David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
Regular season stats: 27.8 ppg, 7.6 rpg, 7.3 apg, 0.9 bpg, 1.7 spg, 51.8 FG%
Playoff stats: 28.3 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 6.4 apg, 1.0 bpg, 1.8 spg, 49.3 FG%
Accolades: Two NBA titles, two Finals MVPs, four MVPs, five All-Stars, one All-Star Game MVP, five All-NBA 1st Team selections, five All-Defensive 1st Team selections, one Olympic gold.
Overall GOAT ranking: No. 2
This stretch of LeBron James’ career might have been the most fun to watch of any James era, as he was still the most physically gifted player ever at that time, but was also learning how to win and impact games in even more ways than earlier on, when he was younger.
All four of James’ career league MVP awards came during this stretch, meaning he has more MVPs in his five-year peak than anybody else in this exercise. And he blatantly deserved 2010-11 MVP, too, but the media was too angry about him taking his talents to South Beach to reward him as the NBA’s best player, which he clearly was that year (26.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 1.6 steals on 51.0 percent shooting)
Of course, we can’t mention that 2010-11 season without bringing up the blemish of the 2011 Finals, his first with the Miami Heat, when he put up just 17.8 points over a six-game defeat, looking totally flummoxed about how to score on the likes of Jason Kidd, JJ Barea and Brian Cardinal.
Even with that, though, James’ five-year peak is ridiculous, and one of the best the league has ever seen.
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