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“LeBron James in high school was better than Michael Jordan in college!”: A 17 year old King James was head and shoulders above his idol at UNC

Arun Sharma
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"LeBron James in high school was better than a collegiate Michael Jordan!": A 17 year old King James was head and shoulders above his idol when MJ at UNC

LeBron James entered the league with the highest of expectations – he joined the league the year Michael Jordan finally retired.

At the age of 17, the world wanted to see if LeBron James could meet the expectations set by Michael Jordan. That is the level he had to work with, despite being only a high school teenager. Even with all of that, he was unfazed and put all of that pressure on his broad shoulders.

In his 4 years of high school, LeBron just lost 6 games, 5 coming in the last two years. His first year of high school saw him win a state title and averaged 21 points and 6.5 assists. That was not the peak of his powers though, because in his sophomore year he averaged 29.2 points and 8.3 rebounds while getting selected to the USA Today All-USA First Team.

His junior year was his peak, scoring an incredible 30 points, and took a small school like St. Vincent Mary’s to superstardom. Bron was heralded as one of the best high school athletes ever, who at such a young age got many people to look forward to his professional debut.

Also Read: “Michael Jordan was better at baseball than basketball coming out of college”: When Bulls legend’s UNC teammate, James Worthy, broke down several aspects of Jordan

 

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LeBron James vs Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan on the other hand was still a great basketball player in high school, but he did not excite people as LeBron did. However, when he started playing for UNC, he was getting good, real fast. He still wasn’t at LeBron’s level, averaging a meager 17 points and 5 rebounds.

A stark downgrade to King James’s extraordinary stats despite being a few years older. Much of that could be attributed to college-level basketball being grossly underscoring – 17 points could roughly translate to 25 a game in the real world. But with his last-minute game-winner against Patrick Ewing, he became a household name.

As good as he was, there were better players than MJ at the college level. Pistol Pete, Larry Bird, and even Patrick Beverley have averaged more than the Black Jesus, but we all know who stands at the pinnacle of basketball as a sport now.

6 champions  36 shoes and a legendary status later – Jordan is virtually untouchable to most.

Also Read: “Simply the BEST coach in the game! ARGUE with your kids, not LeBron James.”: Ty Lue receives heaps of praise from LBJ

The comparisons are endless – but each player has a die-hard fanbase

LeBron stans and Jordan stans wage their daily wars as to who is the better player overall. Not a day goes by where both fans stay calm, – they are always at each other’s throats. Even after the King admitted himself to be a fan of Jordan, fans of the Chicago Bull man want to put him down.

The battle for supremacy never existed – it was always a fan-created event. Yes, every athlete is competitive – more so if their names are Jordan and James, but that doesn’t make them arch enemies.

Fans won’t get to see James play for a long since he doesn’t have too many years left. A narrative that began almost 20 years ago is slowly but surely coming to an end – a fitting end to a legendary career.

About the author

Arun Sharma

Arun Sharma

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Arun Sharma is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. A double degree holder and a digital marketer by trade, Arun has always been a sports buff. He fell in love with the sport of basketball at a young age and has been a Lakers fan since 2006. What started as a Kobe Bryant obsession slowly turned into a lifelong connection with the purple and gold. Arun has been an ardent subscriber to the Mamba mentality and has shed tears for a celebrity death only once in his life. He believes January 26, 2020, was the turning point in the passage of time because Kobe was the glue holding things together. From just a Lakers bandwagoner to a basketball fanatic, Arun has spent 16 long years growing up along with the league. He thinks Stephen Curry has ruined basketball forever, and the mid-range game is a sight to behold. Sharma also has many opinions about football (not the American kind), F1, MotoGP, tennis, and cricket.

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