ONE MORE TIME: I’LL ALWAYS TAKE SIX DYNASTY TITLES OVER 40,000 POINTS
Any debate about Michael Jordan and LeBron James, which no longer should exist, must favor Jordan’s championship-era dominance when James needed 21 years and four different teams to win four rings
We enjoy the sparkle of individual panache, which describes LeBron James in his 21st season. The force field allows ABC to inflate its Saturday night ratings and infer, without stating it, that he’s the greatest basketball player of all time. He scored his 40,000th point in his team’s 29th loss, against 33 victories, which leaves the Lakers solidly in 10th place among Western Conference wannabes.
Yet isn’t it awkward when they keep losing as he keeps attaining the unknown? When they say he’s in a “sicko mode” of life at 39 years, two months? Or, as LeBron put it, “For me, the main thing is always the main thing, and that's the win. I hated that it had to happen in the defeat.”
“He might have to stop breaking records,” Anthony Davis said, “because we always lose any time he breaks a record — and he said the same thing.”
Because the height of his career prime is unprecedented, there are wrongdoers who insist James has transcended Michael Jordan atop the pebbled hoops sphere. Must we do this … again? The difference between the Best Ever and all the others is the number of championships won between them. James has needed more than two decades, changing working situations three times to play with four different teams. He went nine seasons without a ring, didn’t win two until he transferred to Miami, returned to Cleveland to win one, then won his final title during the pandemic.
His duty in Los Angeles is to chase his twilight and pad magnificent numbers, including a league scoring record that keeps soaring. But his final title total is FOUR, period, and the buzzer sounds. That doesn’t elevate him beyond another member of an audience applauding Jordan forever. In his 15 years, he won SIX times, though his prime was diluted by a season when he played baseball — his father was shot and killed — and another season when he returned belatedly. Other title runs were shut down when his dynasty was wreckingballed by management, forcing him to crawl back three years later with the nondescript Washington Wizards at 38.
He urged himself to come back, explaining an odd decision to me during an entire summer outside a Chicago gym. He returned because he loathed Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause. The announcement was made at night on Sept. 10, 2001. The next day, everyone on Earth forgot. I call it six titles in 13 years, closer to the point.
If Jordan had used the portal and aimed for glory — say, New York — the owner and front-office boss would have underwritten his grandeur. He might have played 20 seasons and won two or three more. He proved throughout his Bulls reign that he dramatically helped the elements around him. Without him, Scottie Pippen would have been traded three times and wound up in jail. Without him, Horace Grant would have made fun of his brother sticking a fork in his butt as youngsters. Without him, Dennis Rodman might have died. Without him, John Paxson and Steve Kerr wouldn’t have made the playoffs instead of drilling Finals winners. Without him, Phil Jackson doesn’t win any rings because the Lakers would have ignored him.
Now that we have sensibilities in place, please understand that LeBron spent his life trying to catch Jordan and never did. He had the advantages of fitness, nutrition, travel and resting for off days while Jordan played 82 regular-season games no fewer than nine times, while also going for 81, 80 and 78. Yes, James kept playing and kept scoring and blows us away with longevity. But 40,000 points doesn’t brand complete majesty. Try six trophies. When we debate the all-time NFL quarterbacks, Tom Brady has won seven Super Bowls and Patrick Mahomes has won three. Hear anyone else in that discussion? Brady is on top. Mahomes is LeBron, 11 years back. He has a chance. LeBron missed his.
“I feel like I'm still that threat out on the floor and I am still able to do the things that I was doing 10 years ago," James said. “And some things I was doing 20 years ago, which is weird to say.”
And his individual eminence is worth watching, of course, every night in his last hometown. “No one has ever done it,” James said of his point total. “And for me to be in this position at this point and time in my career, I think it's pretty cool. Does it sit at the top of the things I've done in my career? No. But does it mean something? Of course. Absolutely. Why wouldn't it? To be able to accomplish things in this league, with the greatest players to ever play in the NBA, this has been a dream of mine and to hit feats and have milestones throughout my career, they all mean something to me. Obviously, there's a pecking order of which (accomplishments) are higher than others, but I would be lying to you if I said it doesn't mean anything. Because it absolutely does.”
Listen closely. Bigger in his legacy is when he kept muttering “no” after a 124-114 loss to the Denver Nuggets, who won the crown last season and might win another in June. He kept talking about “Joker,” as in Nikola Jokic, who dominated late as he always does when these teams play. Before the game, the Serb made James laugh on the court when he said, “We gotta stop you.” Afterward, someone asked if anyone challenges a two-time MVP who might make it three while he puts up 35 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists with dry-wit robotics that suggest AI.
He pondered the question and mentioned Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. But Jokic remains the sport’s best player. James is here for his solo drama. He is not a champion these days and hasn’t been since 2020.
“We're not going to see this for a lot longer and have to appreciate him while he's here,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “Just appreciate him for what he's given to the game, what he continues to give to the game and his knowledge, his performance. You just come to assume and expect that these great things that he's doing, whether it's making seven threes or his downhill attacks, taking off from the dots still at this point in time in his career. But just hopefully at some point it sinks in that we're not gonna see this for a lot longer. And all the comparisons to players that have played before him or players that are currently playing — just appreciate him for what he's given to the game, what he continues to give to the game.”
Said Nuggets coach Michael Malone: “I don’t get caught up in the number per se, but you just have to marvel at the continued greatness. Just to do what he’s doing at this stage of his career, and it doesn’t appear like he’s slowing down at all, which is even scarier. Really, when you take a step back, you just have to marvel at the longevity. But he’s just not playing at this. He is playing effectively.”
His 22nd year will include a return to the Lakers, who gracefully will place his legend in the arena rafters. Did they expect more than one title from him? Yes, but controlling owner Jeanie Buss doesn’t want to interrupt his finale by sending him elsewhere, even after the Golden State Warriors took a shot. At this point, he doesn’t necessarily want his son to join him on the same team. Still not ready for the NBA as a struggling USC guard, Bronny might not enter the 2024 draft. “I don't value a young player getting into the lottery as much as I do getting him on the right team in the right developmental situation,” agent Rich Paul told ESPN.
Wouldn’t LeBron want the Lakers to find that situation? “Head over heels excited if that were to happen organically,” Paul said. But it’s more urgent that a 19-year-old freshman, who suffered cardiac arrest last July, is “his own man.”
For now, the old man pushes alone as age 40 nears. "It's tough because he's not finished playing, so it's only going to increase,” Davis said of the point total. “That gap is only going to get bigger and bigger. I don't see anybody breaking his record.”
“I never thought about getting the scoring record,” James said. “It just happened organically. I played the game the right way and went out and played the game and let the game come to me, and the scoring record happened for me. It was never a goal of mine when I came into the league, like I wanted to be the all-time leading scorer. But I'm still playing. And I can still score the ball, so it’s going to go up until I'm done playing.”
Meanwhile, Jokic loves “how we are playing the game right now.” It’s March. This is when Michael Jordan eyed another championship himself. LeBron James worries about a play-in loss to the Sacramento Kings.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.