Michael Jordan remains the consensus GOAT in most basketball fans’ eyes despite the emergence of LeBron James. Sam Smith explains why.
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If there’s one debate in basketball that won’t die down any time soon, it’s this GOAT debate. LeBron vs MJ has consumed NBA Twitter over the past 5 years and continues to be brought up in completely unrelated contexts. By now, it’s become tiresome for most fans to keep seeing it.
There are certain members of the legacy press who will never view LeBron as the GOAT. There definitely are members in the mainstream media who’ve been calling LeBron James the GOAT since 2016. The problem with this conversation online is that there is no in-between.
Sam Smith highlights exactly how LeBron James is different from Michael Jordan
Sam Smith was the author of one of the most in-depth Michael Jordan stories of all time. The 73-year-old covered the Chicago Bulls during their come-up in the 80s and their 90s reign.
In Sam’s eyes, there really is no contest for the GOAT – it is MJ, hands down. Because Sam belongs to the era that saw ‘Be Like Mike’ commercials and he’s now looking at a generation that doesn’t have anything like that:
“No. I don’t think so at all. I’ve never seen anybody skipping down in the commercials, saying, ‘Be like LeBron.’ Obviously, it was commercial and marketing and all, but Jordan changed so much in the world and society—the long shorts, the shaved head, and, obviously, the sneakers.”
“I remember friends of mine would be in Russia, and they sent me home these nesting dolls—the Bulls with Jordan and Pippen—things you would never see anywhere else.”
“And you don’t see that with LeBron. LeBron’s a big figure and a great player, and he has an influence in society, but it didn’t change anything. Nobody has changed anything because of LeBron James.”
