Michael Jordan vs LeBron James has been an age-old debate now. But with the King unseating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar atop the NBA’s leaderboards last year and becoming the first player to crack 40,000 regular season points, there are certainly some new arguments to be heard these days. However, stand-up comedian Aries Spears is having none of it. Appearing on an episode of ‘VLAD TV’, Spears disregarded James’ latest achievement in favor of his favorite player.
Aries Spears first made it clear that people wrongly believe that he has anything against LeBron. The 48-year-old comedian emphasized that he holds ultimate respect for the King. “To me, he’s (LeBron) in my top five. Do I think he’s better than Michael? No. I don’t give a f**k if he scores 80,000 points. He’s been in the league since preschool,” Spears explained.
He further highlighted his reasons, mentioning that the longer a player sticks around, the higher chances he has of surpassing of everyone else. Especially when the player is as skilled as LeBron James, according to Spears’ claim.
For the comedian however, there have been only two athletes with the highest degree of popularity and impact. One being Michael Jordan and the other Muhammad Ali. “As popular as LeBron is, is he globally famous, like, on the level of Jordan? No. Has he impacted the game at the level of Jordan? No,” Aries stated. He also spotlighted how Jordan revolutionized the sponsorship scenario too with his Jordan sneakers.
However, it is worth mentioning that the King has a statistical advantage over Mike. Then what is it that usually makes fans and experts place Jordan above Bron?
Where does Michael Jordan outweigh LeBron James?
At the end of his career, Jordan had accumulated 32,292 points. In March, 2019, 5 years ago now, LeBron James overtook His Airness on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. LeBron has better overall stats with 7.5 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 50.6 field goal percentage per game. Mike has lower rebounds, assists and field goal percentage per game at 6.2, 5.3 and 49.7 respectively. However, the 6x NBA champion averaged 30.1 points per game as compared to King’s 27.1.\
And although the Los Angeles Lakers star has surpassed Mike in total points, there are still several feats he has to achieve. The most prominent ones being Michael Jordan’s 6x NBA championship and 6x NBA finals MVP. Also, he is among the few players who have remained undefeated in NBA finals (6-0).
But what’s even more interesting about this achievement is that the Chicago Bulls legend did not have to play the Game 7 in any of these 6 finals. This shows his domination in his era. So it can safely be said that even though the King has surpassed Mike in some aspects of the game, Jordan’s dominance still remains unparalleled in the modern NBA.
