The 75 greatest players in NBA history, ranked by Player Efficiency Rating (PER)

2.    Michael Jordan: 27.91

NBA icon Michael Jordan is widely considered the greatest player in league history, and he was in PER until he was just recently surpassed by a current player not named LeBron James. Even still, Jordan's greatness is undisputed.

He was one of the most dominant scorers ever, even winning the scoring title 10 times in his legendary 15 seasons in the NBA. Not only was Jordan a dominant scorer, but he was also one of the best defensive players of his era, even winning a Defensive Player of the Year award.

Had Jordan not retired for a season and a half during his peak or after winning championship number six, then he would have undoubtedly had an even higher PER. He would have also potentially surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though LeBron would have inevitably passed Jordan. 

That alone doesn't make LeBron a better player than Jordan, however, and he does best LeBron in PER by a small but seemingly insurmountable margin at this point. PER obviously isn't the end-all-be-all in the greatest player of all-time discussion but it is another metric in Jordan's favor. Despite that, there is another player who is better, according to PER.