LeBron James has played against 35.5% of all players in NBA history
The stat was on the Lakers broadcast last night. There are also 82 active players who were born after his debut including names like Wemby and Flagg
Wonder what it would look like for Robert Parrish, has to be close; but likely a little lower due to expansion
For reference LeBron is only 34 games from passing Parrish for all time lead in games played
Probably significantly smaller due to the league being 10% smaller (27 to 30 teams) and due to the rosters being about 20% smaller (12 to 15) plus two ways. Thats without considering nba player career length which I think is shorter now?
Just on my two numbers you go from 449ish others each year vs 323
We can also add in that LeBron actually played against more people within these games because he played a significant more amount of minutes. Playing on the court with the opposing player would make this gap grow even further. LeBron has played more than 14k more minutes than Parrish. Luka has played 16k total minutes to put that into perspective of the gap.
Is this really by per minute tracking, does the data go back that far? I’d have to imagine it’s easier to just go by who played in each game for either team
While I’ve already considered your first point, the second point is kind of moot, as roster spots 13-15 are reserves who don’t dress, so he hasn’t played anyone from 13-15, and if those are counting it’s a bad stat
It’s one thing to count everyone 1-12 who could’ve played, vs saying he “played” against someone in street clothes
So I’d say it goes from 359 to 323, but your point still stands
Not sure if that changes people’s perception of the stat but this stat is definitely counting all rostered players regardless of playing time
I’m not sure you’re right, but rostered and able to play are very different, 13-15 never played against him
I think in general you’re always going to get the more impressive stat. I don’t really see why you wouldn’t count rostered but inactive players (spots 14 and 15) that are rostered but would count a player who didn’t play in the actual game.
I agree with you, but as mentioned, it’s hard, albeit not impossible, to know every player who got at least one play against him. at least those players dressed.
13-15 are like a healthy scratch for hockey, and it doesn’t count for games played
idk about never. maybe some games the opposing team had lots of injuries and had to play some of their deeper reserves
No, 13-15 aren’t eligible, you can only dress 12
yes, but who those 3 players are isn’t constant. he can play a team’s “15th man” if the team does decide to dress them in a later game
I meant never in reference to individual games, it would be pretty easy to exclude all DNPs
The ease of calculating this determines the stat you get.
Either you track all his play by play stats and look at every player when he was on the floor or you do the simpler thing where you track who who on the roster when the two teams played each other.
Or you do the even simpler thing where you track number of rostered players after LeBron was drafted.
I bet you it’s the last method.
Garbage in, garbage out, stats are only as good as there collection method. I love a good stat. This is a cool thing to hear, but as you dive deeper, you realize it’s probably not a great stat, more of a neat anecdote.
And I’m taking nothing away from LeBron, just questioning the stat as it is.
Either way, lebron has face more of the NBA than anyone but Vince Carter, and when he had retired it was closer to 40%
Given another season or two he adds this to his long list of career achievements
Pfft. The first NBA players played against almost 100% of the NBA players in history (at the time).
Yeah barely 1⁄3, what a scrub. Legacy points deducted. 📉
Was there less turnover in the league’s first 35 years or something? I guess that would make sense
This seems a little high unless we’re just talking about rostered players on opponents - not necessarily guys who played at the same time as Lebron was on the court.
The core 10 guys on rosters don’t change a lot year to year - basically the league adds another 30 guys or so every year that will crack a 10-man rotation. So if in year 1 Lebron played about 300 guys, then a fresh 30 for each of the next 20 as guys rotate in, I’d guess he actually played against more like 1000. Which is 20% of the league history’s 5000.
However, if you started counting those 11th and 12th guys on the bench who are constantly streaming in and out of the league and most probably didn’t see minutes against Lebron… then ok, I can see where it gets to another 500+.
Its def counting the entire roster. Pretty much impossible to see who LeBron specifically played against since you would need to carefully watch every game of his career
You can run a script on play by play data to get that info which should be available on BBR for every game played by LeBron.
The data is out there, just would require some work. Probably more effort than it is worth, as at the end of the day this really doesn’t mean anything. Whether it’s 20%, 25%, 35%, etc - it’s a lot but we’d expect a lot from a guy who played 23⁄78 seasons of a league’s existence.
Nah. Play by play stats would capture that data - someone would just need to create the query for the database.
This guy SQLs.
Select count (distinct player2)
From NBA
Where player1 = ‘LeBron’
LeBron played against Karl Malone and Kevin Willis. They both played against Kareem. The oldest player during Kareem’s rookie season was Bob Cousy
It’s like the Kevin Bacon rule.
Mindblowing shit
i mean the nba has been playing for whag like 75 and this is lebrons 23rd season so that’s roughly 30% of the history of the nba he has played. keep in mind start of the NBA there were way less teams and players.
neat stat but not really that crazy if you take a second to think about. regardless lebron got some p crazy stats.
Probably has been the best player on the court for a significant majority of those matchups.
Lets see someone fuck 35.5% of all players in NBA history
The Reverse Wilt Chamberlain
Bonnie Blue: “I volunteer as tribute”
4 top 2 players OAT in 3 different sports are still active in (or close to) their 40s and playing at a high enough level. I feel like Djokovic has regressed most of the 4 (CR7, Messi being the other 2), but he’s still competitive.
I wonder how big of a role their regenerative treatments play. Obviously nutrition and physical workouts differ, but are tailored/optimized to the max for each of them.
Referenced their minutes played (used chatGPT for a Nole estimate) and Lebron has the lowest.
That said football/soccer minutes are less taxing than basketball or tennis minutes. Which makes the fact that Djokovic has the highest estimate (160k to Lebron’s 70k, if accurate) insanely impressive.
Djokovic is still playing at a high level ranked number 4.
Messi and Ronaldo are playing in joke leagues and are nowhere near their primes.
People are done expecting him to make any major finals. It’s all big 2 now and I couldn’t be happier. Hopefully in a decade both pass him (I’m a Rafa guy first, Fed second, unapologetically lol)
Exactly the expectations. Messi and Ronaldo, while no longer the focal points for their NTs and admittedly playing in shit leagues, are tied up in anticipation of next year’s WC.
Lebron is to the NBA what Ghengis Khan is to breeding.
He’s great but not on the level of the goat Kenan Thompson who’s now appeared on over 50% of the SNL seasons total
I was like why would this be impressive but for some reason I kept missing the word history That’s crazy
Wow, what a great stat!
What’s the plan for all this unsolicited LeBron promotion posts from these accounts after retirement? Too late for a social life and self respect at this point tbh
Does this count even if certain players were DNP?
[deleted]
Brother you literally cared enough to comment 🫠