Jordan was coming off an 18 month hiatus playing baseball. He was in no basketball shape and still improved the Bulls enough to make them contenders.
James on the other hand spent most of his career with the strongest teams of the weakest conference in history. He made the finals 8 straight times but that’s like winning a weaker than now Ligue 1 with PSG.
And besides that, the eye test alone is sufficient; James has so many holes in his game that constitutes any comparison between the two moot.
I feel like the only reason any of the Cavaliers rosters were good was because LeBron was on it…
I dare say every single roster Jordan played on was better than the supporting cast James has had for any of his years in Cleveland.
The Cavs didn’t even make the playoffs a single time while he was in Miami. He comes back and drags them to the finals.
Also, he almost single handedly beats arguably the greatest NBA roster ever assembled having gone 3-1 down in the finals.
To try and argue he’s anything other than one ofbthe greatest players ever… I don’t get it. He’s done things in the game that no one could have done. To declare a single player the greatest ever seems a bit dirivitive, just like trying to argue whether Messi or Maradona is the best player ever, or Dalglish vs Gerrard etc. I just don’t understand the constant need to undermine this guy’s achievements.
There is no doubt that he is one of the greatest of all time.
No doubt whatsoever!
He’s a top 5 for me for sure!
I also don’t understand all this negativity about an all-time great who is also an all around wholesome individual, attentive dad, big philanthropist, and a very kind and intelligent man.
A lot of it may have stemmed from “The Decision” which was very cringey but it’s been years. People need to let that go! And all this flopping accusations…I just don’t see it. Just because fouls get called easier nowadays is not his fault. By that token, everyone flops?
James also seems to lead an admirable personal life, despite having been told from a very young age how great he is.
That’s his roster before he run off to Miami to join up with Bosh and Wade. Granted it wasn’t much to look at apart from Ilgauskas and maybe Hughes but in comparison to the other Eastern rosters at the time, it was competitive enough. Once he started jumping ship to team up with some of the best players first in Miami and then back at Cleveland, he demolished any sense of competition. And Jordan’s early rosters were diabolical, suffice to say that they were known as the “Travelling Cocaine Circus”.
2016 was an impressive feat but he still got a helping hand with Green’s ban and Bogut’s injury; plus his own Cavs were nothing to sneeze at.
Anyway, I’m not disputing his greatness; just stating that for me he is overrated and by that I mean that he is nowhere near Jordan but at the tier below him.
He is built like a brick shithouse and yet he is one of the worst offenders. Some of the most egregious ones:
Agree with your first few comments but you can put together videos like that of any current star. And he wasn’t getting any calls for legit fouls until he started doing that so I don’t know what to make of that. It’s like us with Salah, gets the shite kicked out of him and gets nothing because he tries to be as honest as possible.
then there’s this
Jeez that’s quite a few!
The flip side of these crticism is the clear sliding scale refs in the NBA have long used for what is a foul based on the size and perceived strength of the player being fouled. Shaq could have people hanging off him and refs would let it go. Lebron is so oversized for some of the roles he played that refs would go to lengths to even up the match up by overlooking a LOT of stuff. The Salah comparison is apt.
Yup, a foul is a foul. Just because you’re big/strong enough to play past it doesn’t make it not a foul.
let’s be honest, league’s gone to shit. Steph Curry is one of the few players I admire left in the NBA
the non-call traveling violations, the flexing and machismo bullshit during the game… it’s over the top.
I’m older now, but growing up watching the battles with Jordan/Thomas/Miller/Bird/Johnson/Malone/Barkley teams…those were great games to watch.
And then a great player like Durant masquerading on social media as his own fan…and Kyrie…oh man Kyrie 
The thing destroying the league for me is how the games end. Way too many fouls. Close games aren’t interesting because the final 30 seconds are almost always a slog of intentional fouls.
Bringing in the Elam ending would massively improve things. I saw the Maine Celtics fhis year play a game with Elam and it was great.
I moved the US in 96 and almost immediately decided the NBA was dumb because even then what people told me the travelling rule was had no bearing on the game and I couldn’t understand how no one else saw it.
you were just catching the tail end of what I would call the “golden era” of the NBA. Kobe Bryant was just emerging, he was the marquee player who eventually replaced Jordan at the top of the pile.
But those playoff series in the late 80’s and early 90’s between the Bulls/Lakers/Pistons/Celtics/Knicks/Pacers were just another level of hard work and competitiveness. Literally changed the game.
But they still all travelled. All the time.
I think it was Jordan who erased traveling.
Definition of wasted time. Watching the first half of an NBA game.
That goes both ways. O’Neal would literally lift Mutombo off the ground with his elbows and James has been stiff arming his way to the basket his entire career.
