Lebron James this year, before we all forget

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We could marvel at his consistency. You probably don't remember a bad game from James this season and that's because he was pretty much a human metronome of dominance this season. At his worst, he was Blake Griffin. No, seriously. Take James' worst 10 games of the season by Game Score (a PER-like metric developed by John Hollinger to evaluate single-game performances) and you'll find that he averaged 19.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.2 assists in those duds. Griffin this season? 18.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists.

In other words, statistically on his worst days, James was an All-Star big man. Maybe even a little bit better.

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We could also mention that we've never witnessed 26.9 points, 8.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists on 56.2 percent shooting in NBA history. Not Jordan. Not Oscar. Not Bird. Not Magic.

But it's the 56.2 percent shooting that stands out. Let's try to wrap our heads around that. In order to catch James in field goal percentage, Durant -- he of an amazing 50.6 shooting percentage of his own -- would have to make his next 176 shots without missing once. And that's just to catch James. What about Kobe? Making 300 straight wouldn't even do it for Kobe; he'd need 49 more.

And Carmelo? He could make his next 350 shots and he'd still trail James in field goal percentage. That's the equivalent of Carmelo shooting a perfect 14-for-14 for 25 straight games, and James would still look down on him in the field goal percentage column.

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Looking at recent history, Shaquille O'Neal and Amar'e Stoudemire are the only players who have shot better than James from the floor on at least 15 attempts per game since 1996-97 (when the StatsCube database began tracking shot distance data). When Shaq shot 57.4 percent in his 1999-00 MVP campaign, his average shot distance was 4.4 feet, or less than half the average distance of James' attempts (11.2 feet to be exact). When Stoudemire shot 59 percent in 2007-08, his average shot distance was 7.0 feet. So, if you lay Stoudemire and Shaq's average shot distance end-to-end, that's roughly the distance you're getting with James.

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