Lebron James saying he is the GOAT actually confirms he isn’t

Once again, Lebron James is in trending in the news. There has been a debate over the last couple of years about who the greatest player of all time is. The two names considered generally are Michael Jordan and Lebron James. We have all heard legendary stories about Mike and his attitude. The reason why Lebron is trending with this topic is this following reason:

Lebron James has created a new show recently called ‘More than an Athlete’. This came after the enormous support he got when a reporter told him to “stop talking about other things and shut up and dribble”. A lot of fans watch this show. It essentially features Lebron James sitting with his childhood friends/close friends including his agent and other advisors. They talk about different issues and we get a sneak peek inside Lebron’s head and how he thinks.

A couple of days ago, on this show, Lebron claimed that when his Cleveland team beat the 73-win Golden State Warriors team in the 2016 NBA Finals, that moment made him the Greatest player ever.

http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=25651126

He also put out a video the next day on the same show where he is seen motivating his teammates after game 6 of those Finals and he says “Warriors are done mentally and physically. They f***** up.” This is the first time he has openly said he is the GOAT in public. This has caused quite a stir on social media.

First of all, the GOAT is Michael Jeffrey Jordan. There is no denying that fact. I won’t get into the arguments of the debate here but being great as he was even Mike did not publicly proclaim, he is the GOAT. Every time someone asks him, he says that different eras cannot be compared. Magic Johnson did not say that. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the all-time points scored leader in NBA history did not say that. Wilt, Kobe, Bird didn’t say that. Being the GOAT requires a classy approach. The first requirement is humility. You cannot say you are the GOAT much less while you are still playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=YGpkYN7z5y4

Secondly, basketball is a team sport. Muhamad Ali and Tiger Woods can say this because their sports are individual sports. Lebron didn’t beat the Warriors on his own. Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson were big parts of the Cavs run. JR Smith shot well. Kyrie won a game by himself and even made the crucial title winning three. Saying you are the GOAT because you beat a team is a blatant disrespect to the other players.

Thirdly, you can’t nitpick one great moment and hang everything on that moment. We can similarly find many moments in Lebron’s career where he was a disaster. He just quit on his Cavs team against Dallas in 2011. He quit on his team in Game 1 of last year’s final. He has lost the same number of Finals as Jordan has won.

Lebron is in Hollywood right now and it is showing. In my opinion, he should just stop remembering his past accomplishments and concentrate on the present and try to lead the Lakers through the First round at least. If he continues to try to convince people he is the GOAT, it will eventually hurt his case as the GOAT.

The clip from More than an Athlete is given the courtesy of ESPN. Featured MJ vs Lebron poster courtesy of Sports Illustrated.

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