Jordan vs LeBron James: The Greatest of All Time?
There has been recent debate lately ever since team USA won gold and that is has LeBron James taken the torch from Michael Jordan as the best player of all time? There’s no question that LeBron is the best basketball player on the planet right now, but that sure does not make him the best of all time. LeBron may be able to reach that title, but the matter of the fact is that comparing anybody to the great Michael Jordan it has to be compared by the number of rings they have at the end of their career.
I know it must be exciting to win gold for our country and the person on that team was LeBron James, so automatically people have ranked him the best player of all time. I guess people have forgotten about Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and the one that’s still playing Kobe Bryant.
There is nothing wrong in comparing LeBron to Jordan because if you think about it they are very similar in many ways.
Michael won his first NBA Title at the age of 28 and LeBron won his first title at the age of 27 a year younger than Michael was. However, it took MJ seven seasons to win that first one and took James nine years, so if you look at it LeBron James should be on his way to win at least five more since Jordan won his first title around the same age as LeBron is now.
The one thing that may hurt LeBron to take the best player of all time title away from MJ and that’s him going to another team. A team that has a Dwyane Wade and a Chris Bosh which may not go well for people to name LeBron the greatest of all time. Yes, James did leave in a way that wasn’t acceptable by pretty much everybody and that made him a villain until he won the NBA Title this past season. LeBron was a free agent and he had every right as any free agent has to join a team that he seemed that he had a better chance to win a ring.
Trust me if Michael, Magic, Kareem, Larry and Kobe were on a team like LeBron was with in Cleveland all of them would have taken the advantage of free agency to join another team that puts them in a better chance in winning a NBA Title. The fact is that all of those players were already on a great team. Magic came to a Lakers team that already had Kareem and Kareem wasn’t going to leave once he learned that Magic was the guy to help him win multiple titles. Kobe had Shaq and Phil Jackson as a coach, so Kobe isn’t going to leave. Larry had Kevin McHale and Dennis Johnson and with Larry’s talent he wasn’t going to leave that team. As for Michael he was not on a great team when he came to the Bulls. The Bulls did not have the great players to put around Michael until Scottie Pippen was drafted in 1987 and got Phil Jackson as their head coach in 1989 and we all know what happened in the 1990′s with Michael taking the Bulls to six NBA Championships
The Cleveland Cavaliers never put the right keys around LeBron that’s why he left. He did not have a Kareem, a Magic, a McHale, a Pippen next to him in Cleveland until he went to Miami and now has Wade by his side.
There’s no doubt that LeBron will end his career with multiple titles the question is how many? Kobe has five right now and is on his way to try to win his sixth ring and tie Michael Jordan for the number of NBA Championships.
I wonder if anybody still thinks about Kobe possibly still being in the debate if he’s better than Michael. Why all of a sudden did LeBron surpass Kobe and Michael at the same time? I don’t think so! LeBron needs to get in the discussion in which we talk about if LeBron is better than Kobe first before we start talking about him being better than Jordan. Kobe has five championship titles and may be on his way to his sixth.
If LeBron can get to five or six NBA Championships then there will be a debate in who’s the greatest of all time is, but we have to wait for that. He just one his first title and I’m positive that LeBron will end up with multiple championships just like Kobe and Michael, but until that happens we need to are just going to have to wait and see what more LeBron James can do with the Miami Heat and only then we will be able to discuss who the greatest of all time is.
