One of the best point guards ever was a guest on NBA TV’s “Game Time” on Monday night where he shared his thoughts on the greatest player of all-time. Isiah Thomas loves basketball conversations as much as any analyst but his opinions are bolstered by years of playing at the highest level.
Thomas is a Hall-of-Fame inductee who won two championships with the Detroit Pistons and a Finals MVP in 1990.
In the episode, Thomas addressed the Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James debate but only after making it clear who his choice is for the greatest of all time.
“Kareem is the pinnacle,” Thomas stated.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. From high school to college to the NBA, Thomas argues, no one has had the career that the Lakers center had and for that reason, Abdul-Jabbar is the greatest of all-time.
In his eyes, discussing Jordan vs. James is a topic on who the second greatest player is and that’s where Thomas throws his hat into the conversation.
“There’s a debate in terms of Jordan and LeBron,” said Thomas. “And on any given night, who do you like? For me I look at the total body of work where LeBron James is as a basketball player. If I had to pick one over the other, right now I’m picking LeBron James over Michael Jordan. Because Jordan would beat you at scoring but this guy beats you at everything. He rebounds, he assists, he gets everybody involved. He’s bigger, he’s faster, he’s stronger and right now he’s doing his thing.”
Thomas believes that James is the better player of the two and there is already a growing number of the media who believe the same. In an ESPN poll predicting James’ future, 12.2% of their panel of experts believe that James is already ranked number one among the greatest players of all time. That’s a small percentage for sure but if you had polled them three years ago, I can almost guarantee that only 5% or less of them would think that James is greater than Jordan.
If James wins one to three more titles before he retires, expect that number to grow even more.
Let’s look closely at Thomas’ reasons for choosing James over Jordan.
Total Body of Work
Jordan is one of the most accomplished players ever. Just one look at his MVP’s (regular season, Finals and All-Star), Defensive Player of the Year award, scoring and steals titles, championships, Olympic gold medals, and records he has broken will make you believe that he is indeed the greatest player ever.
His 6-0 Finals record has always been the biggest card that fans and experts hold up against James (3-5 in the Finals) when comparing the King to His Airness.
But from Thomas’ perspective, he looks at the totality of everything that both players accomplished.
James isn’t lacking in accolades, either. He has four MVPs, three Finals MVPs, three All-Star MVPs, a couple of championships, multiple All-NBA awards, and several records to his name.
Just last February, he accomplished something that no one had ever done in the league’s 72-year history. He is the first player with 30,000 points, 8,000 rebounds and 8,000 assists for his career. Achieving any one of those numbers is quite an accomplishment already. To be able to reach all three milestones in the course of someone’s career is mind-boggling but James was able to reach them with still plenty of time to add to those numbers. No one should be surprised if James reaches 40K, 10K and 10K before his career is over.
In terms of longevity, James is just as good in his 15th season as he was in his prime. But who says he’s not in his prime still? Maybe his prime is going to be way longer than anyone else’s and his body of work will only continue to grow.
Jordan is the better scorer
There are few players who can match Jordan’s scoring prowess and he has shown that at every stage of his career. The 10 scoring titles alone are enough evidence to the fact that he is more than your ordinary shooting guard. His 30.12 scoring average is the best all time.
He scored 60 or more points (60 to 69 points) five times, 50 or more 34 times, 40 or more points 172 times, 30 or more points 460 times and 20 or more points 428 times.
Even as a 39-year old playing for the Washington Wizards, the 6-foot-6 scoring machine erupted for 51 points despite going on a three-year hiatus. As a 40-year old, Jordan set the scoring record for players his age when he scored 43 points, shooting 18-of-30 from the field and 7-of-7 from the free-throw line.
James, on the other hand, is not as prolific a scorer as the other number 23 but he is a gifted scorer in his own right, too. He is tied with Kevin Durant for fourth place in career scoring average at 27.15 points per game. James has the mentality of a scorer and a passer at the same time which is why he doesn’t score as much as Jordan does. If he didn’t have the mentality of a point guard, James would have been closer to Jordan as a scorer.
Consider this: If James made 80% of his free throws instead of his career average of 74%, he would have a career scoring average of 28.8 points per game. That would put him third in the all-time scoring list just behind Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain, the two greatest scorers of all time.
Jordan is definitely the better scorer by a mile, but James isn’t that far as a scorer as most people think.
LeBron scores, rebounds and assists better than Jordan
What most impresses Thomas about James, more than anything else, is his all-around brilliance. He is able to beat a team with his scoring, rebounding, and passing. James has the size of Karl Malone and the passing ability of Magic Johnson, all the while having a certain degree of the scorer’s mentality of Jordan.
These three aspects of the game have never been more on display in James’ arsenal than this year. For the 2017-18 season, James is averaging 27.4 points, 8.6 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game. The scoring average is the fifth highest of his 15-year career, the rebounding ties his personal best from last season, and the 9.1 assists is a career high.
For a shooting guard, Jordan’s numbers are some of the best at his position. We all know about the scoring but his 6.2 rebounding average is superior to most two-guards and his 5.3 assists average indicate that he is an excellent passer as well. Most scorers average between 2.5 to 3.0 assists a game and that’s if they’re having a career year, too.
Despite Jordan’s excellence at rebounding and assists, James is by far the better of the two when it comes to these categories.
LeBron is bigger, faster and stronger
Lastly, Thomas looked at the most obvious advantages that James has over Jordan. But I am not going to concede just yet that the 6-foot-8 forward is faster than the 6-foot-6 guard. Jordan was lightning fast in his prime which is why he was able to go coast-to-coast on several plays throughout his career.
No one has used a speedometer yet to measure how fast James is but he is at least as fast as Jordan. The two are possibly equally fast with James having a slight advantage when it comes to reaching his destination faster because the length of his strides is bigger than Jordan’s.
However, no one will argue that James is bigger and stronger than Jordan. The man is a freak of nature with the mass and strength of a power forward but with the speed of a guard. These physical gifts make him one of the most lethal offensive and defensive forces that the game has ever seen.
Conclusion
Thomas sees these advantages that James has over Jordan which is why he picked the Cavs’ number 23 over the Bulls’ number 23.
Former NBA player Stephen Jackson and a panel of ESPN sportscasters responded to Thomas’ choice and they believe that the Pistons legend only chose James because he was still bitter over Jordan. Jackson says that their rivalry and the fact that they aren’t friends played a part in the decision making. Jordan’s Bulls beat Thomas’ Detroit Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. The two were bitter rivals during their heyday and it is easy to believe that this may have colored his judgment somewhat.
Even so, Thomas put up a great argument as to why he is confident that James is a better player than Jordan. Whether we believe that he’s biased against his contemporary or not is another topic to debate for another time.
Comparing Jordan with James is an argument that will go on until well over the latter has hung up his sneakers. The Chosen One may not be superior to His Airness in the eyes of the majority, but he should be pleased to know that one of the all-time greats is on his side.
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