LeBron James Is Not Comparable to Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan left the NBA following the 1997-98 season. Ever since then, we’ve been seeking his successor, the player who would take his place as the best in the game—and possibly surpass him.

MJ had a successor when LeBron James joined the Miami Heat, developed a jumper, and developed a post-game. No athlete created a Jordan-like gap between himself and his colleagues.

Shaq couldn’t get it off.

In our memories, Shaquille O’Neal was an unstoppable beast in the early 2000s. Yet, he only won one regular-season MVP and was regularly limited by injury—and free-throw shooting.That was impossible for Kobe.

 

 

Kobe Bryant produced 81 points in a game, averaged 35 for a season, and emulated Jordan’s “I’m a jerk, but it’s because I want to win, so it’s good” attitude. But he never indeed dominated the rest of the league. He just won one MVP award and couldn’t even make it out of the 1st round before Pau Gasol came. Steve Nash has more MVPs than Kobe, yet someone else’s about to compare him to Jordan. Even MJ, who played for the Washington Wizards in the early 2000s, could not achieve success.

LeBron is the only one left.

 

Kobe is amazing, Kevin Durant is great and improving, James Harden can score, and Carmelo Anthony can score—but no one can deny that LeBron James is head and shoulders above everyone else in the league.

A player has not been this far ahead of his peers since Michael Jordan. So, of course, everyone wants to know: Is LBJ better than Michael Jordan? What must he do to overtake him as the best of all time?

That is a good debate.

But it’s like comparing apples to…well, something very different from apples.

Jordan will always be Jordan, and LeBron will always be LeBron. Jordan is the best basketball player of all time. LeBron James may turn out to be the perfect basketball player ever. It, however, is not the same thing.

Jordan used to play basketball with a vengeance. His renowned killing instinct may have been exaggerated (remember, he once hit a free throw in a game with his eyes closed while teasing Dikembe Mutombo), but watch any vintage Jordan playoff game, and you’ll see his continual action, constant involvement, and constant expenditure of energy.

On defense, he’ll get his hand in the passing path to create a turnover, then dive out of bounds on the other end to save a teammate’s wayward pass, get the ball back, and find another teammate for a corner three.

He’ll shoot, miss, collect the rebound, come back up, and be fouled.

He’ll scold a teammate for a defensive blunder, then bring the ball downcourt and locate that player for an open jumper immediately.

Jordan missed 10 of his last 11 shots in the 7th Game of the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers. However, his team still won because his persistent activity wore down the Pacers on both ends, allowing the Bulls to outlast them.

Jordan’s games, particularly those from his early career, always follow the same pattern. He spends the first 6 minutes of the game deferring, deferring, and attempting to engage his teammates. And then he’ll take a couple more shots because he’s open, and by the end of the first quarter, he’s scored 10 points. He nearly seems unable to stop himself.

Jordan played basketball so hard that he molded the game to his desire. Jordan dominated basketball.

LeBron must do this on occasion.

He occasionally exerts all his willpower and energy to win a game. That’s how he won Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals. LeBron won that game despite Ray Allen’s corner three with five seconds remaining. On the other hand, LeBron has perfect timing on when to let loose his inner Jordan, whereas Jordan was always Jordan.

LeBron isn’t conquering basketball; LeBron is solving it.

When he develops, LBJ will become the ideal basketball player. If he shoots at all, he only takes good shots. He makes fantastic passes. He stands up for the player that needs to be stopped the most. When playing off-ball defense, he sets himself flawlessly, sometimes so perfectly that the ball never reaches his side of the court.

He is working to become an expert at the game so that every move he makes is right, and the basketball game is doing all the work for him.

Not because he’s lazy, but because he’s trying to make the ideal pass, leap in the perfect passing lane, or take the perfect shot, LeBron will appear to be on cruise control for much of a game. He is looking at the angles. He keeps an eye on the fads.

During the regular season, is he reclining on defense or playing too passively on offense? That’s not passivity; he’s continuously paying attention, experimenting, and working out strategies to control offensive possessions without touching the ball or raising a finger to win games.

From the first to the third games of the 2013 championships, LeBron wasn’t being hesitant.

He was asking questions better to understand the series and his chances of success. Many forget that James only contributed 17 points and the ideal block at the ideal moment in the Heat’s rout of Game 2. The Heat only required that to get up steam and thrash the Spurs.

Stats are not the point. James can achieve basketball heaven without averaging a triple-double. The perfect LeBron performance would be for the Heat to win 103-94 while James makes a few outstanding shots, plays flawless help defense, and sets a few crucial screens. He is not even required to connect on any of the shots. What matters is that those rounds, when they were fired, were the ideal ones to fire under the circumstances.

When his team is in trouble, and he is needed, LeBron will switch into Michael Jordan mode. For example, at the end of last year’s Chicago Bulls game that ended their 27-game winning streak, LeBron hit Kirk Hinrich so he could drive to the basket, swat his shot, and get the ball back every time down the court.

But other than that, he lets the game come to him in the total sense.

Jordan never strove to be the perfect player.

He likely gave it little thought. He was too preoccupied with trying to win basketball games by killing himself on both ends. He desired to be unstoppable rather than flawless. He was efficient, but his efficiency was a by-product of his outsized talent and determination to succeed. He did win, too.

James is attempting to play the ideal basketball game to be effective. For Jordan, there was no “poor shot,” as Jordan made the shot. But James has worked to eliminate “poor shots” from his arsenal over the past several seasons. And it has aided his victory.

Jordan and James share the trait of having dominated the NBA in their respective eras. We’ll refer to this in ten years as the LeBron era, even if James never wins another championship. Do I need to mention Jordan or the six titles? The ten titles for scoring? Five MVPs? The Defensive Player of the Year award?

But that supremacy is all they have in common.

It’s not only that James and Jordan have different, albeit overlapping, skill sets as players. They take a wholly original approach to the game. However, they are both excellent players but are of different molds.

Never will another Michael Jordan exist. Despite spending their entire careers trying to emulate Jordan, Dwyane Wade, and Kobe Bryant have only been able to flatter him. And if a LeBron James copycat ever emerges—a guy who pursues basketball perfection in the same manner as he does—he will do it quite differently and most likely won’t do it as well.

LeBron won’t ever catch Jordan, but it doesn’t mean he has to. He’s doing things to basketball that we didn’t know could be done.

And it’s okay if people in the future think of him as the best person ever. He’s still not Jordan, though.

 

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