If the Heat win this year’s Finals, it will give LeBron James his first three-peat. Because of this, and many other reasons, comparisons to Michael Jordan are inevitable. Yesterday, one of Jordan’s former Bulls teammates was asked whether LeBron’s Heat would have stood a chance against Jordan’s Bulls.
Here’s what Horace Grant had to say when asked to compare his Bulls teams to LeBron’s current team, via ESPN Chicago:
The Heat wouldn’t have had a chance,” Grant said Tuesday on WSCR-AM in Chicago. “We would have locked them up. We would have locked them up. Especially with the rules today, Michael would have had a field day.”
This just adds another chapter to the LeBron vs. Jordan debate, but it’s important to remind readers five men share the court for a basketball team. Last year, Scottie Pippen said LeBron would kick Jordan’s ass. Earlier in these playoffs, there was some controversy over whether LeBron stared Jordan down during a breakaway dunk against his Bobcats.
It’s always difficult, or almost impossible, to prove these types of claims when we’re comparing teams from different generations. We can consider how impressive a three-peat would be for the Heat compared to the Bulls. During their first three-peat, Jordan’s Bulls beat the Lakers, Trail Blazers and Suns in the Finals. Each of those opponents won at least 57 games during the regular season. In their second three-peat, Jordan’s Bulls won at least 60 games each of those years, including a league record 72 wins during the 1995-96 season.
For LeBron, a three-peat would mean beating the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Finals, and then the Spurs in back-to-back seasons. They haven’t been as dominant during the regular season as the Bulls (except for Chicago’s final year of their first three-peat when the Bulls suffered with a visibly worn down MJ after playing for the Dream Team the summer before), but the quality of Miami’s opponents in the Finals definitely stacks up against what Jordan and the Bulls had to face.
There’s a lot hanging on these Finals, as is always the case when we’re talking about a player’s legacy. If LeBron wins, he’ll have a three-peat before turning 30. If he loses, it will be three defeats in five Finals appearances.
We’ll add another layer to this debate in a couple of weeks.
If LeBron loses the Finals how will his legacy be affected?
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