight regression statistically.

As you can see many of his key stats had dropped from 5th in the NBA to about 15th. These are still great numbers and 15th is elite. We felt like ranking LeBron 12th was pretty fair considering you would expect regression at this age, which was natural, and that we may see another ever so slight step back.

We’ll so far we were wrong. Not only did LeBron not stagnate or regress more, he has actually improved in most of the key statistics, something unheard of at his advanced age.

That along with many of his other ranks has us reconsidering that 12th ranking in the preseason. 

Who We Would Rank Ahead of Him

We are basing this just on who we would want the rest of the season and though this years playoffs. Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid would be our 1a and 1b on a tier to themselves. We’d still go Jokic just because he’s proven in the playoffs and more durable.

This seems like the list to me, of where the best players in the NBA are at this moment heading into the rest of the season. We do think Davis is just as important to the Lakers and defense at this point. We would rank Kawhi over LeBron if the injuries were less of a question mark. Playoff Jimmy also got a lot of consideration, but he’s also aging at 34 years old as well and hasn’t been as good individually this season as he was last (27.6 PER last year, 20.5 PER this year). LeBron feels like he is a top 10 player in the NBA at worst. Possibly as high as 4th or 5th. That’s the range I think could argue for him in and 7th is splitting most of the difference.

Where did Jordan Rank at 39

Michael Jordan turned 39 years old on Febuary 17th of his first season back from retirement. When Michael Jordan came back at age 38 from retirement for the 2nd time after three years with the Wizards, he had a very strong start to the season. Jordan was averaging 25.6ppg, 6.3rpg, 5.4apg, and the Wizards were 26-21 and had won 7 straight before he tore his meniscus. He would play on another 13 games that season and tank his stats. 

Jordan returned the following season for his age 39 season which is the season LeBron is currently in the mist of per basketball reference (their cut off is half way the season). At the time many considered Jordan to be still a top 20 player. Let’s take a look at some of the metrics.

Ball parking it I would say more like 30 to 40th. He didn’t have the same athletic pop you see with LeBron and defensively he was playing small forwards and was a little undersized for the era there with diminished athletic ability. He was impressive for his age, but not a player that could be the lead dog on a playoff team anymore. We could blame the talent around him, but he wasn’t efficient and had a true shooting of .491%. Their seems to be a before the meniscus injury and after. It seemed to take a lot off of Jordan’s game, but so did father time.