Best or Greatest?
Ahhhhhhh! Welcome back to the blogcast everyone. So today I wanted to have a small piece about one of everyone’s favorite topics as it relates to sports. Greatest of all time. Now I, like many other writers, can already feel the tense looks upon the faces of the public. I know I have particular friends who read simply the title that this would be today’s topic and cringed as if I pelted them in the face with a bean bag. With everything that is going on in 2020, still somehow the outrage that reigns supreme in the sports world is who is better, MJ or Lebron? Fear no longer as I will describe a counterculture ideology that coincides with the greatest of all time.
I have a theory, allow me to explain. I would like to compare the greatest of all time, with the best of all time. Yes, there are two separate categories in my mind and they travel across all sports. If you were to ask me for example who the greatest quarterback of all time is, I would have no other response than Tom Brady. It’s hard to argue the greatness that he has achieved over his illustrious career in the NFL and continues to do (somehow) into his 40’s. However, if you were to ask me who the best quarterback of all time was… I may have a response such as Aaron Rodgers, Dan Marino, and although too early to tell, Patrick Mahomes is absolutely proving his case as he rises to not only the top of today’s NFL. But a stepping stone to the pillar of Hall of Fame greatness.
Before anybody loses their mind that I suggest that Aaron Rodgers or Dan Marino is better than Tom Brady, allow me to explain. They by no means have accomplished the GREATNESS that Tom Brady has throughout their careers respectively. But they are BETTER at playing the position of quarterback in the NFL. They have stronger arms, that is often misconceived as the ability to throw really far. Having a strong arm also means when you throw the 7 yard slant pattern, that you will be able to hit the tight windows that NFL quarterbacks have prior to the defense having a chance to arrive at the ball. A strong arm gifts you much more than just the ability to throw 80 yards downfield. Michael Vick had a strong arm, Jeff George had a strong arm. The reason we never talk about these men in our greatest of all time conversation is because they lacked other skills. Aaron Rodgers and Dan Marino also possess outstanding accuracy, I would quantify as better than Tom Brady’s. They can lock in precision to a particular spot that they know the ball needs to be in order to make a play successful. The reason that they are not GREATER than Tom Brady, is that Tom Brady played his best when it mattered most. Tom Brady always shows up in the 4th quarter of playoff games to provide the “right” play whether that be to continue a drive on a 3rd and long, or whether it be to put a game away. Aaron and Dan never had that ability.
Conversely in basketball. Michael Jordan is the greatest player of all time. I do not disagree with this statement, although every year I get closer to doing the unfathomable. But I would not accept that Michael Jordan is a better player than LeBron James. LeBron has been absolutely dominating in all facets of his game throughout the entirety of his career. When most people associate themselves with Michael Jordan, they go straight to the 6 rings. I want to make the statement that if rings were the factor that made greatness, Bill Russell would be the G.O.A.T. and the rest of the list would be 1960 Celtic players and Robert Horry. LeBron James has been a much better player in the way of spreading the ball to his teammates. Often criticized for not taking the shot himself, until he DID start taking the shots himself albeit 9 years into his career. I’ve never seen a player in the NBA other than LeBron who is the best scorer and passer in the league at the same time. When I think of the best passers of all time, you look at guys like Magic Johnson and John Stockton. I don’t know that there is another player I would put on that list before I put Lebron on that list. When you look at the best scorers of all time, I will not dispute that MJ was a better scorer than King James. But I would tell you that he may be a lot closer to the top than you may think. If you look at career points per game, Lebron is rivaled by the likes of MJ, Wilt Chamberlain (that monster), Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and George Gervin. For all of the love that we have as a collective whole for Kobe Bryant, he pales in comparison as far as that particular stat goes. That is what Kobe was known for. Now, I don’t think LeBron is a better scorer than Kobe was, but if you’re looking statistically, he has outdone Kobe in Kobe’s best practice, the art of scoring.
When we talk about rebounding, MJ was a good rebounder for his position and the argument could be made that LeBron only gets more rebounds because of his size. But in a best of all time argument size does matter. LeBron has rather lazily accumulated more rebounds than the majority of guards and small forwards in the history of the NBA. I say lazily, because even as much as I love watching LeBron James play, I can admit that he often looks like he’s in a relaxed or even sedated state when it comes to the boards and coming back up the court. Particularly in his later stages of his career. But when he has turned on the “rebounding mode”, he has produced at an incredible level, even similar to that of a Dennis Rodman. If anyone remembers the Heat v Pacers series from years back when Lebron put up 18 rebounds, you know what I’m talking about by “rebound mode”. Defensively, I would have to side towards Jordan being that he never slowed down. But this is a slight edge towards MJ, not a landslide. LeBron, as he ages has become more of a “pick and choose” method for defense. But when the playoffs come, and even for example the all-star game where Team James met Team Curry, LeBron lead the team with defensive efforts in an all-star game to make a victorious comeback effort. IN AN ALL-STAR GAME. LeBron has always been and always will be the better teammate. LeBron leads a team rather than produces a demand that teammates play above a level that they are capable of playing.
Now again, this is why LeBron is the BEST of all time. But here is why Michael is the GREATEST of all time. MJ had a quality of always taking over a game late, just as Tom Brady does in football. If the bulls were in a position where the team needed some type of boost, MJ was there to provide that boost with an output of scoring and defense that I have never seen another player have the ability to emulate. MJ would score regardless of circumstance. Regardless of pressure. And he did it throughout the entirety of his career. I would argue LeBron from 2012 through now has had that quality and numbers suggest he does it more efficiently than MJ ever did, but I cannot discount the first 8 years of LeBron’s career and say that we can only count what he has done in the last 8 years.
Michael Jordan continues to be the greatest player that I have ever seen play. But every year this gap closes immensely. I wouldn’t be shocked if when all is said and done that I may have a different opinion than I do today regarding this matter. But I want to make it clear that in all sports, there is a difference between greatest of all time versus best of all time. I hope I have laid out the foundation for this in a way that is understandable to my readers. I hope that I have given you an insight to what it is through the prism that I conceive sports. I plan to at some point in the future give you a 3rd category of “most exciting players” of all time, which is a far different subject matter. But I, like many others, obsess over some of my favorite players and would like to talk about them without having to compare them to necessarily the greatest or best players of all time.
So until next time, remember, you heard it here first!
Colby Tyler
Jacked and Canned