Depending on who you ask, LeBron James and Michael Jordan are the two names at the forefront at the greatest of all time debate, and that’s been especially in the aftermath of ESPN’s documentary series, “The Last Dance,” which highlighted Jordan’s unwavering hunger to win during his 13 seasons with the Chicago Bulls.
Whether it’s fair or not, James has been criticized for not having the same competitive spirit as Jordan, or even the late Kobe Bryant. However, James has garnered a reputation for being a better teammate than both Jordan and Bryant because of both his play style and his general temperament.
In a recent video for Uninterrupted, James talked about what he thought it would have been like to be teammates with Jordan from a basketball standpoint, and James said they would have been able to “work perfectly” together. Here’s the transcript of the video via Brian Windhorst of ESPN:
“Me personally, the way I play the game — team first — I feel like my best assets work perfectly with Mike,” James said in a video released Monday on Uninterrupted’s YouTube channel. “Mike is an assassin. When it comes to playing the game of basketball, scoring the way he scored the ball, [then] my ability to pass, my ability to read the game plays and plays and plays in advance.”
…
“I saw the things [Scottie Pippen] was able to do with Mike. I just think it would’ve been a whole nother level,” James said. “Pip was one of my favorite players … It would’ve been a whole nother level with me being a point forward, with me being that point forward alongside of him during those Chicago runs.”
However, that doesn’t mean James wouldn’t have liked to compete against Jordan, and he made sure to clarify that in a tweet on Monday night:
No I didn’t say I envisioned MJ as a teammate not an adversary. A question was asked “Do I think I could have been a teammate of his and compliment his game”. I love the greats and would have loved to play with them all during their runs because I a historian of the game but https://t.co/PxCv4EBydM
— LeBron James (@KingJames) May 19, 2020
