What do you mean his prime? I'm not that big on LBJ. IMO (don't crucify me LBJ fans, just calling it based on how I see it) he gets the most favorable treatment from refs of any player ever in the history of the game at any level (if not for said treatment i a million percent believe he'd only have one title, his teammates get a favorable treatment too because the league wants Lebron' teams to win) his fouls per 48 and foul outs are off the charts compared to the leagues superstars past and present especially for someone who plays as physical as he does, so you can't really use the treatment all superstars get argument because for LBJ its on a whole nother level than just superstar treatment its way more than just the superstar treatment.
Everyone in the 90's, in an era where you'd have to tackle someone to get called for a foul, got called for more fouls per 48 than Lebron in an era where ticky tack calls are at an all time high. Players who's style involves no contact whatsoever average more fouls per 48 than Lebron. He's the most protected player I've ever seen because the league can't really afford to have him get hurt so they don't really allow anyone to play defense on him, if you breathe on him it's a foul. He's allowed at least 8 steps no matter what.
The league kinda built Lebron's legacy IMO by helping him win more titles than deserved. Ray Allen's 3 is a garbage time bucket if they call that game fairly. But then if they called it fairly there'd be less games, which means less ratings and less money. Less ratings for next season bc a lot of people wouldn't be as interested if Lebron the face of the NBA got called for what everyone else gets called for therefor erasing championships from his resume and losing some fans interest. He got called for a travel tonight and I was in absolute shock I couldn't believe it, it was a call I've never seen made on him before. He took like 7 steps and they actually called a travel and Lebron had never looked more confused.
He's allowed to take 8 or 9 steps every time he goes to the rim but everyone else gets 4 at max 5 unless you're a teammate of his. With that said he's playing his best ball right now. So he's still in his prime. But my point is if he played in college. He'd be by far the best. But it'd take him a long while to get used to only being allowed 2-3 steps as apposed to his usual 8 or 9 steps so if games were called correctly he'd get called for a ton of travels, and he probably wouldn't be as protected from the NCAA like he is with the NBA in this hypothetical scenario. So that would take a lot of the effectiveness of his game out of the equation if you don't let him travel and if you let the defense actually play legal defense and if you actually call fouls on Lebron when he shoves people which is never called in the NBA as far as Lebron goes.
(didn't watch much of the game tonight but of the few minutes I did watch, he blantantly shoved jaylen brown out of the way for rebound, went up with the putback and got foul called and 2 FT's then did a shimmy because he's used to getting away with shoving players in the back and then gettin a foul called to go to the line when he shouldn't have even had the ball to begin with, even Reggie miller said something about it). And this type of stuff is why I can hardly watch the NBA, for the most part the officiating is perfect league wide, but it's as if Lebron and teammates play (mostly Lebron, unless it's crunch time then his whole team gets the calls) by a different rule book than everyone else so for me it makes the game no fun for me to watch when you feel like the outcomes a lot of the time are predetermined.
With that said though he would still easily make an F4 on a lot of mid major teams once he got used to playing basketball without traveling or being protected. But at the same time I think he'd struggle a ton only being allowed 2-4 steps. He's very used to taking 8 steps because if they don't call it then you're going to evolve your game around that and base all your moves off being allowed 8-9 steps no matter what.