intuitively I was wrong! kobe is amazingly 10 out of 21 shooting 50% when attempting 25 fgs THIS YEAR with 2 games at 58%! wow. never saw that coming.

to continue on in this path of wondering if lebron could score 81 points- let alone easily- let us compare some stats from lebron last season when he was seen for the the first time as definitively the best player in the world– he also had, in my opinion, his best games ever, including his 52-11-9 at the garden and his 55 points at Milwaukee which though not as much as his 56 point game against toronto he shot better from the field, the difference being in the latter game, which came 4 years earlier he was 14/15 at the stripe compared with 15/22 in the latter.

55 16/29 8/11 3s 15/22 fts – Milwaukee

52 17/33 2/7 3s 16/19 fts- ny

56 18/36 6/12 3s 14/15 fts- toronto 2004

his wiki page says the most ft’s he made was 24 in a game 24/28 and though they incorrectly list 3 pointers this 24 seems fairly accurate intuitively

so lets give lebron his best ever pastiche and see if he breaks 81:

24 points for fts

24 points for 3′s 8/13 at Milwaukee

36 points and 50% shooting from his most fgs attempted in a game at 36 at toronto [we will disregard the extra 3 fg attempts for the moment]

this gives him 84 points, edging kobe. but if we eliminate the extra 3 attempts- keeping them in 2 point fg though to be fair one would need be a 3 to correlate- he drops 3 points [3 attempts at 50%] and ties kobe with 81.

thus if lebron were to play his best offensive game ever- or i should restrict this to shooting, which to be fair is perhaps the point of keith’s objection, here eliding assists- tying his career highs in attempts, fts made, and threes made he would only tie kobe.

however the most crucial point here is kobe’s fg% in his 81 point game. he shot 61 freaking percent from the field a number lebron nowhere comes close to when he shoots over 25 shots. lebron in the past 2 seasons has shot over 50% 9/21 times he takes 25 shots [intuitively i would believe that this is still much better than kobe]. Over the last three 15 out of 40 and he reached 58% only twice! and both were 3 years ago. these numbers help one appreciate how incredibly hard it is to shot 46 times in a game and to keep a respectable percentage, one which rivals a center’s, as well as have career nights in three separate categories to even come close to this mark.

can lebron get 81? there’s an outside chance, but one would have to say it is slim even in the best of nights when literally everything clicks, not only because of his tendencies to pass but also because he just does not shoot at a good enough percentage when he takes more shots. but this was pretty fun to analyze, even if it is not professional.

as for the claim that lebron could get 81 if he took 47 shots [actually the box score shows 46]i assume you mean with about 20 fts made also, unless he is going 40/46 or 20 something and about 10 three pointers. i believe he could get 81 though however let’s analyze this notion:

-he hasn’t made more than 6 three pointers in a game this year, and he was 6 out of 10. [score- 18 points]

- his high is 17 points of freethrows in a game this year [score 17 points]

what we left is he needs 36 shots to score 46 points

lebron hasn’t scored 46 points in a game this year but he has gone for 40 plus 8 times

most significantly in every game he played 40 or more minutes save two which were 38 and 39 minutes which we can compare to kobe’s 62 points which took less than 33 minutes. kobe’s 81 point game came in 42 minutes of action.

40 13/25; 1-3 3s 13-14 fts
43 14/29 4-11 3s 11-12fts;
44 16/29 5/8 3s 7/10 fts;
48 15-23 4/6 3s 14/16 fts;
41 13/19 3/4 3s 12/14 fts;
47 17/31 6/12 3s 7/7 fts;
43 15/33 1/9 3s 12/17 fts;
40 16/27 3/7 3s 5/6 fts

compare to kobe’s 81 point and 62 point games:
81 28-46 7-13 3s 18-20 fts [in 42 minutes]
62 18-31 4/10 3s 22-25 fts [in only 33 minutes]

what we can clearly note however is the drop that lebron’s 3s take in % when he has over 25 shots. 2/3s of the games are under 40% and these 4 are cumulatively 9/27, a respectable 33 percent [overall 27/57 for a stellar 48%].
lebron has 2 games in which his fg% is less than 50% and it shouldn’t surprise us that majority are well over 50% considering any circular logic of whether he shoots because he’s hot or he hits forty because he’s hot, etc. now juxtaposing lebron’s 43 point effort in which he took the most shots he had all season at 33 and using his best fg% to reach 40 this year [13/19] 69% if we relegate this % with the 13 extra shots kobe used even if they were all 3 pointers lebron would have 27 extra points putting him only at 70 points.

lebron’s most made three this year is 6 twice [once out of 10 once out of 12], and most fts are 17 which we can combine for a tidy 35 points. now giving lebron 36 more shots let us take his best fg% for a game over forty which is 69. this gives him 25/36 on 2 point fgs and 31 out of 46. total of 85 points.
this is hodgepodged cherry picking of the best numbers in lebron’s spectacular season and we can see they barely surpass 81 points. if we were to actually correlate his declining 3% when he takes over 25 shots at 42% and his total drops by a crucial 6 points to 79 overall. and if we were to use his fg % from his highest shot total [46%] we get 33 points in 2′s, giving him even at his best 3′s and fts 68 points overall, nowhere near close. can lebron get there, yeah, but even using a pastiched simony of his greatest %’s and actual game splits this season he finds himself on the outside more than not. we can’t downplay kobe merely a shooter. dude twice had a game for the ages which is nearly impossible for anyone to match even at their best.

People who love Kobe would hate to play basketball with the guy, think of how much fun it would be to have him on your team, he would probably hate you…
and Kobe fans don’t bring up kobe kobe kobe kobe kobe had 81 81 81 81 81 81 81 81 points a game…please – Kobe is a glorified jumpshooter, with declining defense – youtube it – you’re telling me that if Lebron took 47 shots in a game he couldn’t get 81…scoring is a joke to Lebron – they should start calling him the total package, because unlike kobe he rebounds, assists, and is learning to play truly dominate defense. the only thing he has yet to attain is a ring, and with the way the Cavs are playing, it will only be a matter of time. Bookmark this and come back to it in a decade…

a washed up detroit pistons team??? who just won the ship two years prior, and recorded the NBAs best record that year.

Lebron took a starting 5 of Larry Hughes, Sasha Pavlovic, Drew Gooden, Z, and himself to the Finals all by himself. To further remind you, Eric Snow, Ira Newble, Scott Pollard, Damon Jones, Donyell Marshall were on our bench. Let’s see Kobe try to win with that squad. No Shaq, Gasol, D Fish, Odom, Ariza… Not even anywhere close to a comparison.

I am so sick of Lebron James fans bringing up ONE clutch performance he’s had ion his entire effin career in the playoffs over and over again. That too against a washed up Pistons team. Oh, and he got swept by the Spurs in one of the most lopsided Finals ever.

Kobe is still arguably #1, not struggling to be top ten. Don’t be ridiculous!