5 Reasons Lebron James Is The Greatest Of All-Time
An article in Forbes, “5 Reasons LeBron James Is The Greatest Of All-Time”, written by Leigh Steinberg states arguments on why LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan, who is always considered as the greatest basketball player of all time. Author Leigh Steinberg believes that LeBron James is the best all around player and also more valuable to his team than Michael Jordan. The case isn’t finished yet, and the author states that by his fifteenth season, LeBron James is still dominating the league. Mainly, this article is fact-based and not biased, giving reasons and proofs for each statement. One thing is, it isn’t fair to call LeBron the greatest of all time when he isn’t done proving his worth. LeBron James still has many more years to complete the argument, therefore calling him the greatest of all time is a bit too hasty.
According to Leigh Steinberg, one of the reasons is LeBron’s statistical advantage. “LeBron is the best all-around player, and their individual statistics only reinforce this notion. ” Does LeBron’s statistical advantage over Jordan proves something? Absolutely. Statistics don’t lie, as they have the ability to portray any number of different stories (Clark, 2017). LeBron has less average points per game than Jordan, but that’s all. Isiah Thomas, a former NBA superstar, once stated, “When you talk about just a basketball player—a complete basketball player—LeBron James is a much better basketball player than Michael Jordan. ” Michael Jordan might have been a great scorer, but the statistics verify that LeBron James is remarkable at every aspect of the game.
Another reason according to Leigh Steinberg is how impactful both player’s departure to their former team success. “The Jordan-less Bulls of 1993-94 went on to produce a 55-27 season, just two wins short of the previous season, when MJ was a part of the team. ” In major fact, Michael Jordan had one allstar teammate that always supported MJ to his success ; Scottie Pippen. MJ had never won a single playoffs round without him. Surprisingly, Scottie Pippen led The Bulls to 55 wins after Jordan retires (Smith, 2004). On the other hand, the situation was different for a LeBron-less team. “For the 2009-10 season, they produced an abysmal 19-63 record following an NBA-best 61-21 record season. This fact portrays how big LeBron’s influence to his team, including how he made his teammates better with his skillset.
Author claims that Jordan’s era more physical but diluted. “The other factor that is commonly overlooked is the fact that Michael Jordan was a beneficiary of the NBA’s expansion teams — twice. ” What has to be noted is, all this time in the NBA, there’s always just several good teams as title contenders. Expansion teams won’t matter significantly, as they would just aim to build for the future. This statement is hypothetical, as we can’t see any clear relation between those addition and Michael Jordan’s success. However, the most significant dilution in that era was the rule-changing on threepoint arc that improved MJ’s efficiency. “His 3-point shooting percentage increased from 35. 2% in the year leading up to the change to 50%, 42. 7% and 37. 4% in the three years with the shortened line. ” This might be one of the reason why Jordan scored lots of points in his career.
“Michael never faced a team in the finals with more than two All-Stars”, states Leigh. In Jordan’s era, there was a tight rule to separate multiple allstars joining each other to form a “superteam”. Until 2016, there was no teams with more than three relevant allstars, but that rule seemed to last no longer. In 2017, former MVP Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors that already have three allstars. LeBron James, who had just won his first championship in Cleveland, really had to beat that massive force of allstars which often considered as the best team of all time. Michael Jordan had never experienced a team like that in his career. On the contrary, he played in the 90s version of the Golden State Warriors that we see tear apart the league today (Peters, 2018).
Author also states that LeBron is still dominating in his fifteenth season like nobody ever could. “No one in the 15th season of their careers, at age 33, has accomplished what LeBron has done at such a consistent, dominating and efficient rate. ” This statement is accurate, as we can see him still in his prime mode despite his age. The Author then states, “Like a fine wine, he has only gotten better with age,” LeBron James was having a great season, but honestly he had been better. From 2009 to 2013, LeBron James became the second player to won four MVPs in five years (Zillgitt, 2013), proving how ferocious he was in that range of time. Calling him better with age is only an exaggeration by the author.
Again, this article isn’t biased because the author Leigh Steinberg backs up every statement and opinion with facts. Unfortunately, sometimes the author uses irrelevant facts, so it sounds more like hypothetical; relating two things that have no clear direct relation. Moreover, some things are also exaggerated, but overall this article is affective enough to change people’s mind on how LeBron James’ greatness overcomes Michael Jordan’s. However, the author should’ve just focused on comparing both players, without using the term “Greatest of All Time”, because that title can only be given when it’s all said and done.
