LeBron James and Michael Jordan

LeBron James' entire NBA career has been riddled with constant Michael Jordan comparisons but a combination of circumstances over the past month has added fuel to the premature debate. Over the last couple of weeks we've seen LeBron go on a run never before seen (30 points while shooting 60% percent for six straight games) while leading the Miami HEAT on a 12-1 record for the month of February. Smack dab in the middle of that streak two things happened; the All-Star break and Jordan's 50th birthday. The combination of those things fueled the debate to levels we've never seen before with essentially ever single person with an opinion on ESPN chiming in. You've even had the G.O.A.T. himself give his opinion on how he'd stop LeBron one-on-one in an interview with ESPN. I have a few problems with that though.

Air Jordan and King James
First of all, comparing the greatness of a retired player against the greatness of a player in the middle of his prime is just plain stupid. Greatness is essentially a career achievement and the 28 year-old obviously doesn't have the body of work to compete with the 50 year-old. Secondly, almost every single time you hear the comparisons between LeBron and MJ you hear the whole "who wins one-on-one" argument, which is what MJ was bringing up. I have a question though; What does one-on-one have to do with who the better basketball player is? Have you ever seen teams in the NBA just leave 11 players on the bench and let their superstars battle it out by themselves? Of course not. There are too many player characteristics being left out in that equation. Passing is a pretty important element to basketball, is it not? What about help defense? Trapping? Transition basketbal? The list goes on. Playing one-on-on half-court isn't real basketball, it's street ball. If one-on-one defined greatness than a lot of the players on the AND1 Live Tour would be "greater" than some of the members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Championships or bust?
My last issue is with the "experts" who use the rings argument. I'm sorry but when did Michael Jordan, or any player before or since, ever win a championship by himself? Championships is a team achievement, not an individual one. Also, how are you going to use championships to "prove" that Jordan is greater than LeBron and state that Jordan is the greatest ever when he doesn't have the most rings? Is Bill Russell above MJ on the all-time list? What about +Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who has the same amount of rings as MJ but more points and arguably the most unstoppable move in the history of the game (the sky hook)? Or a better question, is Robert Horry better than either MJ or Scottie Pippen just because he has more rings? I think my point is clear. You can't use a stat to help your argument when it contradicts another argument of yours. That's hypocritical. I don't mind people saying that Michael Jordan is the greatest of all-time and that LeBron still has work to do. I've admitted this myself in the past and even earlier in this post when I referred to MJ as the G.O.A.T. But to say that LeBron cannot surpass Jordan unless he gets more than six rings is ridiculous. Jordan was considered by most around the league to be the greatest of all-time after his first retirement when he had "only" won three rings and the list of all-time greats who had more rings than he did was substantial. My ultimate point is something I alluded to earlier. This debate is very premature. LeBron James just turned 28 years-old a few months ago, which is the same as Jordan when he won his first ring, so he could potentially be ahead of schedule. Instead of constantly trying to tear LeBron down in order to compare him to a player who hasn't been a legitimate superstar in 15 years, let's sit back and enjoy the greatest player of our generation as he does things no player in history has ever done.