Before July 8, almost every aspiring basketball player in the world wanted to be LeBron James.
Now it seems as though James is the only one happy with James.
Fans have burned his jerseys, taken posters off their walls and even given him the nickname “Prince James” instead of echoing the self-proclamation of “King James.”
I’m not a James basher, but one thing is certainly clear, James will never be the next Michael Jordan. Jordan was a competitor who wanted to destroy his opponents. James is a great athlete who wants to hug his foes and then buy the other team drinks at the club.
ESPN caught up with Jordan at a celebrity golf tournament and asked him about James and his decision.
“There’s no way, with hindsight, I would’ve ever called up Larry (Bird), called up Magic (Johnson) and said, ‘Hey, look, let’s get together and play on one team,’” Jordan said.
This is the difference between proving greatness and attempting to assemble something imagined as greatness. Jordan wanted to play great NBA players such as Bird and Johnson to prove himself against the best. In those efforts, he brought six championships to a city that had never won a NBA championship.
Jordan said times are different; the talented superstars can pick and choose where they go and whom they play with. Jordan had some say on which players the Bulls front office signed, but not to the extent of James. He had the opportunity to decide whether a player should or should not be a Cleveland Cavalier. The roster was shaped around his liking.
“Things are different. I can’t say that’s a bad thing. It’s an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys,” Jordan said.
James figured he couldn’t win a championship with a team he basically built, so he pulled the free agency card. James and Dwyane Wade had discussions and decided they wanted to play together in Miami to win rings. Again, I’m not ragging on James, but this is the easy way out. James and Wade are two of the leagues top three players. Chris Bosh, one-third of Miami’s big three, is in the top-10.
Jordan made his legacy by defeating the best competition the NBA had to offer. Some of the best players in the league’s history didn’t win a title because of Jordan: Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Reggie Miller.
People will make the argument Jordan had Pippen. The difference is, Jordan didn’t lobby for Pippen. He was drafted and the two learned how to play together. Every championship team has at least two all-star players, but the Bulls were always Jordan’s team. He had the ball at the end of the game whether he shot or gave up the ball for people like Steve Kerr to hit game-winning threes. No one else was in control at crunch time.
Who will the Heat go to? The team has been Wade’s, but James has a dominant personality that always needs the ball in his hands.
Barkley said it best when it comes to the Jordan-James conversation.
“He’ll never be Jordan,” he said. “This clearly takes him out of the conversation. He can win as much as he wants to.”
Brandon LaChance can be reached at blachance@dailyegyptian.com or 536-3311 ext. 282.
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