Former lottery pick says LeBron ‘doesn’t have half the offensive bag’ K.D. does

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant are two of the more accomplished offensive players kicking around in the NBA. Both players are in the top eight on the all-time scoring list and have over 30,000 career regular-season points to their names.

Looking at simply their point totals would indicate that James is the superior scorer of the two, however. After all, James ranks tops on the all-time list and has more than 10,000 career points than Durant does.

Despite that, former NBA guard Austin Rivers thinks that James “doesn’t have half the offensive bag” that Durant does.

“LeBron is number one [in scoring], but his game doesn’t match a prototypical scorer,” Rivers said. “It’s also not sexy. LeBron’s game is built on force, sheer will, dedication, his mind, his IQ, the way he is able to dissect and control a game and power, above anything else. He wills himself to the basket. Now, you have to give the guy credit. As he’s gotten older, he’s become a better jumpshooter. It’s crazy that he’s going to retire the best jumpshooter he’s ever been. … For instance, LeBron has scored more points than Kevin, but Kevin can score in a much bigger variety of ways than LeBron. You can argue with the wall, but that’s just the truth. LeBron doesn’t have half the offensive bag that Kevin has…I would say Kevin, Carmelo [Anthony], James Harden, Kobe [Bryant], Michael [Jordan] and [Allen] Iverson are the best scorers I’ve ever seen.”

James has Durant decisively beat in career points at this juncture, but that doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t have a case for having the better offensive bag of the two players. After all, Durant has a higher career scoring average and has scored the ball with much greater efficiency than James from deep over the course of his NBA tenure.

Durant is a career 39.0 percent 3-pointer shooter, and comparatively, James has shot just 34.9 percent from deep in the NBA.

Additionally, Durant has a decisive lead over James in scoring titles, as he has won four compared to James’ one. The NBA’s oldest active player won his only scoring title all the way back in the 2007-08 season to boot, and that marked Durant’s maiden season.

It’s a testament to the duo’s greatness and longevity that both players remain some of the premier scorers in the NBA despite their advanced ages. James is 40 years old and just recently averaged 24.4 points per game in the 2024-25 season. As for Durant, the 36-year-old scored 26.6 points per game with the Phoenix Suns a campaign ago.

It can be mutually exclusive that Durant has the superior offensive big while James is the more accomplished player on that end of the floor. Folks should probably spend less time comparing James and Durant and more time appreciating them in the twilight of their careers, as sooner rather than later they could both be done with professional basketball and retired from the NBA.