What NBA Legends And Players Think of LeBron James

What's up, YL Sportsmen, it's Lamont. We are back with another podcast episode. Today, we got a reaction video. One of the subscribers sent us this video, said we definitely need to react to it. Obviously, as you guys know, we do a lot of NBA debates, a lot revolving around LeBron James and Michael Jordan. This video definitely touches on some of those specific topics, man. We're going to be reacting to this video titled, Why NBA Legends Pick Jordan Over LeBron. I'm assuming, and I haven't watched this yet, I'm assuming we're going to be hearing from the looks of it, from a lot of NBA legends, past players, about their thoughts on their GOAT debate. Before we get started, make sure you guys like, comment, and subscribe. Hit the notification bell to the video if you haven't done so already. Man, the channel is growing, over 30K subs so far, grinding. Next up is 40K, so salute to you guys for helping make that happen. We're going to get to far more reaction videos throughout the month of December, so a lot more. If you guys got any videos that you want us to check out and react to here on FYF Sports, just shoot them to us, send them to us in our DM. You have to be following us on Instagram or Twitter. It's easy to find, just FYF Sports. Let's go ahead and get to the reaction video. Looks like we got Hakeem Olajuwon, one of the best centers of the 90s, up. Let's hear what these players have to say, and as we normally do with these reactions, play it a little bit, stop it. When we hear something, if we hear something, that's a little bit of cap, man. We got to stop it and we got to address it. Let's go ahead and hear out Hakeem Olajuwon on who he picks in the LeBron Michael Jordan debate. Do you think LeBron James is up there with the greatest players of all time? Yes. I will, you know, depends on how you, because according to the position that he plays, you know, I don't, when people start comparing him with, like, with Jordan, then that's not a fair comparison because, you know, that's, you know, Jordan is a far more superior player and a very, very tough league and very, very, you know, creative, you know, very creative. I mean, that's not taking away anything away from LeBron James because he's a great player, but it's not a fair comparison because I think Jordan is much faster player. Michael Jordan is like. I didn't really get much out of Hakeem as to why, I mean, I understand that he feels and I got no problem with people picking LeBron or Michael Jordan over LeBron, but I mean, give us some more specific details as to why, especially being that you played against him so much. I thought that answer was kind of dry. Hakeem, he just said you can't really compare him because of positions, but then went on to compare them and said Jordan is better than LeBron because he's more creative. I don't know. I don't, I mean, again, I mean, if that's his take, I respect that particular take, but again, it's a bit of a dry answer and it leaves you wondering, okay, is your answer purely based on what you're actually seeing or is it based on bias because you played in that era? You never know. You know what, but we know one thing. We know that Jamal Crawford did not play in that particular era. Let's hear what he has to say. Let's hear what he has to say about this. For basketball, for me, he's the end all be all, like he's the best player I've ever seen. I believe he's the best player I'll ever see. I believe he'll be the best player in a million years from now. I really believe that. I believe he is the best ever. What do you think about him? Like, what, if you had to sum it up, because I try to explain it to my wife, but I never see him play. Put it like this, and Vest pointed this out to me, Michael Jordan is so good that when somebody else is the top of the top, the great in their sport, they'll say David Beckham is the Michael Jordan of soccer. It's an old man, then Kobe, then Braun. Braun is the best all-around player we've ever seen. I like what Jamal Crawford said right there. That last thing that he said is when we talk about great players in other sports, we will say that this particular player is the Michael Jordan of that sport. That's how great Michael Jordan is. Again, I don't know if that's more of the nostalgia that surrounds him and the mythicism that surrounds his name, as opposed to what he actually did on the court that defines his greatness. The one thing I know for certain is that Jordan is not untouchable at that top position. I believe guys like Kareem make a strong case. I think guys like Bill Russell make a strong case, depending on how you argue it. I even think LeBron James has a case. It all is dependent on how you argue it and how you wish to narrow your argument down. Do your biases kick in? Whatever your list consists of, again, with Jamal Crawford, we look at his game. Jamal Crawford was a scorer. He was a shooting guard. Again, maybe that plays into a little bit of the reason why he picked Jordan over LeBron. Let's hear out Steven Jackson, man. I think Steven Jackson might have been in the NBA when Jordan came in. I can't remember. Let's hear him out, though. I've never seen, but he hasn't passed Kobe or Jordan, my opinion, but I played. What do you think Jordan would average? Where do you think he would fit in? He can adapt his game to anything. He would fit in as the best player in the league. That's what he would be. I feel like he'll have more possessions to do more things, but there's also more athleticism in his game. There's more length in his game, but there's also more space for MJ to go to work. We'll never know, but for sure, he's a masterful basketball player, like we've been saying. His skill level is unmatched, so of course he'll do numbers in this league today. I know Michael pretty well, and we've talked about things like that, but I don't think there's any question that if you're a great, great player, and certainly, I'm not sure we've seen a player like him in my lifetime, the coach is impressive play on both ends of the court. He was arguably, well, I don't think arguably, he was the best offensive player and the best offensive player in the league. We haven't seen that before, but the competitive nature of Michael was just unique. If there's someone that was sort of a challenge to him in terms of talking about the best player in the league, he was going to prove that that wasn't the case, and also, he was going to lead his team. He was just a fierce competitor, but physically, I'm not sure we've seen a guy who's like that. The quickness, the lateral quickness, the vertical, the running, gigantic hands, being able to do things in the air that we see very, well, we haven't really seen anyone do like him. Better to you. For me, I- I got to respect that take by Jerry West. I got to respect it because, again, his criteria consisted of measurables, right, the size, the speed, the quickness, the hand size, the combination of things that Jordan could do because of his physical attributes essentially made him unstoppable in the 90s. We had never seen nothing like that before, so I like that take, but again, in some of these conversations or in your particular criteria, even in the criteria that I make, are measurables like that the end all be all? Because even LeBron James has some measurables that even Jordan cannot stack up against. When you look at his size, when you look at the length of his arms, all right, when you look at his power, when you look at his athleticism, it just looks a little different. I feel like Jordan was a bit more graceful with his, but again, I don't know if the measurables argument is going to hold enough weight in some of these debates that we have. It was a great take, though, and it is a factor that you must consider. I think when you're starting to nitpick between these two players, let's go ahead and hear Tracy McGrady and Scottie Pippen now. I know they're going to have some good takes on this. I think just completely just taking over games when it really counts, not deferring to anybody at any given time. There are times where he passed off to a John Paxton or a Steve Curry, yeah, but when it's time to get a bucket, MJ was that dude to take over a game, averaging 40 in the finals one year, winning that championship. I mean, defending the best players, I can't, he's just the greatest to me, man. Does that Isaiah Thomas comment? Doesn't take away from LeBron is awesome and best in our era. Can he do something where you would go, now I would look at him? Did Jordan defend the best players? He defended some good players, but did Jordan defend the best players? I don't know about that. I don't know how accurate that is. We saw what Phil Jackson did with that team. The most difficult defensive assignments on a night in, night out basis generally went to Scottie Pippen. I don't know if he defended the best on a night in and night out. Might be a little bit of cap. Outside of that, I think Tracy McGrady had a great take in his selection for the GOAT. It sounds like a lot of these guys are trending towards either the measurables or championship criteria accolades. Let's hear it out. Let's hear out Ray Allen, man. Him as the best player. No, I think he certainly, just off the cuff, he's certainly the top five of all time. But playing against him and MJ, I think for me, it's MJ all day long. Only because how I played against him and MJ just had everything from mid-range to three point to post-up game and he could score and dominate in each position. LeBron is dominant. LeBron could do so many things on the floor. Do you think LeBron's a better all-around player than Jordan? That's hard to say because LeBron is probably one of the best passers that the league has seen. MJ is probably the weakest part of his game. He didn't pass a lot. But at the same time, MJ didn't have any other weaknesses in his game. And defensively, he was a two-way player. Defensively, he was incredible and just as dominant. Ray Allen identifies him again. I think this is where this discussion gets tricky because he asked Ray Allen a question about who's the better all-around player and is all-around better than just being absolutely dominant in one area. Jordan was a dominant scorer, at times dominant defensively, but did he have as much versatility as LeBron James? And is versatility a measurable that someone can use because if you're a LeBron fan, versatility is probably something that you're going to use if you are debating that LeBron James is the GOAT. And when he asked that question, I think Ray Allen understood that versatility probably goes to LeBron James primarily because of the dynamic ability to pass. But you cannot shy away. I think when you debate these things, I think that's where some people lose credibility because there are certain lanes in this debate that you just kind of have to defer and give to LeBron just to save face so you can get to the things that really make Jordan or really put Jordan ahead of LeBron. But LeBron isn't better than ... I mean, Jordan isn't better than LeBron at everything. There are certain things that LeBron has usurped him on. Passing is one, and you can't just sweep that to the side as if it's nothing. You just kind of have to defer to that. But I think Ray Allen in that instance kind of skated around it. You just have to admit LeBron is the better all-around player. But it also depends on what in your criteria makes the GOAT. If versatility is not at the top five things on your list, then you can just defer and move on to another point. So again, tricky right there. We've seen a lot of people try to finesse that in our debates. When we have these same conversations, I just believe that you just have to be honest about these players and just defer where necessary. And in that instance, versatility, I believe, will always go to LeBron James. Jordan is the GOAT over LeBron James. In a one-on-one. One-on-one. One-on-one match. One-on-one? LeBron James. And so here are five categories I want everybody to always pay attention to. MVP, Finals MVP, Scoring Title, Defensive Player of the Year. And not only did your team win the championship, you won Finals MVP. And if you go by that criteria, there's a little more work to do. And he'll tell you that. That's why he wears number 23. That's why he throws powder in the air before basketball games. Because he emulates, like all of us should or did, the great Michael Air Jeffrey Jordan, who played basketball with his tongue hanging out. Drops mic. A lot of things went on, but if Accolades, is Accolades, is Accolades championships, is that the big best case for Michael Jordan? Did the Accolades make Jordan the GOAT? Did the championships make Jordan the GOAT? Did the Finals MVPs make Jordan the GOAT? Because again, it's another very narrow argument. Because when you use that set criteria, what that does is it really opens the door for Kareem and Bill Russell. And you're talking about a guy named Bill Russell, where I don't think the Defensive Player of the Year Award, or I don't know, or the Defense of All Teams. Some of these awards did not exist when Bill Russell played. But when you get to those Accolades and things like that, there are other players that can contest with Jordan. Which again, it might put Jordan ahead of LeBron if you use that set criteria. But it puts Jordan under other players if you use that set criteria. So is that the criteria you want to live or die on if you are using it to make the decision on your GOAT? And if you're using Accolades and championships to define Jordan as the GOAT, is that what you want to ride with or die on? Again, in these debates that we have and we go live, make sure you guys are following us on IG so you get these notifications when we go live. We can have these debates. But if you go down that road, and we've seen many people try it on this channel, there are other players, not named LeBron James, who will usurp Jordan. They will have more awards. They will have more championships. So is that the hill you want to die on? Again, I think there's a better case for labeling Jordan as the GOAT. I myself has Jordan as the GOAT, but definitely not because of just Accolades and championships. I think that's also a losing argument, labeling to label Jordan as the GOAT. For LeBron and Michael, if Michael played in this era, he'd have his 50. He'd have his 50 points. LeBron's a great talent. No doubt. He's probably one of the top three players ever played with Kobe, Magic, Kareem. But Michael's right there. I don't know why you guys discussed the GOAT. Why you discuss the GOAT? I agree. There's no debate. It's not close enough. It's not close enough between Michael and anyone else to really have the conversation. Let's be honest about it. Steve is one. Dennis Rodman right there. He brought up a very, he said Michael Jordan in this particular era. So it sounds as if he's making his GOAT decision based on what MJ would potentially do in this era. The era that LeBron plays in. And he says that Jordan would average 50. I want to know, why do people not retroactively push Jordan back into the 70s and the 60s where Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell played and asked how much would he average in those particular eras? Because in those eras, in that era, Wilt Chamberlain did average 50 a game. He was an all-time great scorer. How would Jordan fare? We know how Jordan fared in the 80s. All right. With all the dominant teams of the 80s, we know how Jordan fared from the time. And Jordan played over half of the 80s. Jordan played over half of the 80s. So he had a decent amount of time in the 80s to establish himself. And the teams in the 80s proved to be too deep, too dominant, and too talented for him to overcome alone. Similarly, teams in the 70s were also extremely stacked. Bill Russell's teams, extremely stacked. Jordan showed that he had an inability to beat teams that were stacked with talent. So if we go retroactively, could Jordan drop 50 a game in the 60s and 70s and still win championships? Because Wilt Chamberlain definitely did so, but he wasn't winning all the championships. It was the guy named Bill Russell, the guy who was the defender, passer, playmaker that was winning all the chips. It's just very strange. And then to say that Jordan would come into this era and score 50 a game, well, you're basically saying to us that Jordan would be a low IQ player. Because to come out into an NBA game and try to score 50 a game all by yourself will essentially be playing losing basketball. And ultimately, that would not lead to championships. I don't know, man. A lot of people say things, again, Robyn, again, I don't mind the particular take, but what I hate is when people bring players from the 90s into this era and say they would dominate, but you never pushed them back into the 70s or even the 80s, where Jordan played over half of the 80s and ultimately was a failure with regards to championships and high level success in the playoffs. He couldn't beat out Isaiah Thomas. He couldn't beat Larry Bird. He couldn't beat the Milwaukee Bucks. There were a lot of teams that were stacked with talent that he couldn't beat. Again, this is a small sample size that we have. In the small sample size that we have, Jordan couldn't beat stacked teams. There were stacked teams in the 70s that were dominant winning chips. If we go with the sample size that we have, Jordan would not be able to beat Kareem's teams. Jordan would not be able to beat Bill Russell's teams. So therefore, if you use that criteria, why then are those guys not goats ahead of Michael Jordan? How did Jordan mysteriously supplant the Bill Russell's and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's and the Wilt Chamberlain's? When he showed his weakness, he showed the one thing that he showed us that he could not defeat were teams that were largely stacked with talent. But then people criticize LeBron James for having teams stacked with talent, even though teams of the past, like Larry Bird's Celtics, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Magic, like Bill Russell and the Celtics, those guys never get criticized for having teams stacked with talent. It's a very odd circumstance. But you guys hear all of these things in the debates that we talk about. We're going to go ahead and let's hear what Kevin Garnett has to say. I think this is going to be very interesting as well. LeBron, Mike, Kobe. Jordan. Neither one of them. I'm not going to put that, I don't do that era. So you know what I'm saying? But if you want to, as the most dog one and going to take the more serious that he's going to win championships and do things, it's Michael Jordan. You took who? You're next. You want me to imagine? I took Jordan. You took Jordan? I'm never going against Jordan. I've never seen, I thought Michael Jordan was Jesus Christ, like playing to be Michael Jordan. That's true. That tells you that MJ is not as good as LeBron. I'm just going to say this. Any media person that I see in person for the rest of my life who try to tell me LeBron James is as good as Michael Jordan, I'm just going to slap the hell out of them right on the spot. Right on the damn spot. No question asked. The next person who walks up to me and say, LeBron James who is amazing, amazing, as good as Michael Jordan or competes like Michael Jordan, I'm just going to slap the hell out of you right on the spot and I'm going to take my chances with the judicial system. Today and we compare MJ to obviously the greatest in the world today in a lot of people's eyes in LeBron James. What do you feel about those comparisons specifically? Well, first of all, let's not take anything away from LeBron James because LeBron James is a great basketball player. One of the all time greatest that's ever played the game. LeBron James to me, when you think about all around basketball player, he probably is the best of all time, right? All around basketball player. But when you want to say who's the greatest ever, it's still Michael Jordan. MJ was must see TV. We just heard and I let it ride for a little bit just so we can hear those takes we heard from Gary Payton, Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson. We heard from those guys. I want to just kind of let it ride to hear their takes out and again, it to me, it sounds like these guys are caught up in the nostalgia of their own era. It's nobody saying anything outside of the nostalgia and the mythicism that surrounded Michael Jordan. When we heard Kevin Garnett said, I thought he was Jesus Christ. What is it? What does that mean? Like, how does that translate? How does if you're teaching basketball, if you're explaining the greatness of the game of basketball to somebody, how does saying that you thought he was Jesus Christ defined his greatness on the court? How does it show? You know, I don't understand that logic because that doesn't tell me how good he was. I remember Larry Bird saying something to that same degree. Yet, Larry Bird's team swept the Bulls in the playoffs that year. So you sweep the guy that you believe is Jordan. So in the problem with that is, and I don't have a problem with Larry Bird saying that, but if you want to call him the best player in basketball because of how good he was, but Larry Bird was saying that minus the championship. So that takes the championship. That kind of diminishes the value of championships because some of these players understood his greatness without him even winning a chip. But when we talk about LeBron, everyone defines LeBron off of his finals record and the losses that he has in the finals. Even though early on in his career, early, early into his career, he was in NBA finals matchups that nobody picked him to win against. As opposed to Jordan, who early in his career was in the lottery. We have to try to break down everyone's arguments and put some context to it. I'm sensing some fanboyism in some of these takes. That's what I'm sensing. Not a lot of logical takes with this. Let's see what Steve Nash says, because I think Steve Nash also was one of the few players in this list right here that's also played against Jordan and played against LeBron. Any time he was on TV, it was must-see. WGN. Yeah, I mean, exactly. He just had this charisma on top of all the gifts and skills and mentally, you know, how great he is. I mean, playing against him, the one thing that I think that he was unlike any other player I've ever played against is that there was a real fear playing against him. I've never seen the league be kind of fearful of a player or have that much reverence for a player. No matter who has come since then, that was a different feeling when you're playing Mike, because you just knew there was such a seriousness and competitiveness and fire in him. There was a fear with how that was going to manifest itself, potentially, on any given night. So he was, I mean, where do you want to start and where do you want to finish with him? He was everything. I'm always asked about questions to compare him to LeBron. I try to make the best of it. You try to make the best of it? I try to make the best of it, but really, the comparison shouldn't ever be made. They both play two different positions. The way LeBron James played, Michael Jordan was never asked to play that way, because I took that away from him. I was the point forward. I was the facilitator. Michael Jordan is a scorer. He was a defender. He played the game as complete as LeBron James did when he needed to, but he was asked to score the basketball, and that's what he was great at, and there's no game that I would ever play in and pick LeBron James over Michael Jordan. Is LeBron entering Michael Jordan territory? LeBron James is a great player. He's a great player in this era, but he's not Michael Jordan. He's two different animals. Michael was a killer. He's an assassin. LeBron is more of a facilitator. He's the guy that you're going to give the ball, and he's probably thinking, shoot first before pass. That's where Michael, you're giving the ball, he's thinking he's going to score 50 on you, and then he's going to pass. Michael Jordan was the best player, the greatest player in my era. There's been a lot of great players in this league, and it's hard to give one player that best ever crown, but all I can say is in my era, Michael Jordan was the best player in my era. I haven't seen anybody else, Kobe came the closest to him, but LeBron is great, but he's not Michael Jordan. Then we have it right there, Patrick Ewing with the last take as well. Another player from the 90s, another player who went up against Michael Jordan and failed multiple times. A lot of these players, a lot of these NBA legends are picking Jordan over LeBron. I want you guys to let me know. Do you guys agree? If you do agree, do you feel like these players did a good enough job of explaining to us why Jordan is the goal over LeBron? I think a few of them, like Jerry West, used some very good examples as to why Jordan is going to be ranked over LeBron right now. I think everyone else went to the mythicism of the 90s, the nostalgia, and the art that surrounded Jordan. I think a few guys used bad elements, bad arguments to put Jordan over LeBron because those same elements could be used to put people like Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar over Jordan himself. Again, you cannot use logic that simply puts Jordan over LeBron. You need to make sure that whatever criteria that you use keeps Jordan at the top and everyone else below him. Your criteria must meet the same threshold for all of the other greats in the GOAT conversation as well. All right, so I've discussed why I have Jordan as the GOAT right now. I do not believe another player based on my criteria, whether it's LeBron James, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. Based on my criteria, I don't feel like any of those guys can be placed over Michael Jordan. But again, I think, again, as we say all the time, the nostalgia of the 90s is unmatched. The nostalgia of the 90s era, the players from that era is completely unmatched. Again, I feel like there was a little bit of cap and a little bit of biases in some of the things that you're saying. But I definitely respect their take. You have to respect their take when they played against him. I think it's gonna be hard for somebody that played against Mike to say he's not the GOAT. Because if he's not the GOAT, then you ultimately have no excuse for losing to the man time and time again. And as we know, none of these stars in the 90s were able to beat him when it mattered most and Jordan was in his prime in the 90s. But you guys, let me know what you think about this video. All right, do you think it was cap? Do you agree? Spam up the comments below. Let me know who your selection for the GOAT is and why. When we go live, it's gonna give you guys another opportunity to chop it up and talk about it. All right, so make sure you guys like, comment, subscribe. Hit the notification bell. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter. All right, we're gonna be going live multiple times a week. We're gonna be doing more reaction videos. So again, hit us up on social media if you have some videos that you want us to react to. All right, if you want to be a part of the live panel debate. If you want to debate anybody 1v1, make sure you're hitting us up on social media so we can get all of those things set up. Hey, this is FYF Sportsman, another great reaction video. We're gonna be back with more sports and news. But until then, this is FYF Sports, and we out.