Ranking the NBA’s greatest players is always an incredibly hard task. Basketball has seen so many great players and nobody can quite agree on who belongs at the top.
But when it comes to pro basketball, what better voice to listen to than one coming from a pro-basketball player?
Back in 2013, LeBron came up with his own list, ranking Jordan, Bird, and Dr. J in his top three.
https://twitter.com/FadeawayWorld/status/1249380108365754369
Michael Jordan is considered the GOAT by most in the NBA community. He’s a career 30-point-per-game scorer, a 14x All-Star, 10x Scoring Champ, 11x All-NBA Player, 5x MVP, and 6x Champion. On the court, he had almost no weakness. He could drive to the rim, attack the basket, create space off the dribble, and defend the most challenging opponents. Nobody else has been able to match the resume Jordan created in his 15-year career.
Larry Bird is surprisingly high on James’ list but there’s a reason he was ranked so high. Bird is a 10x All-Star, 3x MVP, 3x NBA Champion, and one of the best pure scorers the game has ever seen. And while guys like Ray Allen and Steph Curry have made shooting the norm now, perhaps nobody was as smooth as Bird, who just simply couldn’t be stopped when he had the ball in his hands. James once described his game as having “zero flaws.”
Man he was so COLD!!!!! Zero flaws in his game. Larry Legend https://t.co/agYpDoFlqc
— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 27, 2019
Julius Erving was the second player named by Bron and it’s (arguably) even more surprising than Bird. While Erving played in the ABA for the first few years of his career, his tenure in the pro-basketball world was nothing short of spectacular. He was a dunker, high-flyer, and high energy player who averaged 24.2 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game for his career. LeBron has always looked up to him despite Erving having been retired since the King was two years old.
“As a kid I always heard the name,” James said, via ESPN. “And being a huge Jordan fan, I always knew Jordan looked up to Dr. J. So I was like, ‘Wow, who is Dr. J? If Jordan’s saying he aspired to be like this guy, I want to know who it is.’ And as I got the opportunity to meet him over All-Star weekend and stuff like that, he’s just an unbelievable guy. So you start liking someone like that.”
Admittedly, this list might be our of personal bias for James. It’s clear that he has always had a special love for these players and their game. In fact, he has adapted many of their moves into his own basketball arsenal.
If you ask him now, it seems unlikely that his list will be the same. But the admiration he holds for all three of them will always, no doubt, be very high.
