This Week’s Blog Is Written By Matt Totsky, CFA®, IAG Wealth Platform Manager
September 23, 2026

An Average Night

LeBron James is widely considered one of the two greatest players in NBA history. His resume certainly makes a compelling case: championships, MVP awards, All-NBA selections, the all-time scoring record, and just about every other accolade imaginable.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of his career though is his sustained excellence and longevity.

In 23 seasons and 1,622 regular-season games, he has averaged 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists per game—or as NBA fans put it in shorthand, 27-7-7. Only one other player in NBA history, Luka Dončić, has career averages of at least 27-7-7, and he’s done it in just over 500 games.

If that doesn’t boggle the mind, perhaps this will:

Do you know how many times in those 1,622 games LeBron has scored exactly 27 points, grabbed exactly 7 rebounds, and dished exactly 7 assists?

Zero.

Zilch.

Nada.

Not once in LeBron’s career has he finished a game with that exact stat line. It’s a wild bit of trivia that seems almost statistically impossible to be true. And yet it is.

Averages are an incredibly useful way to distill enormous amounts of data into a single number that is easy to understand. But an average doesn’t necessarily describe what happens in any particular instance.

Let’s look at the stock market: If you invested $100 in the US stock market at the beginning of 1928 and never touched it while reinvesting all your dividends you would have ended 2025 with $1,157,598.95. Over 98 years, that works out to a compound annual growth rate of a beautifully round 10.0%.

But over those 98 calendar years, how many times did the market actually return 10%?

Once. In 1993, the market’s total return was 9.97% – close enough to round to 10.0%.

You can accurately say that the market has compounded at roughly 10% annually over the long run while also acknowledging that the market almost never actually gives you a 10% return in a particular year. The average is real but the yearly experience is rarely average.

We run into the same issue when building financial plans. We often use historical risk and return data for asset classes to establish reasonable expectations for a portfolio. We assume that a particular investment strategy will earn a certain average return over a long period of time. But that doesn’t mean we should expect that return every year.

Some years will be dramatically better. Some will be dramatically worse. There may even be long stretches when the actual results bear little resemblance to the assumed average. That’s not necessarily a failure of the plan, that’s just how averages work.

LeBron James didn’t become one of the greatest basketball players of all time by having 1,622 average nights. He did it by stringing together an extraordinary collection of individual performances over a long career which led to his incredible average stat line.

Investing works much the same way. You don’t often (if ever) get the average return. You get a series of individual returns that over a long enough time horizon may add up to something remarkably close to it. The goal isn’t to make every year look average. It’s to have a plan that can withstand the years that aren’t.

Quote of the week: C. Bruce Grossman: “A statistician is a person who has his head in an oven and his feet in a deep freeze and says, ‘on the average, I feel comfortable.’”

Securities offered through LPL Financial. Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through IAG Wealth Partners, LLC, (IAG) a registered investment advisor and separate entity from LPL Financial. Jason Ganiere is solely an investment advisor representative of IAG Wealth Partners LLC, and not affiliated with LPL Financial.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Any opinions are those of IAG and not necessarily those of LPL Financial. Expressions of opinion are as of this date and are subject to change without notice. This information is not intended as a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any security referred to herein. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. Investing involves risk including loss of principle.

ART: 1179074
Photo Credit: iStock 579731522