As me paraphrasing Bill Simmons once said, “we love Lebron, but we revered Jordan”.
Watching The Last Dance one thing that immediately struck me was how everything seems to have fallen into place for Jordan, on a level truly approaching destiny.
The more I thought about it, the more reasons revealed themselves as to why Michael Jordan’s legacy could never be eclipsed.
As a Freshman at UNC, he’s given the final shot of the NCAA Championship.
As Michael said in the Last Dance, “no one expected me to take that shot”.
He makes it.
This, as the series proposes, propels MJ to another level as a player.
Once he makes it to the NBA, his success chart looks like this:
Year 1 he wins the Rookie of The Year and gets voted into the All-Star game.
Even that first all-star game appearance is one of legend.
He makes the first round of the playoffs but loses to my hometown Bucks. Yes, I only added this sentence to say “loses to my hometown Bucks” about Michael Jordan.
Year 2, he breaks his foot.
This should’ve been a reason for MJ not to do something mythic.
Nope.
He practices with his broken foot at his alma matter. No one on the Bulls knows about this.
Reason #1
Lebron James could never SECRETLY PLAY BASKETBALL WITH A BROKEN FOOT AT HIS OLD SCHOOL
1985 was a different world.
There simply weren’t the media mechanisms in place to cover such a story at the level this story should’ve been covered.
The TEAM DIDN’T EVEN KNOW.
For better or worse, we see our athletes differently than we once did.
Jordan, in part, was responsible for creating the 24-hour appetite we now have.
ESPN was founded on September 7th, 1979.
2 years later Jordan started college.
They grew up together.
Reason #2
MJ’s Playoff Progress Was Slow, Steady, and Epic. That Could Never Happen Now.
Year after year MJ slowly progressed through the Eastern Conference.
He stayed in the first round for his first three years, the second round for just one, and the third round for two years before finally making, and immediately winning, The Finals.
| Year | Playoff Round Reached | Epicness |
| 1985 | 1st | Rookie of the Year Slam Dunk Contest Winner |
| 1986 | 1st | Plays 18 Reg Season Games Breaks foot sets NBA Playoff Scoring Record (still stands) with 63 |
| 1987 | 1st | Scoring Champion |
| 1988 | 2nd | Scoring Champion DPOTY MVP |
| 1989 | 3rd | Scoring Champion Iconic Game Winning Shot, Jump + Fist Pump |
| 1990 | 3rd | Scoring Champion |
| 1991 | Champion | Scoring Champion MVP Finals MVP Iconic Switch Hand Lay Up |
| 1992 | Champion | Scoring Champion MVP Finals MVP Original Dream Team |
| 1993 | Champion | Finals MVP |
| 1994 | .202 Avg | AA Baseball |
| 1995 | 2nd | Plays 17 Reg Season Games Scores 55 in 5th Game Back |
| 1996 | Champion | MVP Finals MVP |
| 1997 | Champion | Finals MVP |
| 1998 | Champion | MVP Finals MVP |
The amount of work he had to do to win his first championship, means he was more prepared to stay there once he got it.
This steady, largely upward progression, could never happen today for many reasons.
Reason 2, Section 1. People Don’t Have That Kind of Patience Anymore
Lebron’s story is one of media attention since High School.
A story of coming after MJ, a story of so much pressure to immediately be a champion, he decided to do this thing called “The Decision”.
Immediately after entering the league, MJ was seen as one of the best players, if not the best.
In Jordan’s Rookie All-Star game appearance older teammates froze him out, not passing him the ball, resenting him for the media attention that followed him.
The Pistons made rules for him, The Jordan Rules, which basically involved assaulting him whenever he touched the paint. How many other players had rules named after them?
And yet, even with the world sensing his greatness, Jordan remained on the Bulls as they built a team around him.
Reason 2, Section 2. What’s Good For Players is Bad For Mythbuilding
We are in the player empowerment era.
This is, as the name suggests, good for players.
But staying in one place, and building a team, as organically as has happened in say, Golden State before Kevin Durant, is now the exception to the rule, a rule exemplified by, say, Golden State acquiring Kevin Durant.
It took 7 years for MJ to win a championship.
Throughout The Last Dance I can’t remember one mention of Jordan even considering going somewhere else in those 7 years.
6 seasons in, Lebron goes to Miami.
In that same time, Jordan lost to Larry Bird and Isaiah Thomas year after year, before bulking up and beating his rival Pistons to make The Finals for the first time.
This passing of the torch just can’t happen anymore with players changing teams quicker than rivalries can develop.
Reason 2, Section 3. Rivalries
The 80s had the Lakers/Celtics.
It had the Celtics/Pistons.
It had the Pistons/Bulls.
These were rivalries between teams made up of largely the same stars throughout the decade. Magic, Bird, Isaiah, Michael.
These are the Finals teams in the 1980s.
- 1980: Lakers vs 76ers
- 1981: Rockets vs Celtics
- 1982: Lakes vs 76ers
- 1983: Lakers vs 76ers
- 1984: Lakers vs Celtics
- 1985: Lakers vs Celtics
- 1986: Rockets vs Celtics
- 1987: Lakers vs Celtics
- 1988: Pistons vs Lakers
- 1989: Pistons vs Lakers
5 teams.
Now that’s not a great thing for parity, but it is a great thing for a rivalry, it builds stars, it builds narrative.
The 2010s had 9 teams compete for the championship, and while the Warriors vs Cavs, and the Heat vs Spurs, defined the decade with multiple appearances (throw a couple Spurs appearances in there), and 9 doesn’t seem like that many more than 5, those teams aren’t what they appear on paper.
The Cavs/Warriors never felt like a rivalry in the same way.
Their last two meetings – half of their total meetings – in The Finals were blow outs.
Also, Lebron was one the Heat and the Cavs.
Players in the 2010’s seemed to get along. They texted each other to change teams (allegedly). No one punched anyone in the face for an entire decade.
They certainly didn’t tackle each other the way the Celtics tackled Kurt Rambis, or push each other the way Rodman pushed Pippen, no one walked off the floor without shaking hands like the Pistons, or did anything the way Laimbeer did everything.
80s stars never moved teams as fluidly as they do today, but what’s bad for players paychecks is good for myth building.
Yes. Lebron got to the Finals every year for 8 straight years, with different teams.
That is certainly mythic.
It’s just a little less mythic than building your way to the top with the same team, beating your rivals after years of defeat, and never leaving once you got there.
The narrative of Lebron still feels more sporatic than that of Jordan’s, even though Jordan retired twice, the first time to play minor league baseball.
And looking forward, it is not immediately apparent how any team could slowly build its way to a championship while employing a top-tier talent for the better half of a decade.
It’s equally as hard to see how a team could stay together more than a couple years once winning a championship.
All this player freedom is a great thing for the paychecks of the people doing the most important work in the NBA (playing), it’s just a muddier matter for story building.
And stories are what legends are built on.
Reason #3.
In 1998, His Salary Was $52 Million In 2020 Money
I don’t even know what to say about this.
So I’ll just say it in a bunch of different ways.
In the 1997-1998 season, Jordan made $33.1 million.
At the time the salary cap was $26.9 million, and the average NBA team payroll was $32.7 million.
The league changed its policy towards salary caps because of this contract.
MJ was making 13 Million more than the next highest player, Patrick Ewing.
That’s $52,875,239.25 in June 2020 money.
And that’s post-Corona salary.
In 2014, MJ’s salary would’ve been worth 66$ Million.
The highest contract in 2019 was Steph Curry, worth $40,231,758.
In pure dollars MJ was the highest paid player for the next 19 seasons, only being surpassed, finally, by four players, in 2017.
In other words, he would’ve been the highest player in the league every year from 1998 through 2016, in which he would’ve still made $2 Million more than Lebron James.
MJ predated the player empowerment salaries by 2 decades.
#4. Is It The Shoes? Yes, It’s The Shoes
Basketball shoes are a thing.
They are a thing because of Michael Jordan.
It’s hard to see anything a player today could do to match the cultural impact of the Air Jordan.
Getting denied a Trademark for Taco Tuesdays, a phrase you didn’t invent, is not quite the same.
The Shop is dope though.
MJ came up in the 80s the way The Beatles came up in the 60s.
They were both at the dawn of their respective arts (the NBA becoming the NBA we know today during Stern’s leadership in the 80s) and they both defined them, to the point that all who came after were compared to them.
Shaq is probably the next in line for largest cultural impact, and mainstream success, of an NBA player, but Kazaam is no Space Jam.
Whic leads me to reason #4.
#4. Space Jam > Space Jam 2
It doesn’t matter what Space Jam 2 is, it won’t be Space Jam.
Simply because Michael Jordan did it first.
Lebron will simply be following in the exact footsteps as MJ when Space Jam 2 is released in 2021.
A sequel cannot transcend its predecessor, if only because it is always chained to the same name.
It’s a move that reminds me of another move, a much younger Lebron chose.
#5. #23
I’ve always been upset that Lebron chose number 23 to wear.
I was upset when Kobe changed to 24.
In Kobe’s case, it felt like he could’ve made a bigger impact if he had kept one number his entire career.
In Lebron’s case, it felt like he could’ve made any impact on the history of jerseys, whatsoever, if he had chosen his own number.
We remember the numbers of our favorite players like the addresses of our childhood homes.
Mine are,
- #19 Robin Yount
- #4 Brett Favre
- #12 Aaron Rodgers
- #44 Hank Aaron
- #23 Michael Jordan
It’s not just that no one will remember Lebron James jersey number because he copied THE MOST ICONIC JERSEY NUMBER OF ALL TIME, it’s also a theme that seems to encapsulate James’ career.
- Same number as Michael.
- Starring in the sequel to Michael’s alien-cartoon-basketball film franchise.
- Most iconic dunk(?) is a very dope tribute to Kobe, but nonetheless, a kobe dunk.
Millenials are a meta generation, so these things seem fitting of our generations greatest player.
What also seems fitting is that there is nothing new under the sun.
That sun is Michael Jordan.
We are all orbiting around him.
Destiny
We can never truly compare a player of one era to a player of another.
We can argue all day about who would win in a 1-on-1, who you would draft first, which era was more physical, who could win in a 5-on-5 if every player was that one player.
But what later players can’t claim, and later players seem to be the only ones we compare to Jordan, is a status as mythic as MJ. In part, because of the age in which he came of age.
He was in the league right at the moment the NBA was becoming an international phenomenon.
Same for sneakers.
Same for sports media.
MJ built his myth one playoff loss, and eventually, one Finals win after another, building a team the way championship teams had always been built, and would, in some ways, never be built again.
He started a David, (ok, a David with 5:1 odds instead of 500:1), slayed a few Goliaths, and became the most Goliath Goliath of all-time.
His story seems helped by history, and that, is the closest one can come to Destiny.
If you’re still arguing about which players is the capital G Greatest Ever, ask yourself, which jersey number comes to mind?