Michael Beasley played alongside LeBron James on the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers, and he believes his former teammate is the greatest of all time. During an appearance on the Common Denominator podcast Beasley was asked to pick between James and Michael Jordan and went with the former without hesitation.
“I start with the one everybody know, the points, the longevity, all that,” Beasley said. “With Jordan, they don’t talk about the negativity, they don’t talk about the playoff losses, they don’t talk about the fact that he actively sought out Dennis Rodman, who was already a two-time champion.
“No shot to Jordan because he’s Jordan, but they don’t tell the story of him having to learn the championship pedigree, Beasley stated. “LeBron James gave us, or has given us, the opportunity to be witnesses. We watched his good, his bad, we watched his ups, his downs so long, and he’s been so great that we don’t have anything to say.
“So we now talk about his son,” Beasley continued. That’s my personal argument. My stat argument is LeBron James … [put] every player’s stats on the board and take everybody name off and now we play a Easter egg hunt. We got to find five eggs.
“If we look for the best point guard, LeBron James will be somewhere top five, his stats will be somewhere in the top five,” Beasley added. “Look for the best two, three, four, five, LeBron James, you’ll never see his stats no lower than sixth, seventh on all five of those. Sixth man, all of that.”
Beasley added that Jordan also had the fortune of not having to deal with social media. He believes that James has had to deal with so much more negativity and is amazed that he is still delivering the way he has.
The intangible aspects aside, James has built up a solid case to be regarded as the best ever. The 40-year-old has won four titles, four Finals MVPs, four MVPs, a scoring title, and an assists title in his career.
James is also the NBA’s all-time leading scorer (42,184 points) and ranks fourth in assists (11,584). He has the most All-Star and All-NBA selections as well, with 21 each. It’s a phenomenal resume, but is it better than Jordan’s?
Jordan won six titles, six Finals MVPs, five MVPs, a DPOY, and 10 scoring titles in his career. He made 14 All-Star and 11 All-NBA teams along the way. Jordan also made the All-Defensive First Team nine times, tied for the most in history.
Considering Jordan only played 15 seasons compared to 22 for James, he is going to be far behind in terms of stats and certain accolades. The Chicago Bulls icon has still won more titles, though, and that’s all that matters in some circles.
While more and more from today’s generation, like Beasley, are siding with James on the debate, a lot of the old heads aren’t budging. Kenny Smith stated that James will not touch the Jordan fiber. He claimed that defense is the separating point when it comes to them.
We did a full comparison of Jordan and James’ careers, and the former came out on top. It wasn’t particularly close either.
