LeBron James has already reached the goal that’s always seemed too high for anyone to grasp. Just don’t bother explaining why to a passionate majority of league followers.
In a story by Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated, the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar admitted he remains driven – despite winning a third championship in historic fashion this past June – by the specter of surpassing Michael Jordan as the greatest player of all time.
“My motivation,” James says, “is this ghost I’m chasing. The ghost played in Chicago.”
[…]
“My career is totally different than Michael Jordan’s,” he says. “What I’ve gone through is totally different than what he went through. What he did was unbelievable, and I watched it unfold. I looked up to him so much. I think it’s cool to put myself in position to be one of those great players, but if I can ever put myself in position to be the greatest player, that would be something extraordinary.”
James is right, of course. Comparing the careers and accomplishments of he and Jordan, a tired discussion that continues being conducted more than a decade after it was first broached, is an exercise in futility. Not only has the game changed immensely since Jordan’s heyday from the late 1980s to late 1990s, but the two shoulder far different on-court roles and played with far different supporting casts throughout their respective tenures.
Maybe more importantly, a player’s overall caliber shouldn’t be assessed by how many Larry O’Brien trophies he hoists. The NBA is indeed a superstar’s league, but one guy can’t win a championship by himself. Here’s the thing, too: James came closer to doing so against the Golden State Warriors a couple months back than any player in league history.
Before the Cavaliers won their first championship, the Jordan-James debate was somewhat dormant. Steph Curry led his team to 73 wins with an individual campaign unlike any this game had ever seen, while James both created and guided Cleveland through typical turmoil with another objectively excellent but relatively substandard year. A third name had entered the conversation at the very least, and ejected one from it entirely in the eyes of some.
That was premature. Curry’s ascent is ongoing; James reached his sustained playing peak in South Beach. The only way the latter can truly accomplish his goal is if he wins as many championships over the next several years as he has in the last 13 – and even that wouldn’t be enough. Why? Jordan’s record in the NBA Finals, as you know, is an unblemished 6-0.
It’s illuminating that James describes the six-time champion as a ghost. Jordan will loom over the league forever, just as he has since hanging it up for good after that forgettable two-season run with the Washington Wizards just after the new millennium. His tangible resumé is untouchable, and his stardom was and always will be more instrumental to the game’s global growth than that of any other player.
James is a living legend, but he’ll never inspire the awe that Jordan did 20 years ago, a reality indicative of time and place more than anything that’s already transpired on the court. His legitimate case as the best ever was on full display against the Warriors. If most are still unwilling to consider it following James’ virtuoso performance in the Finals, there’s nothing he’ll do going forward to change that inevitability.
Does that mean he’s an inferior player to Jordan? No way. But it does mean James will never be the ghost he’s doomed to continue chasing until his career is finished.
(Via Sports Illustrated)
