Scottie Pippen was in front of a microphone on Friday, so inevitably he was asked about the never-ending struggle between LeBron James stans and Michael Jordan stans regarding which basketball player is better.
Pippen has weighed in on this before, but since both conference finals seem to have ground to an abrupt halt this week it was worth exploring once more. Especially when the former Chicago Bulls legend appeared at Golden State Warriors practice on Friday ahead of Game 3 of the Dubs series against the Houston Rockets.
Pippen addressed reporters after practice and was asked about the Jordan/LeBron debate when he explained why it’s not fair to compare the two players and pick one over the other.
https://twitter.com/MarkG_Medina/status/997591198498832384
“LeBron plays in a different role than what Michael was as a player. In all fairness to Michael, he was never asked to do things that LeBron can do for his team. He had a lesser role. And statistically, that’s why you’re seeing LeBron’s numbers are far better than Jordan’s numbers in terms of what he’d do throughout the whole game. We didn’t utilize Michael to do things that the Cavs utilize LeBron for. So the comparison is unfair.”
This is not dissimilar to what he said about James/Jordan debate in April, though that was in context of Pippen claiming that Isiah Thomas is being a Jordan hater more than anything.
Pippen has already been asked about the other looming LeBron tent pole: where he should go in free agency this summer. It’s his opinion that James should stay put, but I’m sure he’ll be asked about that again at some point and maybe things change depending on how the other conference final shakes out.
