Hot takes are the backbone of sports fandom, the division and connection between fan bases, and Bishop Gorman is filled with all kinds of sports fans with all kinds of hot takes.
Samuel Shephard ‘27 is fourth on the series No Chill, where students will give their sports hot takes, and I’ll argue for and against it, at the end rating the hot take 1-10 on a scale of how hot it is, and stating my opinion on whether I agree or disagree with it.
Shephard’s hot take is, “LeBron James is greater all time than Michael Jordan.” LeBron James has the best argument for this slot of anybody in the history of basketball. James is a four time NBA champion, winning all four of those Finals MVPs, a four time NBA regular season MVP (in 2013 he was one vote away from being the first unanimous MVP in NBA history). He’s scored the most total points in NBA history, with well over 40,000, he also has over 10,000 rebounds and assists. James is in the midst of his 23rd NBA season, and just recently (Feb 12) dropped a 28 point, 10 rebound, and 12 assist triple-double. That made him the oldest player in NBA history to ever record a triple double. What separates LeBron from nearly every other all-time great isn’t just the longevity, it’s the sustained dominance across eras. From his early years carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers, to the 2012 and 2013 titles with the Miami Heat, to delivering Cleveland its first championship in 2016 with one of the greatest Finals performances ever (also becoming the first team to ever recover from a 3-1 series deficit in the Finals and win), and later winning again with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, James has managed to sustain a level of dominance almost unheard of each passing year. For years he was the consensus top player in the league, and there are years where he was top 2-3 that an argument could be made for the No. 1 spot. Realistically, an argument can be made for LeBron being the best player in the world from 2004 or 2005 all the way until 2020 or 2021. 17 years of unmitigated dominance from “The King”.
On the other hand, Jordan is far and wide seen as the GOAT. From 1993 he had an argument, after 1998 he was undisputed, from then on until about 2016 was the first time the argument was even remotely conceivable for LeBron. That’s almost two entire decades of being the undisputed GOAT of basketball, and that’s hard to catch. Jordan is a 6 time NBA Champion, winning all 6 Finals MVPs. He’s also secured 5 NBA MVPs, a Defensive Player of the Year, and multiple All-Defensive Teams. He has the highest scoring average of any player in NBA history with 30.1 points per game for his career. In 1988, he averaged 35.0 points per game in an era with a much lower league-wide scoring average than today’s NBA (which, as of 2026, he would still be the leading scorer). The common misconception is that Jordan played against no competition and wouldn’t do any of the things he did then in today’s NBA, yet we’ve seen players like Kobe Bryant (who has been quoted a multitude of times saying he modeled his game after Jordan, making only slight adaptations to fit his physique and playstyle) average high 30s in multiple seasons in an era similar to the current. The argument cannot hold that Jordan wouldn’t dominate in today’s game, there are far too many holes in the statement. Additionally, there is a metric of basketball titled “Advanced Statistics”, these are meant to adjust to playstyle, height, shot distance, era, and anything in between. In short, they level the playing field across all players to see who’s truly the best in certain categories, there are 6 major advanced statistics used across the NBA world, and of those 6 advanced stats, Michael Jordan leads LeBron James in 5 of them.
In my opinion, this take is not true, Michael Jordan is the GOAT of basketball with James being a close second. I would rate this take a 6/10, many would agree with it and many would disagree with it, and there are few who will give any leeway in their stance.