The One Man LeBron James Couldn’t Beat
As of the end of the 2024-25 NBA season, per the database of Basketball Reference, there have been 5,313 different players that have ever taken the court in an NBA game. And LeBron James of the L.A. Lakers can claim to have competed against 1,786 of them – or, if you would rather, 33.6% of them.
Because of his record-tying 22 years of experience to date, LeBron’s opponents have ranged in age everywhere from Tidjane Salaün (born August 2005) to Kevin Willis (born September 1962). That is a gap wide enough to be able to fit an entire LeBron James in, including his gestation period. It is also inevitable that, of those 1,786 players, LeBron has emerged as the victor at least once over 1,671 of them.
Of the 115 players that LeBron James has played against, but never beaten, the vast majority of those (85) have only played against him once. That list includes all-time greats of the game such as Ndudi Ebi, Sun Yue and Pavel Podkolzin (whom it could be argued is unlikely to ever play against James again given that he is now retired and working as an actor). 22 more have done the double, going 2-0 against James, and seven further players have a 3-0 record against him.
That, then, leaves only one player. One man stands alone at having gone undefeated against LeBron James not once, not twice, not three, not four, but five times. The nemesis, the nadir, the King’s Kryptonite. The man LeBron James could not beat – T.J. Leaf.
Wait, Who Was T.J. Leaf Again?
Leaf was a first-round pick of the Indiana Pacers in the 2017 NBA Draft, selected 18th overall, one spot ahead of John Collins, four ahead of Jarrett Allen and five ahead of three-and-D superstar OG Anunoby. His career never got going to anything like the standards of those three, however. Indeed, Leaf would not even make it to the end of his four guaranteed seasons of NBA salary.
After three years deep down the Pacers bench in which he never averaged so much as double figures in minutes per game in any season, Leaf was salary-dumped onto the Oklahoma City Thunder in November 2020, and was waived a month later. He would join up with the Portland Trail Blazers on a two-way contract for the final stretches of the 2020-21 NBA season, and even appeared in three postseason games with them, but after that two-way deal ended, Leaf would leave the NBA altogether.
Born in Israel, Leaf has inevitably found his way back there as a professional basketball player, and following four years in China has signed with his home country’s biggest team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, for the upcoming season. He has yet to return to the NBA since his Blazers stint, though, and he likely never will. As such, his record over LeBron is almost guaranteed to never be equalled or bettered.
Leaf Five, LeBron Zero
Three of Leaf’s five victories over LeBron came in his rookie regular season, when James was still a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. (Leaf totalled five points and four fouls in 22.5 minutes in across the three.) The fourth came in garbage time of Game Six of the Pacers‘ first-round playoff series against the Cavaliers later that season. (Leaf posted a four trillion.) And the fifth and final meeting between the two so far came in a 42-point blowout Pacers win in LeBron’s first season as a Laker. (Leaf went 0-5 in 14 minutes.)
It is slightly less fun to point out that those five victories came with Leaf serving as more of a passenger than a part of things. But it is not surprising. Leaf only ever had career averages of 8.5 minutes, 3.3 points and 1.9 rebounds per game, and in the five games LeBron played against him, James would average 25.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 9.2 assists per game. Not exactly Leaf putting the clamps on him there.
Nevertheless, in the expectation that he is going to retire at the end of either this season or the next one, LeBron is currently fielding questions about whether he is looking to extend his career long enough to play alongside his second-oldest son, Bryce. The question should perhaps be, will he hang on in there long enough to get a chance at the long-awaited T.J. Leaf revenge game. It seems entirely likely that this is what is deciding his retirement decision, more than any other trivial factor like the passage of time.
And by the way, in the other direction – the player with the most losses against LeBron James, and not a single victory? Step forward, Chris Douglas-Roberts. Your 0-14 record of losses is as unbreakable as Cy Young’s 511 victories.
