Hot Take: The GOAT of Basketball is Not LeBron James or Michael Jordan

Image courtesy of marca.com.

By Sam Bergstrom

Every sports junky is familiar with the GOAT acronym; it stands for Greatest of All Time. In many sports, there is a consensus among fans as to who the GOAT is. Muhammad Ali is the GOAT of boxing. Michael Phelps is the GOAT of swimming. Tom Brady is the GOAT of football. But for basketball, it has never been so crystal clear. 

Is LeBron James or Michael Jordan (MJ) the GOAT of basketball? For the past decade, this question has started heated debates, both between fans in person and in social media comment sections. It causes people of different generations to clash and challenge one another’s ball knowledge. You may even have that one fan who will say Stephen Curry or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the GOAT just to make the other two sides mad. 

MJ and LeBron are generational and dominant talents, but I do not think either of them deserves the GOAT title. 

While both freakishly athletic and unbelievably clutch, LeBron and MJ have different careers in terms of their roles. MJ was a shooting guard who thrived off his slashing ability, midrange shooting, and malicious defense. Contrastingly, LeBron is a hybrid point forward who benefits from both directing his offense and scoring in a plethora of ways. Since they both dominated in different aspects of the game, it is not fair to claim one has a superior career. To add on, LeBron’s 22 NBA seasons (and counting) compared to MJ’s 15 create an imbalance in how to compare them. Maybe it is best to look at their 5-10 best seasons and declare the GOAT based on who has the better prime. 

Even if you did compare MJ and LeBron’s prime years, there would still be a discrepancy. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has seen tremendous evolution since its inception in 1946. Everything from the pace of the game, the team’s play styles, players’ skills, and even the rules of the game has changed over time. This makes it extremely difficult to compare players from different eras. MJ played in an era (1980s-1990s) where the three-point shot was treated as a gimmick, there was more physicality, and zone defense was illegal. LeBron has played in an era (2000s-2020s) where players of all heights are shooting the ball from 30 feet out, everyone has crazy dribbling packages, and traveling violations are rarely called. 

In general, the basketball MJ played is a different sport from the one LeBron has been playing. If the three-point shot were as popular as it is today, perhaps MJ would be the current all-time points leader and not LeBron. If the game were as ferocious today as it was in the 1990s, LeBron may have more defensive accolades than MJ. It’s impossible to adjust both these players’ achievements with the differentiating factors of their time periods. 

Additionally, there is a big difference in competition. MJ played during a time when if a team had two All-Stars, they were contenders to win the championship. In LeBron’s era, there is a wider array of talent surrounding the league. Every team seems to have a superstar, and the possibility of forming superteams is far greater. LeBron lovers will say MJ played against plumbers, and MJ supporters will claim LeBron needed a superteam to win; it is a never-ending paradox. 

Beyond the game’s evolution and their contrasting careers, the GOAT debate simply treats basketball too much like a science. When making their case for LeBron’s GOAT status, fans will point out how he is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, is in the top five all-time in assists, and has a whopping twenty-one All-NBA team selections. Jordan fans will boast his perfect 6-0 record in the Finals, nine all-defensive team selections, and his record 30.1 career points per game. Don’t get me wrong, these are all admirable statistics and accolades. But at the end of the day, basketball is a game, not a mathematical equation. Every point, rebound, assist, steal, and block MJ and LeBron recorded was done in a beautiful, unique, and crafty manner; their statistics are not factors of some GOAT formula.

You can’t successfully compare MJ and LeBron’s statistics, accolades, and dominance because they are far more than basketball players. LeBron and MJ are artists who have both painted their amazing careers using the court as their canvas (LeBron still has yet to put down his paintbrush). You can calculate the cost of a painting, the different materials used, the style of it, etc. But to say one painting is better than the next is a matter of taste. It’s fair to say you like LeBron James as a player more than MJ Jordan and vice versa. It’s fair to say you think one had more impact than the other, or that one was more talented in certain aspects. You can admire and respect one more than the other, but their greatness can not objectively be measured against each other.