It’s official: LeBron James is a four-time NBA Finals loser. In all honesty, I couldn’t care less—my opinions about rooting for professional sports teams are pretty well-documented. But James, himself, is compelling in many ways. One of them happens to be the consistent comparison of James to one Michael Jeffrey Jordan.
The comparisons are inevitable, of course. James (I refuse to call him “LeBron,” as though we were besties or something) is widely regarded as the best basketball player in the world. Jordan is widely regarded as the best player in history. James doesn’t typically fare well in these comparisons—after all, James is now 2-4 in NBA Finals, whereas Jordan was 6-0. I have a different ranking of all-time greats, personally, but that’s another post for another time. However, unlike many people who postulate that Jordan’s greatness is indisputable, I actually lived through and remember Jordan’s early years in the league.
You know who we mostly compared Jordan to back in the day? Bill Russell? Elgin Baylor? Wilt Chamberlain? Jerry West?
Actually, it was Dominique Wilkins.
Jordan and Wilkins came into the league within a couple of years of each other in the Eighties. Wilkins was a prolific scorer, but he could never win a title. Even back then, it was a well-known fact that you needed a second banana in order to win a title. The best that Wilkins ever had was an aging Moses Malone at the end of the Eighties—he never truly had a legitimate second option on offense. Wilkins’ career ended the way that so many stars who chase a championship do. He bounced around from Atlanta to the Clippers (back when the Clippers were beyond embarrassing) to the Celtics to the Spurs to the Magic. Even though he averaged almost 25 points per game, and was undeniably a top twenty all-time player, he never got that elusive championship. And for a while, it seemed like Jordan was doomed to the same fate.
The rap on both Wilkins and Jordan was that they didn’t make those around them better. Jordan was a champion in college, yes, but that was with James Worthy as the true star of that team. Jordan didn’t win again after Worthy left. And he didn’t win during the first six years of his NBA career, either. In fact, Jordan’s Bulls were bounced from the First Round of the NBA Playoffs a whopping three times. Jordan was considered to be an elite scorer, but in the Eighties he was well behind Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and even Isaiah Thomas in the NBA hierarchy of stars. He wasn’t a great defender, he wasn’t a great passer. He was a ball hog, somebody who NBA fans were convinced you couldn’t win with.
Don’t like the Wilkins comparison? I have a worse one for you. Don’t believe me? Here, I’ll prove it.
Here are the first six years of statistics for two players:
Player A: Won three scoring titles in his first six years. Made it to the NBA Finals, but lost. Averaged about five assists per game. Led league in steals twice.
Player B: Won four scoring titles in his first six years. Never made it to the NBA finals. Averaged about five assists per game. Led league in steals twice.
Player B was Michael Jordan. Player A? Allen Iverson. Do you see a lot of difference? Other than the fact that Iverson actually got his team to the finals, not really. He could certainly score, but his other skills were in question.
It wasn’t until Jordan had a complete team around him that he became a real winner. People often say, “Well, even Jordan needed Pippen.” Scottie Pippen was, without question, valuable to the Bulls run. But so were Craig Hodges, Steve Kerr, John Paxson, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, and Toni Kukoc. Oh, yeah, and that one guy who was their coach—Phil Jackson.
Oh, yes, Jordan was considered by some to be a coach-killer. He ran Doug Collins, a widely liked and respected coach, right out of town. His teammates? He was hated by teammates. He punched a few of them. Personal life? He was a philanderer on a scale that made Tiger Woods seem small time. It’s nearly a certainty that his prolific gambling habit led to the death of his father. Many believe that his first retirement was actually a secret two-year suspension by the commissioner’s office for gambling.
Yes, he did win six titles, and maybe he would have won more had he not quit the game twice. Also, Kobe has won five. Magic won five. Russell won eleven.
And don’t forget the Wizards era. An aging Jordan forced himself on a Wizards team, took way too many shots, berated an 18-year-old boy by calling him a “faggot” repeatedly, and failed to get a fairly talented team with a young Jerry Stackhouse into the playoffs.
People complained about James saying that he was the best player in the world after Game 5. Those same people just shook their heads and laughed admiringly at Jordan when he said that, at the age of 52, he could still beat his Charlotte Hornets players one-on-one. Why is one bragging, and one is just “being competitive?”
If you want to compare LeBron James, or Kobe Bryant, or whoever the next anointed one is to Michael Jordan, just remember who Jordan really was. He was certainly great, but his flaws were just as big as his strengths.