His Airness

The King of Akron! The Chosen One! All these names belong to LeBron James, the most dominant basketball player in the NBA’s recent history. LeBron’s plethora of success and accolades over the years have rightfully put him into the Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) Discussion as he rightfully deserves to be. However, to think that the culmination of LeBron’s career at this point is enough to have surpassed Michael Jeffrey Jordan is simply delusional. After all, before LeBron was LeBron, he, like every other kid in America that touched a basketball, wanted to “be like Mike.”

Michael Jordan first appeared on national basketball radars when he hit the game-winning shot for UNC against Georgetown in the 1982 NCAA finals. But that shot was merely a minuscule sample of what was to come in the greatest, most prolific, and most storied career for any man or woman who has held a basketball.

For his career, LeBron James averages 27.1 points per game, an impressive feat compared to anyone but His Airness. Michael Jordan in his rookie year came into a league dominated by the likes of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Lakers and Larry Bird’s Celtics, and still put on a scoring display that had many questioning whether he was already the best player in the world. In his rookie year, Jordan averaged 28.2 points, 5.9 assists, and 6.5 rebounds. Many consider LeBron to be the most statistically successful player in NBA history, having recently passed Michael Jordan, but they are not putting these statistics into context. LeBron’s longevity is his greatest asset in this race to be the GOAT, but on a year by year, statistical average basis, it is hard to argue against Jordan. In his 12 years with Chicago, Jordan averaged 30 or more points for nine of those years and won 10 scoring titles, compared to LeBron’s one. This is coupled with a career average of 5.3 assists and 6.2 rebounds. We must also take into account that Jordan accomplished these feats in a league where players were allowed to “play defense.” The league has understandably taken precautions on the defensive side to protect players, but the allowance of hand-checking and hard fouls in the paint during Jordan’s time made it significantly harder for him and players in his era to score, and has now resulted in an inflated amount of points for LeBron and players in this era. This does not even consider the massive discrepancy between the two on the defensive side of the ball, which believe it or not, 50 percent of the game must also be accounted for.

Beyond the dunks and clutch shots, His Airness was one of the greatest defensive players of all time. Over the span of his career, Jordan was named Defensive Player of the Year in 87-88, was named to the All-Defensive First Team nine times, and won three steals titles. This towers over the defensive abilities of LeBron James, who despite having shown the ability to play defense, has had his defensive work rate and effort questioned many times. Look at LeBron’s three matchups with Kevin Durant in the finals, where Durant averaged 30 or more points against the King, even in a loss. Look further back at LeBron’s final year in Miami, where his Heat was blown off the floor by a then record Finals margin by an aging San Antonio Spurs team.

Now that we have covered the statistical grounds of this argument, we can move onto the more important postseason, where we see the gap between Jordan and LeBron grow even wider. It is easy to make the argument that Michael Jordan was 6-0 in the finals with six finals MVPs, while LeBron is 3-6. But the argument is much more compelling if we evaluate their postseason performances holistically and in context. Beyond the 6-0, Michael Jordan never let a Finals reach a seventh game. His Airness never took more than six games to close out the best the Western Conference had to offer, year in and year out. In that span, he averaged a career 33 points in the Finals compared to LeBron’s 28, leaving Jordan second to only Rick Barry in career Finals points per game. But beyond the Finals, Jordan averaged more than 30 points every year in the playoffs (highest being 43.7 in 85-86) except for his rookie year, where he averaged a measly 29.3.

Many will fairly point to the fact that Jordan had been swept early in his career in earlier rounds of the playoffs. But as LeBron fanatics are always quick to point out LeBron’s level of competition in the Finals as a reason for his many losses, it is only fair to take into account Jordan’s competition early in his career. In the ‘80s, Michael Jordan ran back-to-back into two dynasties, Larry Bird’s Celtics and the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons led by Isaiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer, teams that physically beat Jordan up in the paint, game in and game out. As the numbers show, Jordan did not lose to these teams because of a lack of success against their defenses. Like LeBron early in his career, Jordan simply did not have any help. Yet recently, one of LeBron’s great rivals in his matchup with the Celtics, Kevin Garnett, was quoted saying: “We broke [LeBron].” In comparison, after defeating Michael Jordan’s Bulls, despite a 63-point performance against the Bird, McHale, and Parish Celtics, Larry Bird said after the game, “[Michael Jordan] is Jesus in sneakers.” The Bad Boy Pistons manufactured and later wrote a book on the “The Jordan Rules” to try and slow down His Airness, in which they simply decided the best way to do so was to hurt him and beat on him every time he got the ball. Both of these teams alone, not to mention Patrick Ewing’s Knicks and Reggie Miller’s Pacers that Jordan went through in the ‘90s, tower over all the Eastern Conference opponents LeBron faced in what was called the “leastern conference” by the time he got there. Yet once Mike got a second All-Star in Scottie Pippen and came back physically and mentally prepared, Jordan toppled both of those dynasties, and from there put the league on lockdown for a decade.

It is ultimately the assassin’s mentality that Jordan developed from his early encounters with two of the greatest dynasties ever that separates him from LeBron James. Jordan’s killer mentality in the clutch and mental toughness has always been his defining characteristic, and it has never been questioned.

The same cannot be said for LeBron, however. It is not fair to hold LeBron’s first Finals appearance, in which he was swept by the San Antonio Spurs, against him, since he, like Jordan early in his career, had no help whatsoever. However, his Finals appearances after that, in which he got to team with multiple All-Stars like Jordan’s Pippen and Rodman, are fair game. In his next Finals appearance against the Mavericks in 2010-11, LeBron was teamed up with Dwyane Wade, a top five player at the time, and Chris Bosh, arguably the best big man in basketball at the time, in Miami. In what many expected to be the first of “not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven…” (LeBron James, Miami Heat Big Three Parade 2010) championships, LeBron James had the biggest meltdown we have ever seen from a superstar of his magnitude in an NBA Finals. In a series of fourth quarters that left fans in awe witnessing a highly inefficient, low-scoring, turnover-prone, and shook King. The Heat were beaten by the Dallas Mavericks in six games, and LeBron James, believe it or not, was outplayed by an aging Jason Terry. To his credit, the Heat came back the next year and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games, despite Kevin Durant averaging 30 points against LeBron. But the year after, LeBron had his legacy saved by Ray Allen against the San Antonio Spurs. In Game 6, down three with time running out, LeBron bricked a three off the rim, only for Chris Bosh to grab a long rebound (Tim Duncan confusingly was not in the game at the time for the Spurs) and kicked it out to Ray Allen in the corner for the most clutch shot in NBA history. As much as LeBron fans may argue, this is not comparable to Jordan kicking it to Kerr at the top of the key because Jordan drew up that play himself, whereas LeBron would have been remembered for missing that three had it not been for Chris Bosh and Ray Allen’s clutch plays by the grace of a higher power. However, the Spurs got their revenge the following year, blowing the Heat off the floor in five games by a record margin at the time, and essentially blowing LeBron out of Miami and back to Cleveland.

In his return to Cleveland, LeBron was objectively unfortunate enough to have run into a few Golden State Warriors teams, some of which can be considered the greatest ever. In their first of four matchups, LeBron played arguably the greatest span of basketball in his Finals career and had the unfortunate luck of losing both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Thus, it would be a wrongdoing to put that against him. The next year is the famed 3-1 comeback and LeBron’s chasedown block against Andre Iguadola in Game 7. But let's not forget that just as Jordan needed Pippen, LeBron needed Kyrie. Kyrie averaged 27 points that season compared to LeBron’s 29, and it was him who hit the game-winning fadeaway three over Steph Curry. LeBron needed Kyrie to be his closer to hit that clutch shot. Michael Jordan didn’t need a closer, because he is the all-time closer—just ask Utah Jazz fans; they’ve had their fair share of Jordan’s late-game heroics. When we think of Michael Jordan, we think of those series-ending shots, with his mid-range jumper over Bryon Russell to bury the Stockton-Malone Jazz imprinted in basketball history. In his most recent Finals, LeBron was beaten in five games and then swept by arguably the greatest basketball team ever assembled with the Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Klay Thompson-led Golden State Warriors. I do not find these to be major detractors to his legacy because of the feat he was tasked with overcoming.

LeBron James will go down in history as a top-three player of all time, as he respectfully should. In all fairness and objectivity, both LeBron and Jordan needed another All-Star or some additional assistance to get over their struggles in the playoffs earlier in their careers and to win the NBA Finals. However, there have been too many instances in which we saw LeBron mentally wear down in the Finals, need teammates to hit clutch shots for him, and get blown off the court by record margins even with help around. With His Airness’s decade of dominance and a prolific, undefeated run in the Finals with six Finals MVPs, it is simply too much for the King of Akron to overcome. In the Greatest of All Time discussion, there is Michael Jeffrey Jordan, and then there is everyone else looking up at him.