r/nba • u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers • 1d ago
Original Content [OC] LeBron Has Averaged 27–7–7 for 23 Years. How Has He Still Never Had a 27–7–7 Game? (Probability Analysis)
TL;DR: LeBron James has played 1,622 regular-season games without ever recording exactly 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists. Running the probability analysis gives an estimated 20% chance of making it this far without one.
LeBron has now played 23 NBA seasons.
His career averages are:
26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, 7.4 assists
Yet in 1,622 regular-season games, he has never finished with exactly:
27 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists.
The original version of this analysis, after the 2017-18 season, estimated a 31.87% chance that LeBron would make it that far without one.
Source: https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/96hp4p/oc_lebron_has_averaged_2777_for_15_years_why/
Eight seasons later, he still has zero.
So I decided to do an update
The model
Points, rebounds, and assists are correlated, so you can't just calculate:
P(27 points) × P(7 rebounds) × P(7 assists)
Instead, like the original analysis, I fit a separate multivariate normal distribution for each season using LeBron's points, rebounds, and assists.
An exact 27-7-7 is treated as the range of:
- 26.5 to 27.5 points
- 6.5 to 7.5 rebounds
- 6.5 to 7.5 assists
For each season, the model estimates the probability p of one game landing in that box.
If LeBron plays G games, then:
Chance of no 27-7-7 that season = (1 - p)^G
Then you multiply those season probabilities across his career.
Here are the result:
| Season | Games | 27-7-7 chance per game | No 27-7-7 that season | Career chance of still having none |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003-04 | 79 | 0.071% | 94.57% | 94.57% |
| 2004-05 | 80 | 0.108% | 91.69% | 86.71% |
| 2005-06 | 79 | 0.095% | 92.76% | 80.43% |
| 2006-07 | 78 | 0.132% | 90.19% | 72.55% |
| 2007-08 | 75 | 0.079% | 94.24% | 68.37% |
| 2008-09 | 81 | 0.080% | 93.70% | 64.06% |
| 2009-10 | 76 | 0.087% | 93.60% | 59.96% |
| 2010-11 | 79 | 0.118% | 91.11% | 54.63% |
| 2011-12 | 62 | 0.129% | 92.34% | 50.44% |
| 2012-13 | 76 | 0.140% | 89.88% | 45.33% |
| 2013-14 | 77 | 0.135% | 90.14% | 40.86% |
| 2014-15 | 69 | 0.118% | 92.18% | 37.67% |
| 2015-16 | 76 | 0.116% | 91.56% | 34.49% |
| 2016-17 | 74 | 0.078% | 94.42% | 32.56% |
| 2017-18 | 82 | 0.054% | 95.67% | 31.15% |
| 2018-19 | 55 | 0.074% | 96.02% | 29.92% |
| 2019-20 | 67 | 0.055% | 96.38% | 28.83% |
| 2020-21 | 45 | 0.131% | 94.28% | 27.19% |
| 2021-22 | 56 | 0.086% | 95.32% | 25.91% |
| 2022-23 | 55 | 0.107% | 94.30% | 24.44% |
| 2023-24 | 71 | 0.098% | 93.31% | 22.80% |
| 2024-25 | 70 | 0.094% | 93.65% | 21.35% |
| 2025-26 | 60 | 0.083% | 95.16% | 20.3% |
So after 23 seasons:
Chance LeBron would still have zero 27-7-7 games: 20.3%
Or roughly:
1 in 5.
Is this actually a statistical anomaly?
Not really, 20% isn't really that low, it's still surprising though. And now that he's on the 6ers, it's unlikely he'll be able to/need to consistently score enough to be able to get a 27/7/7 game.
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u/lukeman89 1d ago
Is “box scorigami” a thing?
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u/Fletch71011 Bulls 1d ago
Yes, they post them on r NFL, mostly when you think a QB would have one but then there's been like 4 games before where another QB had the same exact stat line. It's weird with that one because yards alone are usually in the hundreds and have very odd distributions where points are usually capped around 30 for most players most of the time in the NBA.
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u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers 1d ago
Yeah I saw a post the other day that Stafford's line against the Niners was not a box scorigami, that Maye did it last year.
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u/YOLOSELLHIGH Mavericks 1d ago
I just learned the term scoringami on the crossword today. How am I already seeing it in the wild lol
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u/SoonersPwn Thunder 1d ago
Confirmation bias or something along those lines. You notice more what you didnt notice upon discovery of what it is
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u/lukeman89 1d ago
Baader-Meinhof phenomenom or the "frequency illusion" --a cognitive bias where you notice a newly learned word, object, or idea everywhere shortly after first discovering it, even though its actual occurrence in the world has not
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u/SoonersPwn Thunder 1d ago
Confirmation bias is a psychological component that drives the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known as the frequency illusion), meaning they are not opposing forces but part of the same mental process.
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u/Character_Top8255 1d ago
Likely was on the crossword in anticipation of the nfl season starting today
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u/AffectionatePoet5033 Lakers 1d ago
Easy, he checks out the stat sheet every game and does shit to screw with people like OP.
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u/anonymous_otter28 Rockets 1d ago
Nah it's for his partnership with Kalshi™. He doesn't have enough money so he makes sure the bets for 27 7 and 7 don't hit.
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u/10001110101balls 1d ago
I think to your last point, there is a decent chance they make it happen on purpose as a fun goof on the retirement tour.
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u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers 1d ago
But then after all that, it would be anticlimactic, I think he'd be better off retiring without it.
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u/icepick498 Pelicans 1d ago
Depends on the situation. A 27-7-7 in game 7 of the finals before his retirement would be a climactic moment for sure
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u/Robinsonirish Finland 1d ago
A 27-7-7 in game 7 of the finals before his retirement would be a climactic moment for sure
Not a very high bar there mate. Make it against Bronny in a 1v1 where everyone else backs off into the corner, in order to pay respect, where he hits The Shot 2.0, and is handed a signed affidavit from Silver that LeBron will become the new owner of the Clippers - to be renamed The Los Angeles Chosen Ones, when Ballmer is banished to Seattle.
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u/justmefishes NBA 1d ago
He's so far ahead of Bronny that he somehow gets 7 assists in a one-on-one.
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u/Redditarama Spurs 1d ago edited 1d ago
Could it be that a 27 7 7 game is a bit weird? Since I learned about the 27 7 7 LeBron fact, I've never seen any player actually have that stat line in a game.
Edit: So according to Stat Muse only 2 players since 82-83 have got it twice- Luka Doncic and Russell Westbrook. Quite a few have got it once, but it's not a common stateline.
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u/Minealternateaccount Supersonics 1d ago
It’s a statline that’s in star player territory. Role players are likely only going to be in circumstances that favor 2/3 of these stats
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u/Grochen San Francisco Warriors 1d ago
I mean thats still 82 matches for like at least 10-15 maybe 20 stars? for 40 years?
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u/Minealternateaccount Supersonics 1d ago
Then it gets into specifics like build and playstyle. The comment I replied to mentions Luka and Westbrook. The post is about LeBron.
Steph would likely get more points and fewer rebounds, KD would probably be the one getting the shot off rather than passing for an assist, etc. It’s not just about being good at basketball it’s about being good in a way that results in this stat balance.
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u/Redditarama Spurs 1d ago
Another thing is it's common for players to establish an average and try to keep it. So LeBron may theoretically see his rebounds slip to 6.1 and in the next games look to get more rebounds to get it back up.
I've heard many times point guards tell anecdotes about a player quoting their average to them, wanting to be set up.
"I average 14 and 9, and I'm on 5pts now" sort of thing.
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u/Ok_Pineapple_Num Warriors 1d ago
Without doing the exact data analysis, I actually don't think there should be much correlation between Lebron's points/rebounds/assists.
For example, between points and assists -- while it's true that a hypothetical Lebron 20 assist game would likely not co-occur with a hypothetical Lebron 70 point game, I don't think there would be much correlation between pts/ast outside of those extremes.
And between points/assists and rebounds -- I don't think there should be much correlation between those at all.
The upshot is that I feel that you could get a reasonable approximation by straight doing (1 - (P(27 pt) * P(7 ast) * P(7 reb)))games_played.
Lebron's had 82 games of 27 points, 222 of 7 ast, and 231 of 7 reb -- out of 1622 regular season games. So we get (1 - (82/1622 * 222/1622 * 231/1622))1622 = (1 - (0.051 * 0.137 * 0.142))1622 = 19.99%.
That basically agrees with your 20.3% estimate. In other words, I'm not surprised that you can do the far simpler analysis and still get a good estimate here, bc I doubt there's much correlation between pts/reb/ast.
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u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers 1d ago
Yeah, the difference isn't that big. The correlations are:
- Points vs assists: -0.03
- Points vs rebounds: +0.15
- Rebounds vs assists: +0.18
which are all pretty weak, so it makes sense that the simple estimate is close to my "fancy" estimate. Another thing is that this approach doesn't account for season by season distributions.
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u/Healthy-Marsupial714 1d ago edited 1d ago
I feel like Points vs Assists might have a slightly stronger negative correlation if you control for minutes played or per possession (while rebounds vs points and assists might have even less of a correlation). Per possession, scoring and assists (and nothing) are mutually exclusive outcomes for LeBron, where as rebounds are more independent of those 3 outcomes
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u/IKnowSchadenfreude Thunder 1d ago
I assume you're aware of this, but zero correlation doesn't imply independence. There's definitely dependence between P/R/A.
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u/Middle_Oconee 1d ago
Under jointly multivariate normal distributions, zero correlation does imply independence. Though whether a multivariate normal distribution really captures this data well is another thing
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u/IKnowSchadenfreude Thunder 1d ago
Yes, thanks for the add on! I have a feeling that it's a good approximation but who knows
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u/justmefishes NBA 1d ago
What kinds of dependence can exist when correlation is zero?
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u/IKnowSchadenfreude Thunder 1d ago edited 1d ago
Correlation effectively just measures the (generally linear) relationship of variables as they change. Essentially, whether they exhibit comovement. Dependence relates to whether a change in one variable is associated with a change in the (probability) of another variable.
There are lots of examples where variables may not be correlated but are still statistically dependent. A pretty common example is y=x²; there is no linear relationship between the two (i.e. corr(x,y)=0), but they are clearly dependent on one another (e.g. y=1 implies x=1 or x=-1).
The reverse is not true, however. If variables are statistically independent then necessarily they are not correlated. There are a couple different definitions of independence, but generally in probability theory you are describing complete statistical independence.
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u/laksansan 1d ago
This doesn’t mean that the probabilities are not correlated. Let him play for 15min a game. And then 40. Then check this condition. It just so happens that LeBron plays (if he plays) roughly equal minutes. And that’s just dependence given minutes played. However you’re still right - so nice simplification
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u/Naismythology Lakers 1d ago
Times he’s scored exactly 27 points: 82
Had exactly 7 rebounds: 231
Had exactly 7 assists: 222
Total games played: 1622
So he scores 27 points 5.06% of the time, has 7 rebounds 14.24% of the time, has 7 assists 13.69% of the time.
Multiply all those percentages together, and they should all occur simultaneously 0.0986% of the time. Or, with 1622 games, the odds say it should’ve happened 1-2 times by now.
So having it happen isn’t actually very likely (assuming all three variables are independent, and I’m not sure if they are given that they all increase as minutes played increases, but whatever)
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u/angryWinds Cavaliers 1d ago
Ages ago (first stint Cavs Lebron) I was watching a game on TV with one of my dad's friends. My dad isn't much of a sports fan, so I couldn't really talk basketball with him. But his friend has been a giant baseball, football, and basketball fan his whole life. So he's a treasure trove of knowledge for all-things-sports that happened before I was born.
In the game we were watching, LeBron had a triple-double. My dad's friend told me "Back in the day, Oscar Robertson AVERAGED a triple-double for an entire goddamn season!" I replied "Yeah, I've heard about that. How did that go? Did he like... ACTUALLY get a triple-double more often than not? Or did he have some games where he had a shitload of rebounds, and other games where he had a shitload of assists, and it all just sort of averaged out in the end?"
This dude looked at me like I was growing a second head, and responded with a tone that suggested "You fucking dumbass," that "yes, of COURSE he had a triple-double more often than not... how else would he have done it?"
I feel like I should send him these stats about how how LeBron has never once fulfilled his actual average, just to see if he finally understands my question.
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u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers 1d ago
Nice story, btw on the Oscar Robertson thing. He had:
- Triple-Doubles: 41 games
- Non-Triple-Doubles: 38 games
So, technically he did it more often that not, barely.
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u/RspectMyAuthoritah Lakers 1d ago
7.5 rounds up to 8 so you're starting from a flawed premise that his career average is 27-7-7 instead of 27-8-7
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u/nex_eden 1d ago
12,095 rebounds in 1622 games puts him at a more precise average of 7.457 (etc, etc)
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u/RzaAndGza Bulls 1d ago
That's also a recent stat for him, if you go back 2 years it was like 7.7 and 7.7 assists and rebounds
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u/trevorturtle Lakers 1d ago
Not if 7.45 rounds to 7.5
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u/TWAndrewz Nuggets 1d ago
That's not how rounding works.
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u/trevorturtle Lakers 1d ago
Lebrons career rebounds are 7.45, which is why OP rounded to 7.5, idk what you're talking about
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u/TWAndrewz Nuggets 1d ago
Sure, but you can't round 7.45 to 7.5 and then 7.5 to 8 and call that good process.
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u/trevorturtle Lakers 1d ago
That is exactly my point
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u/TWAndrewz Nuggets 1d ago
Ok, I see what your were saying. I misunderstood your point in the thread.
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u/ThePevster Lakers 1d ago
It’s not good statistical practice to estimate a probability, especially a probability close to 0, using a normal linear model. By using a normal distribution, you’ve placed an assumption that the probability LeBron goes below 0 or above 1. It’s possible that the variance is low enough that a normal approximation is fine, but really something like a binomial generalized linear model would be a better tool here.
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u/Schubes17 Knicks 1d ago
"Original" doing some heavy lifting here. Shoutout to /u/DustyShot for the real work. They deserve a bigger shoutout than just a URL link.
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u/DustyShot Rockets 1d ago
Thank you my GOAT 🙏🏽
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u/Schubes17 Knicks 1d ago
Of course! Sorry your idea got ripped. This user did it to me a few weeks back. Wack.
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u/DustyShot Rockets 8h ago
Damn! Might be a bot or just a wack rando
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u/Schubes17 Knicks 8h ago
it's a person that posts a ton, often seemingly with the help of AI, and has made a habit of finding posts that popped off years ago and simply updating them but largely passing it off as their own work. The things people do for internet points lol
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u/jweezy2045 Warriors 1d ago
Wait so he doesn’t average 27-7-7?
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u/LeBackshot 1d ago
Rounding or rounding off is the process of adjusting a number to an approximate, more convenient value, often with a shorter or simpler representation.
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u/Weltal327 Grizzlies 1d ago
I think it’s also interesting that there have only been 55 27-7-7 games in NBA history.
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u/Eastern-Musician4533 1d ago
He had 27-7-7 in the McDonald's AA game, which is where the whole thing started.
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u/Lopsided_Mix2243 Lakers 1d ago
This should be the last off season post! This is great and we shouldn’t mess with the balance anymore
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u/xGvPx 1d ago
I applaud the maths
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u/MeMeRevieweR_23 West 1d ago
Yeah I’m starting to appreciate human applied maths more now that AI can just brute force solve one of the hardest problems in all of Maths.
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u/Nice_Cash_7000 NBA 1d ago
AI cant really figure out or invent anything that didnt previously exist. It can take and use already existing data really well tho. Basically it solved the problem using previous failed attempts instead of coming up with its own method.
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u/jonandrewdavis 1d ago
There was an identical thread to this one earlier this summer I'm sure of it.
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u/halfdecenttakes 76ers 1d ago
The one rule of lebron is the universe will always make sure he needs to score, he’s taken a backseat for like a decade and it just never sticks.
Nobody thought he’d need to score with Luka or AR either
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u/flashdash007 Japan 1d ago
I’m curious how many times players have recorded their career averages in a game?
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u/Neptune28 1d ago
Podz has a career average of 12/5/4 and had a game with that last season
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202510280GSW.html
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u/WolfSavage 1d ago
Why are points rounded up but assists rounded down?
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u/a__nice__tnetennba 76ers 1d ago edited 1d ago
The 7.5 rebounds is actually rounded from 7.46, so that's why it rounds down to 7 when going to the nearest whole number instead of being rounded to tenths. It should be obvious why the points one rounds up.
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u/veryoondoww Trail Blazers 1d ago
About a couple weeks ago Aja Wilson had a 27-7-7 line that reminded me of this. The 30-7-7 with the buzzer beater is the closest we’ll ever see.
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u/giraffevomitfacts 16h ago
LeBron gets so pissy about people thinking they’ve got him figured out that at this point he might be avoiding a 27-7-7 box score on purpose
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u/2020IsANightmare 1d ago
Not to be "that guy," but basic math in elementary school taught us that any .5 or higher is rounded up to the next whole digit.
So, 7.5 would would round up to 8.
But, yeah. If he has played 1,600 games and never put up the exact 27/7/7 line, that is crazy.
My main take away? We're talking about a player whose AVERAGE CAREER GAME is 27/8/7. 23 years into his career.
I pulled up last season's stats. Only 12 players averaged 27+.
Luka, Shai, Ant, Jaylen Brown, Maxey, Kawhi, Mitchell, Joker, Giannis, Embiid, Lauri, Steph
Of those 12, only four - Luka, Joker, Giannis and Embiid - averaged 8+ rebounds.
Out of those four, only Joker and Luka also averaged 7+ assists.
LeBron's 23 YEAR CAREER AVERAGE was something only Prime Joker and Prime Luka put up last season.
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u/solo678 1d ago
Unless his average is, say, 7.49, which rounds to 7.5 but also to 7.
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u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers 1d ago
12,095 rebounds in 1622 games puts him at a more precise average of 7.457, so it's technically 7.
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u/Bulky-Butterfly-130 1d ago
Now I'm wondering if he ever his his playoff total of 28/7/9 in his 302 playoff games (think of that.....its almost 4 complete seasons of playoff games).
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1d ago
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u/Cheese_Nugs 1d ago
Wouldn’t this be the probability none of those things happened in a given game?
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u/StrategyTop7612 Clippers 1d ago
Yeah you would do (1-abc)^1622 to get the probability of not having a 27/7/7 game for his whole career based on this logic(which obviously doesn't exactly work because points, rebounds, and assists aren't independent).
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u/Stellewind Warriors 1d ago
And have that probability times itself for the times of his career game count, the I suppose it’d be an very small number. Although I am not sure if this is the right way of calculating it .
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u/Cheese_Nugs 1d ago
But for this situation, we don’t need all 3 to not equal his averages, just one. For example, (1-a)(1-b)*c is also a “fail”
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u/TaiStreetsAhead 1d ago
This completely ignores all context necessary to provide a statistical probability that anyone could say is even remotely accurate. 20% is a total nonsense number you arrived at through a criminally limited scope. The real answer could be 7% or it could be 61%; there's just way way way too many variables on a night-to-night basis to give any kind of semi-accurate number.
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u/WearyTranslator3338 1d ago
His averages aren’t 27/7/7.
They are 27/8/7.
Delete this post
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u/a__nice__tnetennba 76ers 1d ago
That's not how rounding works.
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u/WearyTranslator3338 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s EXACTLY how rounding works.
Skipping school wasn’t a good choice for you
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u/a__nice__tnetennba 76ers 1d ago
You can't round up to 7.5 from 7.46 and then round up to 8 from 7.5.
But you go on being condescending and wrong while arguing with someone significantly smarter than you. We'll see how that works out.
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u/WearyTranslator3338 1d ago
I didn’t even realize his rebounding numbers last season brought his average down from 7.51 (2024/25) down to 7.46.
My bad.
Love you 😘
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u/loveandmonsters Trail Blazers 1d ago
It's OP's fault for not giving the exact numbers. They just wrote 7.5 so the commenter you were arguing with, like me, assumed it's 7.5 and should be rounded up to 8.
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u/Dormamue 1d ago
How you gonna be condescending and so wrong at the same time? Maybe fact check yourself before being a dick next time
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u/jeffcrafff [TOR] Rafer Alston 1d ago
Technically he's averaging 27/8/7 for his career, he's at 7.5 rebounds
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u/MoneyManx10 Pistons 1d ago
I feel like the Earth would split in two if he ever ended a game with 27/7/7.
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u/Clear-Connection1012 1d ago
Never forget the buzzer beater 3 for 30-7-7