Zip it, Michael: LeBron’s no you, and you’re no LeBron either

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mike Parente, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

 

Breaking news, everybody: Michael Jordan just took a breather from an intense game of blackjack to inform us he would’ve never joined forces with Larry Bird or Magic Johnson, unlike LeBron James, who’s apparently disrespecting the integrity of NBA singularity by teaming with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami.

Who’s next to jump on the “Up yours, LeBron!” bandwagon? Obama? At the risk of condemning quite possibly the greatest professional athlete of our – or any – era, it’s only fair I point out how ridiculously irrelevant Jordan’s statement truly is, along with the initial irrelevancy of someone asking him what he thinks about this in the first place.

For starters, Jordan wasn’t a free agent when Bird and Magic were in their respective primes, nor was he ever criticized for not winning a championship straight out of the womb or held to the same ridiculous standards LeBron is held to on a daily basis. While LeBron is certainly no Jordan, Jordan is no LeBron either – they’ve been raised in separate worlds with separate expectations.

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When the Lakers won their third championship of the decade in 1988, completing a five-year stretch of dominance by Boston and Los Angeles, Jordan was finishing up his fourth year with the Chicago Bulls.

While every up-and-coming star is compared to those around him, Jordan never shouldered the burden of having to live up to an all-time great with whom he was constantly compared to unfavorably. Before Jordan truly captivated our minds in the early ‘90s, who was considered the best player of all-time back in ’88? Bill Russell? Kareem? Wilt? Sure as hell wasn’t a shooting guard with comparative skills. The biggest difference between Jordan and LeBron is Jordan was allowed to be the first Jordan, not the next somebody else.

Jordan won six NBA titles in eight years, so, in hindsight, it’s easy for him to say he wouldn’t have joined forces with somebody else to win because he never had to. If his rookie contract with the Bulls had expired at the end of the ’88 season, who knows what he would’ve done? What if Boston, Los Angeles or Detroit (fresh off five consecutive playoff appearances at the time, including runner-up status in the ’88 Finals) offered him big money to play on a team capable of winning the following year? How the hell can Jordan tell us what he would’ve done if he never actually faced such a dilemma?

Better yet, what if Jordan had become a free agent at the end of the 1990 season – after having lost to Detroit in the playoffs for the third year in a row – and was offered a six-year deal to play alongside Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Bill Laimbeer in the Motor City? I know Michael is superhuman both on and off the court, but to suggest he wouldn’t have at least considered such an offer is ludicrous. Granted, we’re all dealing in hypotheticals here, but mine are far more realistic than the nonsense coming out of Jordan’s mouth.

The sticking point in Jordan’s defense is his claim that he was “trying to beat those guys,” not team up with them to win. Two things here: First of all, Jordan never beat Bird in the playoffs. Bird got old and retired at the end of the ’92 season. He beat Magic in the ’91 Finals, but not without help from the 27th greatest player in NBA history, Scottie Pippen, who single-handedly defended Magic the entire series as Chicago ousted Los Angeles in five games.

Second of all, Bosh and Wade are not Bird and Magic. They’re not – nor have they ever been – considered among the top players to beat in the NBA. Nobody has a Chris Bosh voodoo doll in their locker. He’s not the bane of anyone’s existence. And while Wade is a great player, Miami has won one title in his seven years in Southern Florida.Furthermore, LeBron has never lost to either player in the postseason, so this isn’t a case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” LeBron just wants to ball all year with his buddies, live a life of debauchery and decadence in warm, sunny weather and win a crapload of NBA titles. He probably couldn’t care less whether you think he’s Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps or Michael Jackson, and I doubt he’s crying into his Wheaties because Charles Barkley thinks he tarnished his legacy by signing with the Heat. Keep in mind this is the same Charles Barkley who demanded the Phoenix Suns trade to him to a contender in 1996 so he could have one last shot at winning a title, prompting a mega-deal that sent Barkley to Houston to play alongside Clyde Drexler and Hakeen Olajuwon. Now Sir Charles is blasting LeBron for having the foresight to chase a title before he's past his prime?

Again, I’m not trying to tear down Jordan’s legacy (that’s impossible), but can we please kill the over-the-top hyperbole in our attempt to defame LeBron? Other than his ill-advised “retirement” in 1994 to purse his pedestrian baseball career, Jordan never had the chance to leave Chicago and he didn’t have to because he had Pippen, who was the fifth overall pick in the 1987 draft (acquired via trade by the Bulls) and, as previously mentioned, one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history.

To put these ridiculous Jordan/LeBron comparisons in perspective, the Cavaliers only drafted one player higher than 19th overall in LeBron’s seven years in Cleveland and they wasted it on Luke Jackson (No. 10 in 2004), who is now playing pro ball in Italy. Saying LeBron never played alongside anyone as talented as Pippen isn’t an opinion – it’s a fact.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the sheer hilarity of Jordan commenting on any sort of NBA transaction considering he’s the former Washington Wizards front-office ace who drafted Kwame Brown with the No. 1 overall pick in 2001. Jordan knows what it’s like to play alongside a great supporting cast, but he sure as hell couldn’t build one as an NBA executive. LeBron knows what he’s doing, so go back to charity golf and awkward Hanes commercials.

I’ve got the utmost respect for Jordan and his legacy, but he never should’ve been asked to comment on this topic, nor should have he accepted the invitation from whoever asked the question. In fact, if the reporter conducting this interview had any balls, he (or she) would've asked Jordan why he didn't demand the Bulls trade Pippen elsewhere so he could beat him, too, since -- according to his "Airness" -- he was so focused on doing everything himself. On the surface, Jordan vs. LeBron seems like a valid comparison, but the truth is they’re nothing alike – not just in the basketball sense, but in terms of who they were built up to be, what they were asked to achieve and the level of scrutiny they faced at such early stages in their careers. When you break it down intelligently, they couldn’t be more opposite.

And while I hate to beat a dead horse, it’s impossible when people keep pressing the issue regarding LeBron’s current whereabouts. Don’t we have some celebrity adulterers to tear down instead? Let LeBron live.

 

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