Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James are two of the world’s greatest athletes and consistently prove that they are the best in their respective sports. Both Ronaldo and LeBron left their respective teams, Real Madrid and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and since that has happened, both teams have suffered management changes and humiliating performances. These athletes are obviously integral to their teams, but they are both 33 years of age, which is much older than the general conception of someone’s “athletic prime”. Despite their age and supposedly being beyond their “prime”, Ronaldo and LeBron continue to set records and perform at an elite level.

Nevertheless, these athletes’ abilities will not last forever and they will decline eventually. The question to answer is: who will last longer as the best athlete in their sports? A statistical method to evaluate efficiency and performance in basketball is to look at the amount of points and assists that a player has over time, thus measuring points accounted for. In order to do a similar evaluation in soccer, a similar statistic will be used, but for goals and assists, thus making it a measure of goals accounted for.

In order to analyze the average age of decline amongst elite players, LeBron James was compared to five other perennial all stars that have finished their careers. These retired stars (other than Dirk, who is 40 and rarely plays) performed well in their careers, but like every athlete, these players all entered a period of decline, in terms of points accounted for. In the NBA, the average age of decline, or when the graphs below show a downward trend, seem to happen around the age of 30, yet LeBron at the age of 33, continues on an upward trend and has not entered this stage of decline. At this stage in his career, he is clearly a cut above the rest.

Ronaldo, in contrast, was compared to five other elite players who have been known for their goal scoring and assisting capabilities. These five other players are all now either retired or no longer play in competitive European leagues (they play in less competitive leagues, like MLS). The chart below shows an average age of decline of soccer stars to be around 27/28. After the age of 28, these stars never attain their previous statistics. Only the enigma known as Zlatan showed an ability to rebound late in his career. Unlike LeBron, Ronaldo, fitting with the majority of the other elite players, has already begun this downward trend, and is already less proficient in terms of goal scoring and assisting, then he was in his 20s.

The two charts show an average age of decline of elite players, and on average, the age of decline for soccer players is earlier than the age of decline in basketball stars. Additionally, Ronaldo, in terms of goals accounted for, is already on a downward decline, while LeBron James is maintaining a high level of points accounted for, even at his age. Therefore, for these two reasons, I predict that LeBron James is more likely to last longer at the top.