The most evergreen debate in the NBA revolves around who is the greatest player of all time. For a majority of NBA fans, this comes down to two options: LeBron James or Michael Jordan. Iman Shumpert, who won the NBA championship with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, recently appeared on Dan Patrick’s show and made his feelings clear on what he thinks James can do to ‘supplant’ Michael Jordan as the greatest player of all time.
“I think LeBron is the greatest of all time. He is the perfect example of a basketball player; he has the physical makeup that nobody else might ever get… You want somebody that knows the playbook of all the coaches in the NBA. I’ve never seen a basketball mind get to meet up with such a dominant physical form ever before LeBron James. So, understanding that and understanding accolades, I completely get it.”
“It’s just when you talk about how long it took to catch Jordan’s record, Jordan took a couple years off within getting this record. I can’t put anybody past Michael Jordan just because I’m more ranking on winning and how I felt having a player like that on my favorite team.”
“So Jordan will always be my GOAT, but I totally understand the argument that happens. I think it’s even more special that I got to play with LeBron and be a part of that conversation, people talk about it all the time, like ‘you guys are hating on LeBron just cause they want him to be better than Jordan’ and everybody and I think it’s a great conversation. And I think LeBron, Kobe, Steph, all of them understand they have done their job and we are supposed to have this barbershop talk about who is the greatest.”
Despite winning a championship with LeBron James and singing his praises, Shumpert somehow concludes that Jordan is still the GOAT. To be fair, in terms of purely winning, Jordan has six rings compared to James’ four. Additionally, Jordan has never lost in the NBA Finals, and while James has appeared more times, he has won fewer rings than him.
But additionally, Shumpert may be biased towards Jordan since he is from Illinois, where Jordan was considered like a god during his playing days, since he played for the Chicago Bulls. In terms of purely winning games, Jordan won 65.9% of all games played in his career; meanwhile, James won 64.6% of them. Even individually, Jordan (five) has more MVP awards in the regular season than LeBron James (four).
Shumpert even admitted later in the interview that he has spoken to James about this debate as well and clarified his stance that Jordan is the GOAT. Having played with LeBron James and still calling Jordan the greatest just goes to show how generational Jordan’s legacy is.
