Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
April 23, 2004, Washington Post

LeBron vs. Carmelo: Who Wins?

The National Basketball Association regular season recently ended and the playoffs have started. But one of the big hoops stories this week was that LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA rookie of the year award.

LeBron was terrific this season, but he wasn't the only great rookie. Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets was pretty amazing, too. In fact, LeBron, who got two-thirds of the first-place votes for top-rookie honors, and Carmelo, who got the rest, were probably the best pair of rookies to burst onto the pro basketball scene since Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird in 1979. And LeBron and Carmelo are still teenagers.

So if you had to pick one this year -- LeBron or Carmelo -- which would you select? Was LeBron really better? How would you decide?

One of the fun things about being a sports fan is comparing players and arguing about who is the best.

Well, basketball has lots of statistics. Let's start by comparing the points per game (PPG), rebounds per game (RPG) and assists per game (APG) that LeBron and Carmelo put up for their teams this season.

Wow! They were really close. I guess we have to give the advantage to LeBron because he had more than twice as many assists per game as Carmelo did. But statistics can be misleading. Sometimes a player may score a lot of points but take (and miss) a lot of shots. Or maybe the player makes bad passes and turns the ball over a lot. Think about Allen Iverson. So let's see how LeBron and Carmelo did on field goal percentage (FG%), free throw percentage (FT%) and turnovers (TO).

Statistically, these guys are almost twins. Carmelo was a slightly better shooter and turned the ball over a little less than The Chosen One. But LeBron plays guard, so he handles the ball more than 'Melo does. All in all, they are pretty even in these categories, too.

Basketball is a team game, so let's look at how much better the Cavaliers and the Nuggets got after they drafted LeBron and Carmelo. Both teams were a pathetic 17-65 last season. With LeBron, the Cavaliers improved to 35-47. That's 18 more wins. But the Nuggets with Carmelo were even better, at 43-39. That's an amazing improvement of 26 wins. And the Nuggets played in the NBA's tougher Western Conference.

Who's my choice? It's close, but I'd go with Carmelo Anthony. His statistics were just as good as LeBron's, and Carmelo's team won more games and made it into the playoffs. After all, victories are the most important statistic.

So LeBron might be the league's rookie of the year, but Carmelo is my rookie of the year.