Why LeBron Will Never Usurp Jordan

Even if he wins six titles, makes ten consecutive NBA Finals, and is still operating at his peak in Year 20

Seeing that I was born two months after his second title and was a mere five years-old when he hit the famous shot over Utah’s Bryon Russell in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, my earliest memories of watching Michael Jordan play basketball, live, on TV, are rooted in his slightly successful comeback with the Washington Wizards.

Still, Jordan loomed large over my childhood. When I think back to the ’90s, a period which coincides with the first eight years of my life, MJ is there, his bald head and hoop earring plastered in a montage of Space Jam scenes and Gatorade commercials. He was so iconic, so nineties; a sports figure more myth than man.

Along with an entire generation of basketball fans, my obsession with the NBA began just as the league was searching for its identity in the post-Jordan landscape of the early-’00s. Even when the Lakers, by winning three consecutive titles from 2000 to 2002, proved that there was life after MJ, his legacy overshadowed the sport. We couldn’t appreciate Shaq and Kobe without framing their greatness in Jordan terms: They are the best duo since Jordan and Pippen; Shaq is Jordan’s successor; Kobe is a spitting image of MJ.