Is Michael Jordan better than LeBron James? - Episode 6 Basketball 100

Summary

The Athletic NBA Daily — Episode 6: Is Michael Jordan Better Than LeBron James?

Date: August 28, 2025
Hosts: David Aldridge, Joe Varden, Law Murray
Context: This episode celebrates the release of The Athletic's "Basketball 100" book, debating who reigns supreme among the all-time NBA greats, and explores the ever-controversial topic: Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James.

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Overview

This special episode dives into the top five players in NBA history as ranked by The Athletic’s staff for the “Basketball 100” project. The hosts analyze legacies, compare eras, and most intensely, debate Michael Jordan versus LeBron James for the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) title. The conversation is rich with personal memories, historical context, and candid, sometimes philosophical takes on greatness and what it means for basketball's future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Joy and Challenge of Ranking Legends

• Celebrating Excellence over Anger (02:55)
  • David Aldridge opens by emphasizing the joy in honoring the best, not letting debate turn into anger:
    “The book is designed for people to disagree… there’s no way you can come up with the right answer about anything except that Michael Jordan’s number one… but we can discuss.” (03:00)
• Personal Favorites Among the Top 5
  • Joe Varden finds joy in Bill Russell’s timelessness:
    “When you have a career and a life’s work, you want people to be able to remember it… and Russell certainly has been able to do that.” (04:55)
  • Law Murray celebrates Michael Jordan’s transcendent reach:
    “Even in kindergarten people was like, ‘Oh yeah, Mike’ — he had crossed over to the point where a four year old knew who he was.” (06:35)
  • Aldridge laments Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s underappreciation:
    “Kareem’s just been forgotten by most people including historians… thirty-eight thousand points essentially with one shot… and nobody could stop it.” (09:40)

Greatest of All Time: Jordan vs. LeBron Debate

Joe Varden’s Argument for LeBron (17:51)

• Cites LeBron’s longevity, scoring record, and ability to endure:
  “LeBron’s had the better, longer career… he gets credit for that”. (19:01)
• Notes personal bias as reporter who covered LeBron extensively.

Law Murray’s Jordan Case (20:04)

• Stresses Jordan’s historic 1988 season and evolution as a player:
  “When Michael was that age… you can see some similarities. But I’m not doing that for 1988 Jordan when that dude was MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same year, as a guard.” (20:36)
• Notes the context: Bulls built from irrelevance with Jordan.

The Finals Factor

• Aldridge:
  “LeBron’s got a case… the eight straight Finals — that’s impossible!” (24:33)
  • Even if the Eastern Conference was weak, sustaining that dominance is unique.
• Joe:
  “Of all the five top players, LeBron’s game is the only one you could drop in any era and he wouldn’t have to change at all because of his size and athleticism.” (27:01)

Jordan’s Adaptability (31:16)

• Both Law and David agree that Jordan would have developed a great three-point shot if it were as vital in his era, citing his adaptability and work ethic.

The Michael Magic

• Joe articulates Jordan’s lasting impact:
  “He (Michael) changed the way we think about the sport… LeBron is the next Michael… but Michael did it first.” (41:22)
• Law contrasts the ‘unquestioned’ era of Jordan with LeBron’s:
  “The best thing that Michael had is that stretch of not being questioned… all 6-0 means to anybody, it’s a narrative thing.” (42:51)

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Other Notable Players & Contexts

Bill Russell’s Dominance

• David argues against those who diminish Russell due to his era or lack of offense:
  “If it was easy to win eleven titles in thirteen seasons, other people would have done it besides Bill Russell.” (08:53)

Kareem’s Place in History

• Aldridge on Kareem’s overlooked legacy:
  “Kareem was just unbelievable… six league MVPs, one more than Jordan.” (13:09)
• Discussion of the 1970s as the “forgotten” decade that Kareem dominated.

Era Comparison & Portability

• LeBron lauded as the most era-proof: size, strength, skills.
• Magic Johnson called a “cerebral” player who’d thrive today.
• Discussion about how three-point shooting, media, and economics may have impacted the stars if they’d played in a different era.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Bill Russell:
  “He destroyed their mental capacity and will to continue competing against them… that’s the ultimate triumph of an athlete…”
  — David Aldridge (09:02)

• On LeBron's Case:
  “The thing to me that is… most compelling to me is the eight straight Finals — that’s impossible.”
  — David Aldridge (24:53)

• Jordan’s Era-Changing Impact:
  “We haven’t really changed how we look at the game since Michael.”
  — Joe Varden (41:22)

• On Greatness Across Eras:
  “You can find people who look like Kareem, who look like Bill Russell… but Bron’s mix of size and athleticism is truly the most one-of-one thing.”
  — Law Murray (28:35)

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Reflections on Creating “Basketball 100” (48:23)

• Joe Varden cherishes the chance to work on LeBron’s chapter and to speak with NBA legends.
• Law Murray reflects on the privilege and responsibility of chronicling living history, and the importance of recording stories before they’re lost.
• David Aldridge:
  “If you like basketball I like you… to be a part of this has been a joy… it is the best of what we can be if we decide to do stuff together.” (53:29)

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Conclusion

This episode is an in-depth and warm-hearted exploration of basketball greatness: what it means, how it evolves, and why it remains fiercely debated. The hosts bring historical perspective, personal anecdotes, and thoughtful analysis, ultimately leaving the question of Jordan vs. LeBron open — with reverence for both, and a reminder that loving basketball means loving its whole, unwieldy history.

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Recommended Listen:

• Michael Jordan vs. LeBron debate: 17:51–44:09
• Reflections on basketball history and preserving legacy: 46:19–54:00

Transcript

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[David Aldridge]

We'Re down to it now the top five in the basketball one hundred the book that all of us at the athletic contributed to i'm david ald aldridge along with joe varden and law murray we're going down from five to one you've heard one hundred to six send your hate mail to andrew schlect it is a labor of love and a labor of debate we understand that and as i've said about a few hundred times in doing these podcasts with various people over the last year or so the book is designed for people to disagree the book is designed for people to argue because there's no way you can come up with the right answer about anything except that michael jordan's number one which is which is clear and obvious to anybody that cares about basketball but we can discuss and we will discuss over the next few minutes about this list so we're down to the top five as voted upon by the athletic staff and let's start with the notion of joy let's start with the notion of hey these are the best of the best of the best of the best and that should make us happy it shouldn't make us angry it should make us happy because these are the guys that were head and shoulders above everybody else so let's start with across the way my screen is set up joe is next to me and law is next to joe so let's start with joe which one of these guys makes you happy to rank this high i guess.

[Joe Varden]

I would say russell because i really like that someone who played so long ago can stand the test of time obviously this is basically a different sport when mister russell was out there winning twelve titles i believe that's the right.

[David Aldridge]

Number well eleven and thirteen seasons yeah.

[Joe Varden]

Okay eleven and thirteen seasons i never saw him play i saw kareem play a little bit and i was eleven in in nineteen ninety one when magic made the announcement that he had contracted the virus so you know i he would be of those three he's who i remember the most but it has to be russell i think from a joy perspective just because you know when you put when you have a career and you have a life's work you want people to be able to remember it and even for it to transcend i think generations in this case and and russell certainly has been able to do that you know he retired when late sixties early i think late sixty nine maybe sixty yeah sixty nine so you know that's a long time to have to have not played and to be as i guess you know as honored and respected as he is still in this game is pretty cool cool.

[David Aldridge]

Law how about you.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

By default it's michael jordan and i say by default because i got into basketball in nineteen ninety five that was after bill russell after kareem abdul jabbar have completely conditioned included their careers and when it comes to magic johnson i remember watching magic johnson when he came back to the lakers you know but i was too young to watch him when he was magic for real you know like the magic that we got to see in nineteen ninety six that was a different version of magic you know i'm so i'm grateful i got to see that version play like that's kind of crazy me looking back but you know michael jordan and even with michael jordan it's like i knew of michael jordan even when i thought i would never have anything to do with basketball you know like pre first retirement jordan i was like you know even in kindergarten people was like oh yeah mike he had crossed over to the point where a four year old knew who he was so it was a big deal for me to actually see him come back and to see him ascend the bulls back to the three peat that i'm familiar with the first three peat that wasn't a three peat that i grew up with you know i just knew that that existed but i got to see that three peat in real time i got to see them watch to see them win seventy two games in real time and i didn't even like the bulls i didn't even like mike like that i wanted to i was more interested in like man they always talk about mike what they gon he ever loses and that dude never lost.

[David Aldridge]

Never lost took care of that he.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Was the he was he was the inspiration for love bar ball as far as i'm concerned like i never saw him lose in the playoffs like ninety five didn't count to me so like to actually have him you know as a part of my basketball like coming of age you know that is always something that i'm going to to to really i'm never for going to forget that like i knew what people were saying about mike when he was playing at least in the second half of the nineties and that allows me to like look back thirty years later and it's like oh he's at the top and it's like yeah i'm not going to debate that so yeah yeah i don't know if the right word is joy or excitement like our producer andrew just you know kept it consistent and i appreciate the consistency but this is this list is obviously different than the other list this is the top so we knew who's going to be here i'm not shocked that these are the.

[David Aldridge]

Top five all right i'm very glad that russell's on the list i don't understand there's something about people who claim to like basketball i don't know that they actually do but people who claim to like basketball that would have a problem with bill russell being in the top five because he wasn't like a great offensive player which seems insane to me because he was the greatest defensive force in the history of the game and the record is the record if it was easy to win eleven titles in thirteen seasons other people would have done it besides bill russell so there's something singular to bill russell's excellence that made that possible i don't care what era it's in i don't care if there were plumbers and firemen they weren't but i don't care if you think they were those were the best basketball players in the world at that time and bill russell dominated all of them and not and not just dominated them dominated them to a point where he literally was the cause of jerry west's incredible angst as a human being through the adult portion of his career because he's he could not beat bill russell celtics no matter what he tried no matter who he played with and that's what when you talk about destroying people that's what bill russell did that's what michael jordan did that's why they're at the top of the list because they didn't just beat teams they destroyed them they destroyed their mental capacity and will to continue competing against them and that's kind of the ultimate triumph of an athlete right especially a professional one because the other guys are getting paid too and the other guys are getting paid a lot of money and the other guys are really great players too but i'm happy that russell's on the list but the one that really makes me happier is kareem because i think kareem has simply been forgotten and i'm not sure why i'm not sure why well i have theories but kareem's just been forgotten by most people including historians including a lot of historians who follow the game who are serious about the game and part of it is i think kareem as a player was not a very he was not one that cultivated the media very well he was very standoffish to the media throughout most of his career did not have much to say to the media and that was part of it but that's not all of it there's a lot of players who are not particularly media friendly i think part of it is kareem was not an exciting basketball player you know not the way that lebron's exciting when he has the ball in his hands or michael's exciting when he ends the ball and magic was exciting when he was leading lakers on the break kareem wasn't at all exciting but as i keep saying he scored thirty eight thousand points essentially with one shot he had one thing that he did he made one career three pointer in his entire professional career one wow he had one move now he had other stuff he had he had a step back his step through and he had some other things that he did but basically he took the ball over his left shoulder and threw a skyhook at you and you knew he was going to do it and everybody in the building knew he was going to do it and everybody watching on tv knew was going to do it and nobody could stop it couldn't stop it and he just kept hooking sky hooking you to death and did it and scored thirty eight thousand points and set a record that lasted almost four decades.

[Joe Varden]

My question for you yes when when did kareem stop being the best player on the lakers.

[David Aldridge]

That was you know pretty soon after magic got there it took a year or two i'd say make going to certainly by the time they lost to the celtics in eighty four and this is my opinion i wasn't covering the league then but i was watching kareem was still the best player but i think after that it was clear that magic was a better player not not that he was a better player than kareem but at the time he was a better player than kareem because kareem was getting older and worthy had come along and so it was they had multiple best players worthy was outstanding and look at his finals numbers don't take my word for it just go look it up look at look at what he averaged in finals series but yeah i would say mid eighties and then after that certainly magic had taken over and was the guy but kareem was still capable if you watch game two of the finals in eighties five you you know how he was still capable he just couldn't do it every night anymore but yeah so i'm glad kareem is in the top top three i know isaiah thomas who i who i've known for a long time believes this with all his heart that kareem's the best player who ever played and you can disagree with it i'm not saying you should agree with it i just know that there are people who are in the hall of fame that think kareem's the best who ever played and i and i think the lack of sexiness to the sky hook is what kind of keeps him from being remembered there's just nothing particularly interesting about that move but it was the most devastating offensive move in the history of basketball it was there's nothing nobody else did that more often than kareem shot a skyhook so i'm glad he's in the top i'm glad he's in the top five i'm glad he's getting his due oh by the way six league mvp's one more than jordan so you know yeah i mean kareem was just unbelievable unbelievable because it's a podcast we have to argue now for a few minutes so i hope you guys don't mind it's mandate it's actually mandated by law now that we have to argue.

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[David Aldridge]

We we're supposed to say we're supposed to ask the question who's ranked too high and who's ranked too low in these top five which i think is kind of silly but you know because it's five it's not like they have it's not like it's not like it's one to forty it's one to five i don't know i guess is this where we talk about jordan and lebron for the billionth time is that where maybe we do that now which is fine we can do it again.

[Joe Varden]

I guess you know you said at the top that anybody who likes basketball and is really paying attention has michael at number one you know i mean among the there's so many things that are awesome about your career david and one of them of course is that you actually covered both guys which is so cool and then as you know every time we get together for dinner i just ask you to tell as many stories as you can about the michael days i i am actually i am in the the growing minority that that lists lebron above michael but i you know i guess i guess where i come where i'm coming from is two things one lebron is the star i covered and and so of course there's going to be you know there's just have a little more access to his game but also i just think i think that you know he's had a longer career and he's what he's accomplished is either you know either more so minus the titles and it's and and you know he's got the scoring record and you know part of what goes into winning a finals right is you have to be the last guy standing the last team standing and the healthiest team and you can't blow in achilles and you know all that stuff like so so you're rewarded for being able to make it and so when we say things like well you know lebron is the leading scorer now just because he played so much longer than michael well okay but but he gets credit for that so so i guess my argument is now at this point which is a few years after we all did the book lebron's had the better the the better longer career and so that's i guess that's that's why i say what i.

[David Aldridge]

Say yeah okay okay jump in long.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

My thing with my thing with michael jordan and just looking at what he was able to do like his statistical output is crazy and a lot of that statistical output was before he won championships like when you look at his nineteen eighty eight season and i was looking at that quite a bit because you know i had this thing where i love shay gilius alexander's mvp season this year you know i was like look at the numbers that shay is putting up like at this age that he is when michael was that age and i was like man you can see some similarities but i'm not doing that for nineteen eighty eight jordan when that dude was mvp and defensive player of the year in the same year as a guard like you can't even be a guard and be considered defense player to get now you know marcus smart got it and everybody was like man finally did what gary payton did that was damn near twenty years earlier then like like it's the statistical output that was like i can do this like that dude was dropping thirties every season for like six years straight and then translated that into winning at a time where not only did everybody say you don't win with your guard you know without without a dominant big like magic was a guard but he wasn't guard size and he did have kareem like if he didn't have kareem he wouldn't have gone to the lakers because he would have stayed at michigan state like right like that's another thing we should get into but it's like magic was insulated in the fact that he got to start his career winning right away like michael jordan was playing for chicago bulls team that nobody was talking about in the early eighties like that's what y' all tell me anyway so.

[David Aldridge]

Like no you're right he was playing with granville waiters and like that's a.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Great goal like something valuable in that like he had to he he had to create and establish a lot and then they had to tell him but you're not winning and then he won and then he dipped and then he came back and was a different kind of player like his game was different in the late nineties compared to the eighties and he dominated that that's the mid range mike that i'm familiar with he could still get up and bang every now and again but like he evolved his game to still dominate at the age that he did to the point where like nasdans mike the most impressive thing about that is that team was ancient he was thirty four turning thirty five and scotty's back was wearing out and dennis rodman wasn't that dude who could you know he could still rebound but like he wasn't the defense he wasn't even starting anymore you know at parts of that season like there are things that are about to get lost to history because of the a the era of lebron and lebron has been chasing mike his whole career it's been twenty plus years he's still chasing them and we can still say that it's a respect thing it's a objective statement like lebron can say like one of the reasons he still has something to play for and i feel like one of the reasons mike didn't play as long and had interruptions in his career is because he won to the point where he felt like he could walk and that is something that i don't know if we could ever feel that way about bron i don't know if bron will ever feel that way period i do if i feel like if kd didn't go to the warriors and and and or bron really did win five six seven with miami i don't know if bron's playing today i just don't know you know and so that that is something that again i feel like i never thought we would lose michael jordan to history but we're going to we're going to do that's going to happen and it's going to probably happen when bron is done playing.

[David Aldridge]

I remember very distinctly kevin mchale saying this one time and this was fifteen years ago said they'll forget about michael jordan and i said that's insane how are they going they're not going to forget about michael jordan he said you watch they're going to forget about michael jordan they're going to forget how great he was and he's right and they're starting to forget already i would say this i've said this again many times in many podcasts lebron's got a case now he's got a case you it's not like you're reaching if you say he's the best player of all time the thing the thing to me that is what makes lebron's case compelling to me as somebody doesn't even agree with the case but understands that it's it's a real thing the thing that is most compelling to me is the eight straight finals like that's impossible like that doesn't michael didn't make eight straight finals like you know what i mean like so no matter again you can talk about whatever you can say the east was weak and bob it doesn't matter if it was easy to make eight straight finals that everybody would be doing it because these are the best players in the world okay and everybody's not doing it one guy did it him with two different teams by the way so that to me is the most compelling part of his case is that for a decade he had a chance every year to win a championship that's bill russell territory okay that's there's very few people that can say that year after year after year and lebron can say it because his te led his team to eight straight finals and that is amazing right and so he's got a case the longevity piece is certainly a part of it the excellence during that longevity at season twenty two he's still really good he's not hanging on at the end scoring averaging six points a game like he's still really good so that is that is incredible to me and so i don't disparage lebron kareem's got a case bill russell's got a case but lebron's got the better case right because of all that we've talked about so if it comes down yeah go ahead joe is lebron's i've.

[Joe Varden]

Been thinking about this while we've been talking is and i feel like but but you two might have a better better look at this i feel like of the fa of the five top players lebron's game is the only one that you could drop in any era and he wouldn't have to change at all because of his size and athleticism like he could have played in the russell era and of course he could have played in the eighties like he's big and strong enough to be able to withstand that of course he could have played in the nineties and now he's a dominant player you know michael michael's game is is is close but he shot thirty two percent from three and he also played in an era where the salary structures were so much different how how would he do in this era when he would command so much money and it would cost against the salary cap in terms of team building and then the other three guys on the list i mean the game was different like you could say maybe magic's game would fit the best now but you know david at the top you said that cream attempted one three now you know in his first career yeah bigs have shown that they can teach themselves how to do it brook lopez is just one one example but you know joel embiid is the last center to win mvp he's he's a thirty five thirty six percent three point shooter so you know he and russell would would have to change so is that part of the discussion that lebron's game is the most applicable to any.

[David Aldridge]

Era i think oh go ahead go.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Ahead yeah i would just say like the coolest thing about braun is as someone who is a high school graduate of in zero five like the fact that he was told he was supposed to be great in high school because of his physical you know the fact that at eighteen years old he looked like a fully formed man already and he still had physical development after that and he lived up to all of that you know i thought that was the most impressive thing because any quote unquote chosen ones before him like mike we knew his high school story he got cut right right ron wasn't getting cut in high school you know what i'm saying and that's and that's what is like you're you can you can find people who look like kareem who look like bill russell i mean even with magic magic had the size but he didn't have the athleticism that brian had like bron's mix of size and athleticism is truly the most one of one thing and then he combined that with being great as a basketball player which i mean that doesn't that doesn't always happen and that's the thing where it's like his special size and and athleticism to go with the skill and some of the skill had to develop he wasn't shooting that thing coming straight out you know like that that that is what transcends errors and that's the thing where it's like when i look at all these dudes and it's like oh what could they have done here it's like bill russell for example it's like as we know he was a great athlete we know he dominated games with his rebounding and his intelligence and his and his defense even to how he blocked shots like he was saying i can block shots i'm a block shots to start fast breaks and dudes don't do that enough they just want to send that thing to the fifth row right but what does bill russell's ability to make shots from anywhere how does that translate to different errors that's probably the biggest demerit to bill's top five case just because you look at the percentages you look at the fact that he never dropped twenty game in the ranks he did a couple times in the playoffs and you're like could you really have bill russell lee joe team in in the twenty first century it would be it would look weird right that's i feel like i feel like that's the whole when we talk about era hopping like yeah it's bronze body combined with his game and i don't think everybody else has anywhere close to a case like that well that's.

[David Aldridge]

I yeah i see what you i do agree with part of what you're saying part of what you're saying i do think braun could you could play lebron could play in an era because of his his basketball acumen and his size but so could magic for the same reason because magic was as cerebral a player who's ever lived and so the fact that he didn't shoot it great would be mitigated by the fact that he wouldn't have to because he'd be getting layups all the time or he'd be diming people up and other people would be shooting wide open threes i mean think about that now think about magic in an era when he's surrounded by three point shooters and how many assists he would generate okay so and how many points his team would score he did that in an era where they didn't shoot a lot of threes so it was a much more congested paint right and he still managed to get incredible amounts of assists every year to to the the michael piece about his three point shooting which a lot of people bring up i would simply ask this if michael jordan is considered the greatest winner in in mod in his era and was to law's point earlier the best offensive player in the league and the best defensive player in the league in the same season at guard do we think he wouldn't have become the best three point shooter in the league too if three pointers were important back then oh he worked.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

He would have been fine shooting it like the thing with shooting is look at you know and this is the part of the game that that it's changed but it hasn't changed like what's changed is that mid range to the three like like the mid range was the dominant shot to the point where you know you had power forwards catching it at the top of the free throw circle and shooting it then and if you see that in twenty twenty five you would think that's just asinine why are you catch spotting up from.

[David Aldridge]

The top bill lambert shot yes yes.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

But it's like if you grew up and you watched seven especially the seventies when there wasn't no damn three point line but if you watch eighties and nineties basketball it's like that's not only how these dudes grew up but that's how it's like we're going to get good shots from this area whatever like that's what analytics is analytics is take a few steps back and get yourself an extra point and so i think when you play the game in a way where it's like that is not a considerable area on the floor that's not our offense you know it's like you know when we watch football and it's like yeah there ain't no there ain't a lot of players for third and fifteen like i feel like a lot of not just teams and coaches you know when i say teams i mean the group of guys that you put together to form your roster right it's like oh yeah you can have one guy out of fifteen who can shoot three who cares like that's probably what you're thinking in nineteen eighty five but like now that's crazy it's like you can't do it like that sure i think it's like when that three point line moved in a bit for those three years michael was a clip just like everybody else from three you know what i'm saying it's like the league moved this line in i think we should probably use it that's how it was when it moved back it was like let's just go back to what it was i think if michael came up in this era he's shooting the three well magic came up this era look how magic was like oh they shooting threes a little bit more now late eighties and it's like that dude was like a thirty seven percent three point shooter for a year on pretty damn good volume especially correlating to his era that's like joe i love that you brought that up because it's like we're going to be like man like i think guys get different abilities to play the game based on how the entire league was treating a part of the game that's why you get the volume of threes that you have now not necessarily because teams are like like you know standing out it's because everyone's a copycat it's like well we can't lose this margin too much like we might as well use this area.

[David Aldridge]

You know yeah yeah and michael's game was predicated a lot of michael's game was predicated on drawing fouls too right i mean that was a big part of his game getting would you call.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Him a foul merchant in his way.

[David Aldridge]

In his era sure yes yes right like all like most great offensive players he knows how to draw fouls like he's good at it like he gets for whatever reason he gets the referees to blow their whistle like there's that's a skill right that's a skill because everybody can't do it and he was really good at it he wasn't like the best i've ever seen at it but he was he was quite good at it and he would have i think as the gay as he got older i think he would have relied more on the three pointer if it was a shot that was encouraged to be taken right as opposed to what you were talking about law which is became just an incredible low post fadeaway jump shooter like an amazingly efficient low post fade away shoot he just was he became excellent at it right because he couldn't jump as much as high and he couldn't do it as often as used to so all that to say that i think he would have adapted to the three pointer and been perfectly fine with it as he got older he made six threes in the finals in game two come on like it's not like he couldn't do it it's just that he didn't do it like and so so anyway all of that to say while i i do think lebron's got a case and i would never tell anybody who thinks lebron's the best player ever that they're wrong i mean i would never say they're wrong to have the opinion you it's it's okay to have that opinion i just disagree with it because of what i saw from both of those guys when they were at their absolute best and what when lebron was at his absolute i would say he was at his absolute best with the heat i think is fair to say i believe it i think that's when he was at the peak of his game and they made four straight finals and they went two and two and they really should have gone one in three i mean you know honestly they should have gone one in three and they didn't so you you can't i can't demerit him for winning he won it they did win it so okay but they went two and two when he was at his absolute best and when jordan was at his absolute best as a player he won the first the first three i think was his peak as a player he won three went three and oh and went in fairly comfortably three and like it wasn't like like my favorite michael jordan stat is he never needed a game seven never needed one in the finals he was six and oh with no game seven like and so i mean i don't know i just i think that that is just i think that's unassailable i i.

[Joe Varden]

Know that lebron was at his most athletic when he was with the heat i wonder if he was a better player those next four years with the cavs because he was a little smarter saw the floor maybe a little better yeah and then you would say okay great he was a better player when he was with the cavs and he went one and three yeah but then you start talking about who they were playing against that's fair and this is.

[David Aldridge]

Fair yes this is a fair that's.

[Joe Varden]

When we have to say yes michael.

[David Aldridge]

Never saw that michael never played the bulls i would i think it's fair to say the bulls never played a team as good as the warriors yeah.

[Joe Varden]

Now now whatever the bulls yeah right.

[David Aldridge]

Whatever yeah they were the warriors right and so that the era was the era is the era you play you can only play the teams that are there he can you couldn't play the the fifty eight fifty through sixty five celtics they weren't available to play so you can only play who's there but you're right i think that certainly the warriors were the best finals opponent between those two guys right if you stack them all up all of the finals teams that michael jordan and lebron james played against the warriors were the best opponent by far right like it's not close so that is fair but greatness dictates that you still find a way to beat the team that's their best.

[Joe Varden]

Opponent i want challenge as the cleveland guy who was born in the same hospital as lebron four years before him i and the one who's like actually asking questions of probably the greatest player ever in in michael i do want to say that you know we haven't talked about how michael had that unquestioned killer instinct that lebron does get questioned about that that's that's one thing michael michael would stop at nothing to win and then the other thing that that i think is at least still true for anybody my age and maybe even anyone down to law's age and then maybe under law is where this might change but like i think about michael's impact on basketball maybe the way i think about tiger in golf whereas like when michael came when michael came along and he got to be as good as he was we we as a sports community we we looked at basketball differently and we haven't really changed how we look at the game i don't think since michael like so like lebron you could say well he's the all time leading scorer and he went to eight finals and he you know he he led three different teams to finals no one's ever done that either but and that's all that's all fine but he didn't change the way we think about the sport like he's the next michael you know like he's the next great nike athlete with the the lifetime contract and the shoe and wearing twenty three and all this stuff but michael did it first like you know i just think again i think about tiger and of course there were great golfers before him there might jack nicklaus might be better than tiger but but we look at golf through the prism of what tiger did yeah and there's a guy right now playing his name scotty scheffler who who is as like he's he's reeling off wins the way that tiger did we're not we are nowhere near thinking about golf in the lens of it being scotty scheffler's game he's just being compared to tiger and so i think you know maybe that's not a great comparison because lebron has done a lot more than scotty has done in that sport but but i just do think that until we until we are able to look at basketball in a lens from other than what michael did to it i think that michael will will always be at that that.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Top that top line i think the challenging thing that lebron has is something that that da brought up when he was talking about kareem actually because the best thing that michael had is that stretch of not being questioned you know that's what that's all six and o means to anybody it's a narrative thing to say with all the great players in the league at that time in both conferences michael when he was at his best couldn't be touched magic made the playoffs every single year of his career and they lived in the finals even if he was playing with kareem like five championships in twelve years and they were in the finals another i.

[David Aldridge]

Think three or four three other finals.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Appearances yes yes right and then you got bill russell who was literally twenty seven two in playoff series like you know literally twenty seven and two and and never lost a game seven right like when michael was like oh i don't need game sevens in the finals with bill it was i don't i need a game seven and i'm going to win it every single time like that's unassailable i think it's eleven zero.

[David Aldridge]

In game seventh eleven oh and so.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

With lebron we all know like you know there's finals that he lost there's times that he was great with that couldn't quite win it the biggest with me in cleveland you know growing up as someone who wanted bron to win all the time his first one with the cavs because i wanted that for braun and i wanted that for cleveland i had nothing to do with cleveland i'm from philly you know what i'm saying like i was hurt personally when he couldn't make it out of the east after they won in o they won the east in zero seven like that zero seven run when he beat up the pistol i was like this is it and yeah they lost to the spurs but it was like he's going to get back and that's when bronze started winning mvp's but that those sixty wins teams kept on not making it out and that was like man you're being questioned that's why the decision hit so hard with kareem kareem played in the dark first ten years in the league he won like six mvp's and one title and that title came in his second year with oscar and the whole league was in the dark the celtics dynasty was over the day bill russell decided he was not only done playing he was on coaching he was on boston period and the league i just felt like everything that was quote unquote problematic with the nba or problematic with professional basketball like the nfl had the super bowl it was taking baseball it was one on one it's like basketball was lost it was in the dark it was so many things.

[David Aldridge]

Seventies was a was an era that nobody talks about or remembers at all.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

And kareem dominated that era and it.

[David Aldridge]

Was he was the best player yes.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Yes like he gets to los yeah he gets to los angeles in nineteen seventy six from milwaukee he wins another mvp and that lakers team didn't even make the playoffs right the aba was about to fold like basketball was in such a weird place that kareem's greatness should have crossed over so much more and it didn't because you know he was doing it at a time where pro basketball was on life support as.

[David Aldridge]

Far no it is law it's a great consumption that kareem's that decade which was kareem's decade there's not it's not close if bill walton hadn't gotten hurt he may have challenged him but he got hurt so he couldn't challenge him but that screams decade he was the best player in the league by far in the seventies and he only won one title and so nobody remembers right for a lot of reasons but he only won one so yeah i mean that's a fair he won all of his titles with the lakers right like almost all of them with the lakers so that's fair that's a fair point to make about kareem and his era so you know i don't know that we're going to solve this conundrum anytime soon but i wanted to close with this because with this is about you know the end of this book and i had a different experience than you guys did but i i did want to ask you like was there anything that you learned in doing this book or being a part of this book or talking about this book or you know about the league or about the players or about yourself you know like because it's it was a labor of love to me like this really i really enjoyed doing this because i love telling stories and i love that that younger fans know who oscar robertson was and know who sam jones was you know and know who dolph shays was you know what i mean like i really because if you love basketball you love all of it right you should love all of it at least i think you shouldn't just love the part that you that you're a fan of you should love all of it right because you revere i revere george mikin he saved the league there'd be no league without george mike you know like you got to respect that you know and so i wonder what you guys got out of this out of being a part of this series and y' all can just jump in anytime you to want.

[Joe Varden]

Well just in listening to the question i was honored and very appreciative that i was asked to do the lebron piece to to to be a part of a project like this from a a company like ours and you know we don't need to get into too much like you know patting ourselves on the back but the athletic is has really become a force and i think think a long time down the road you know whatever our company is people will talk about the athletic the way they've mentioned you know sports illustrated or espn like as you go on through and so for the athletic to do a top one hundred book for basketball and and just to have the privilege of of getting to rely on my experience of the last however many years following that guy from akron that meant a lot to me but when you ask me about what i learned you know david again i mean just with the with our conversations like you you know that i really kind of appreciate history and so i also got to talk to or i also got to work with with lenny wilkins and he delivered groceries to jackie robinson was just bold me over it gives me goosebumps now just like talking about it yeah and then i just had this wild insane conversation with rick barry as he drove across florida he was driving from like some golf tournament to some business thing that he had and and we just had this conversation that bounced all over the place and i never talked to him before and i don't even know if i used everything that we said but just it was like an hour that like it was one of the most unique hours of my life talking having that conversation sure and that that never would happen without this book so those are yeah those are my memories for sure.

[Jerry Insurance Advertiser]

Man i just feel like first of all i'm just fortunate to be in a position to you know talk about ball especially with you guys y' all have seen like things i haven't come close to seeing yet or experienced yet and like when those moments happen like i'll appreciate it if those moments happen but like i just think about how young the league is compared to other sports their legends are still here we still have them we're losing them though and that and and that is something that i've kind of thought about a lot over the last few years like i wrote the oscar robertson chapter and again that was a responsibility bestowed upon me which was like all right cool let's figure out how to do this but there was one guy i didn't have a relationship with oscar i got to meet him two years ago after i wrote this chapter which was really cool but i did have a relationship with jerry west and jerry west basically helped me write that chapter i remember going i was in the middle of an eight game road trip shout out to the athletic i was in the middle of a game road trip and i went to orlando and sequestered myself in the hotel room look first time in my life i was in orlando i wanted to go out and be like oh this is where disney world is at like i never heard it was a miss to me i'm in orlando i was like nah i got to write this chapter and jerry west said he was going to call me and i still was like he ain't going to call me nah my phone rings and he calls me and he's on the phone with me for an hour talking about a dude that was his contemporary you know what i mean i got to write off of that and i can't do that today jerry's no longer with us you know what i'm saying we got a lot of these guys who it's literally living history in this game that we love and the fact that we were able to put this book together we got to talk to so many of these guys to talk about their careers and the careers of their peers and like i don't know when we'll get to do something like this again and i don't know who's going to be here when it's time to do that so yeah yeah that is the gravity of this book like we didn't mess around and just like you know i think a lot of us really got a chance to do something cool with this and the next time we do something like this i'm sure it'll be great but it won't.

[David Aldridge]

Be the same no right right both of you said is is so correct and just just being able to to lift up people like oscar robertson who's again been forgotten and you know oscar robertson has touched oscar robertson touches every part of the modern nba every single part of it from from free agency to to super teams to all of it he touched all of those eras he touched he's created he's part of all of those eras you know i got to i had never met bob pettit before i was doing the will chapter and i talked to bob pettit about wilt chapter go and i just was just sitting there slack jaw bob fetid i'm talking to this is amazing you know like and just to talk to guys like to talk to people about sam jones i just you just are blown away by the connection to your point both of your points like they're still here a lot of them are still here and the fact that we were able to touch so many of them directly to get their reminiscence about the game and the league i have one rule about people if you like basketball i like you if you like the nba i like you that's it we we can we can coexist because that's my line of demarcation because i couldn't i sucked at playing i was terrible at play i couldn't do anything but i love the game always love the game and to be a part of this has been a joy to get back to that word again and i just i'm so happy that the people that were contributing to this book felt that same sense of joy because it's it's it's a wonderful game it's a without getting too metaphorical it is it is the best of what we can be if we decide to do stuff together like like you can really do amazing things if you do them together and basketball kind of really touches that because it's only five people and it's but those five people can do amazing things together if they put their mind to it and they sacrifice for one another so on that sort of happy note like i think it's a good time to get out thanks guys thank you for this this was great great discussion and once again books out there buy it put my kids through college thank you a real lemonade pet insurance review by madison h you.

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[David Aldridge]

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