With LeBron James set to play in his seventh consecutive NBA Finals — wrap your head around that for a second! — there’s a lot of discussion currently brewing about how he stacks up against some of the league’s best of all-time.
The most popular debate — which seems to be ongoing — is whether or not James has surpassed Michael Jordan as the GOAT. I personally believe he still needs to win a few more rings before we’re seriously discussing it, but that’s neither here nor there.
Apparently, Scottie Pippen seems to feel the same way. In fact, he doesn’t even believe James is one of the top two NBA’ers of all-time yet, and maybe isn’t even in the top three. Pippen recently said James has yet to surpass Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and still has some work to do on Wednesday’s edition of SportsCenter, which Chris Walder of TheScore transcribed.
“I don’t think he’s [LeBron] surpassed Kobe [Bryant] at all, no,” Pippen said. “And I don’t think he [LeBron] should be compared to either of those players [Jordan or Bryant] because they play different positions.
“Kobe and Michael [Jordan] are both 2-guards. They’re both scorers. They’re mostly like a Kyrie [Irving]. They’re looking to score the basketball when it hits their hand. They’re not looking to make plays for anyone on the floor. They’re not looking to be a facilitator. That’s the role that LeBron plays because he’s such a dominant and powerful force, and he’s a great passer.”
Pippen went on to say James’ game is more similar to that of Magic Johnson, rather than Bryant or Jordan.
“I think he plays a lot more like Magic. A lot more like myself, how I played,” Pippen added. “Obviously he’s more dominant than both me and Magic because of the way that he plays the game – his physicality, his athleticism surpass Magic, as well as me.”
But that doesn’t necessarily mean James is better than Magic, though, according to Pippen.
“I don’t want to say he’s surpassed Magic. They’re both up there,” he said. “Magic is truly one of the greatest to ever play the game, and he transcended how a big guard, 6-foot-9, could play all over the floor, and really motivated me that I could play at the top of the floor and run an offense, as well.”
This seems to be one of those “us vs them” generational things, which was made clear when Pippen brought up Magic. Still, as it relates to James vs. Jordan/Kobe, he’s not wrong.
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