LeBron James has made an All-NBA team for over two straight decades. His prime spanned 15 seasons. Figuring out what year was his absolute best can be debated. That said, there’s a few seasons that stick
out from the rest.
James’s first MVP season in 2008-09 was special. He was at the height of his athletic powers at 24 years old and had a well-rounded skillset. He led the Cleveland Cavaliers to 66 wins in the regular season and averaged an absurd 35.4 points in the playoffs while shooting 51% from the floor. Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic ruined what should’ve been a showdown with him and Kobe Bryant in the NBA Finals.
Then, there’s the 2012-13 season. James grabbed his second straight MVP, Finals MVP, and championship that season with the Miami Heat. He was still at or near his athletic prime and had added enough to his game to truly feel unstoppable.
There’s also an argument to be made for the 2016 season. This was the high point in James’s career as he led the Cavs to a championship while overcoming a 3-1 deficit against the team with the best record in NBA history.
And finally, there’s the 2017-18 season: A year full of turmoil for the Cavs. Kyrie Irving requested a trade that offseason. The core of that went to three previous Finals looked like a shell of themselves. They traded half of their team away at the deadline. And it was clear that this was going to be James’s last season in Cleveland.
Despite all of that, LeBron delivered what he feels was his best individual season.
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“If you asked me what I feel like was my best season that I had, where I felt the most complete as a basketball player, I would say 2018,” James said during a recent episode of the Mind the Game podcast. “2017-18 season, I felt like I could do no wrong out there on the basketball floor.”
James was a one-man wrecking crew that season. He dragged a truly bad supporting cast by playing every regular-season game. Then, had what might’ve been the best single postseason in league history. He brought the Cavs through two seven-game series en route to the Finals, and then was a bad overturned block call, a missed free throw, and a JR Smith incident away from stealing Game 1 against maybe the greatest collection of talent ever assembled.
It’s fair to wonder what would’ve happened if the Cavs won that game in regulation. They likely don’t take the series, but we probably would’ve gotten one or two more incredible LeBron performances.
LeBron’s 51-point performance in Game 1 of the 2018 Finals may be the best single-game performance ever. At least it was during my lifetime, and it doesn’t get remembered as such because of the loss.
This season gave us so many other great moments as well. The 58-point game after being called out by John Wall, the dunk on Jusuf Nurkic, the game-winner where he ignored Isaiah Thomas, ruining Paul Pierce’s jersey retirement, the game-winning three against the Pacers, LeBronto, the ridiculous floater to beat the Raptors, and an incredible Game 7 to beat Boston all happened this season. LeBron compiled a list of what would be career highlights for a top-tier Hall-of-Fame player in just one year.
James was truly at the peak of his powers. It seemed like he truly cracked the code of basketball. He was seeing the game at such a high level and was still arguably the most athletic player in the league. Combine that with having one of his best seasons as an outside shooter, and you have the greatest basketball player of all time playing his absolute best.
We will likely never see basketball played at this high a level for a sustained season and playoffs ever again.
