As much as he was a rugged defender when he was still playing for the Indiana Pacers, Jalen Rose has built a reputation of being boldly honest as a basketball analyst.
When Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey stated that LeBron James is the best ever to play the game of basketball, Rose begged to differ. In ESPN's morning show “Get Up”, the former Most Improved Player did not agree with Morey.
“LeBron James by the way is one of the top handful of players on anybody's list. But we're going to elevate him above Michael Jordan? Is that what we're doing? So now, I have to, and I hate to be this guy, have to pick apart who's better and why and all of that stuff. Michael “Air” Jeffrey Jordan not only did he win 6 championships, he won three in a row twice. How many does LeBron have? Three total. Okay? And he [Jordan] was the best player each time. So much so he was the finals MVP six times. He never had to leave teams. You know why? Because he was going to make his team find a way to win the championship when he was there. And just last year, we were like, ‘Oh, LeBron is dragging the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals. And he did that, right?And then what did he do this offseason? He left. Why did he leave Cleveland? Because they were not good enough to win championship anymore? Because the Boston Celtics were coming in the east?”
“I got some advanced metrics. If Michael Jordan didn't go play baseball, he probably could've won 8 championships.”




Rose was the 13th overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft. He was able to personally go up against Jordan during games and witnessed how truly exceptional his talents are. With the 33-year old LeBron's incredible performance last season, many people are starting to seriously consider The King as the greatest player of all-time.
However, Rose's viewpoint is much different than Morey's. Morey's criteria was LeBron's stats while Rose is looking at it from Jordan's Larry O'Brien trophy count.
LeBron already has three championships on his belt, and it remains to be seen if he can add more in the next few years.