Who is the greatest basketball player of all-time: Michael Jordan or LeBron James? It is a debate that has come up a lot, especially recently. It mostly comes up every year around playoff time, as it is the most important time of the season and the time where these two great players set themselves apart from all the others. I’ll be making a case for and against both James and Jordan, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
Michael Jordan is the most recognizable and influential star to ever grace a basketball court. He is considered the greatest, because, in his prime, he went to the NBA Finals six times and never lost. In addition, he won Finals MVPs each time and won league MVPs five times. Jordan is the all-time leading playoff scorer, he’s fourth all-time in playoff assists and he led the league in scoring for 10 seasons. Another argument for MJ is that the era he played in had more lenient rules for defense, whereas nowadays defenders are called for a foul for hand-checking an offensive player. But possibly the most impressive fact is that after his first three-peat, he played two seasons of professional baseball, came back and won another three straight championships. But it also hurt his basketball stats immensely, taking two seasons out of his prime.
As a result of that decision and a bit more, there are facts to argue against Jordan. Jordan’s Bulls team failed to make it out of the first round of the playoffs in his first three seasons of his career and didn’t make it to the Finals until Jordan’s seventh year. Also, a lot of the team’s success was credited to Hall of Fame teammate Scottie Pippen. And lastly, his career stats suffered from taking nearly two seasons out of his prime to pursue a failure of a baseball career. Not only that, but Jordan retired for three seasons coming off of a third straight title and an MVP season, which might have even hurt him more in his case to be the GOAT.
Now to LeBron James. It’s easy to argue for The King. He’s putting up MVP-caliber numbers in his 15th season in the NBA. He is well on his way to breaking nearly every record Jordan has set, no matter if it’s the regular season or the playoffs. LeBron has gone to eight NBA Finals and is a four-time NBA MVP. Earlier this season, he broke one of Jordan’s records by scoring double-digit points for the 867th consecutive game. He is the greatest player in transition of all-time and there’s nothing he can’t do on the basketball court.
LeBron does have his flaws, though. To counterpoint Jordan not making it out of the first round for his first three seasons, LeBron and his hometown Cavaliers failed to even make the playoffs in his first two seasons. But the biggest argument against James is his subpar Finals record. He has made the NBA Finals eight times, but he has lost five times. It is fair to give James a pass on his last Finals loss against the most talented team of all-time in the Warriors in 2017. But LeBron left Cleveland to go to a superteam in Miami, where he went 2-2 in Finals, and nearly 1-3 if Ray Allen hadn’t hit one the clutchest shots in NBA history in 2013. And I almost forgot to mention LeBron played in a softer era.
I think when it’s all said and done, LeBron James will be the greatest basketball player of all-time. But for now, I think Michael Jordan is the greatest, because he has been much better in the Finals, and he has produced the most in the least amount of time. Who do you think is the greatest basketball player of all-time?
— By Jeffrey Marcin
