‘LeBron James wanted to be like me’: Allen Iverson explains why Michael Jordan is the GOAT over Lakers star

Allen Iverson explained why he thinks LeBron James is the 3rd greatest player of all time behind Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant on the ‘All the Smoke’ podcast today.

The Sixers’ all time great, who played for 11 seasons for the franchise and won the scoring championship 4 times during his tenure with the team, made it to one of the most popular basketball podcasts on the Internet today.

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The combo guard was his usual candid self and took pleasure in engaging with show hosts Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes.

Allen Iverson explains why he thinks LeBron James is #3 all time

While praising Kobe Bryant’s work ethic and placing him on his personal Mt Rushmore of basketball (as did Barnes), he said him and Mike (MJ) are #1 and #2 for him.

He said while he loves LeBron, what Mike and Kobe did to him mentally makes them superior to LBJ in his view.

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“Killas respect Killas… I wish I could’ve had a better relationship with him…”

The legend AI speaking about Kobe.

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— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) September 24, 2020

He initially didn’t explicitly say LBJ was #3 in his book, but after Stephen Jackson had chipped in with an agreeing word on how Kobe and MJ mentally mind****ed the entire league, Barnes made sure of his position on the topic by asking him.

Watch from 1:19:40

Allen Iverson’s basic reasoning is essentially that he loves Michael Jordan so much, and Kobe is the closest thing to Mike.

He also chipped in with how he thought LeBron wanting to be like AI himself kind of dilutes his impact as a GOAT candidate for a bit. He did say LeBron is ‘in a category by himself’.