LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan.

Armando Villanueva Alan Duran Prof. Willard WRC 1023-901 5/2/13 Paper III: Who is the better basketball player? Michael Jordan or LeBron James? "Armando- LeBron is a stronger and better overall player "Alan- Michael Jordan is universally known to be the greatest basketball ever by critics, fans, and other basketball players, that alone should end this debate. "Armando- To make it fair, LeBron has not been in the NBA as long as Jordan, besides many knew LeBron in HIGH SCHOOL! While Jordan did not even make the team. "Alan- That is true but the fact that Jordan was cut by his high school team, worked hard to make it in his senior year, get into North Carolina, the best basketball program in all college, and get into the NBA and become a sensation in his rookie year alone and eventually become the greatest ever. That alone is a better under underdog story than LeBron. "Armando- That sounds about right, but what round did Jordan get picked, because LeBron was picked 1st in the 1st round pick in the NBA in 2003. And also did Jordan win Rookie of the year? Cause LeBron became the youngest player to receive that reward at the age of 20. "Alan- First off, Jordan was picked in the 1st round. He was picked 3rd in the 1984 NBA draft. Hakeem Olajuwon was picked 1st overall by the Houston Rockets and Sam Bowie was chosen 2nd overall by the Portland Trailblazers. Hakeem ended up being a good player and won 2 rings with the Rockets, Bowie ended up being a draft bust, and Jordan went on to win 6 rings with the bulls and be the greatest ever. Second, Jordan was picked rookie of the year for the 1984-1985 season. And as far as LeBron being the youngest to win the award, who cares because Jordan at least went to college unlike LeBron "Armando- LeBron did feel like going to college because he felt that he did not need the warm up. And during his rookie year, LeBron scored 40 point in one game, becoming the youngest player to do that. Also LeBron has won one NBA Championship, including MVP 3 times, NBA scoring Champion in 2008. "Alan- First off that first statement hardly makes sense. Sounds something a person who struggles with arguing would say. Second, while LeBron scoring 40 in his highest scoring rookie game is impressive, Jordan scored 49 points in a rookie game against the Detroit Pistons. This Piston team was the "Bad Boys" team that was well known for their rough, physical play. A team that had Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer. A team that would years later win 2 NBA championships. Third, Jordan has won 6 championships, 1 for each finger of his hand and an extra one for a finger on his other hand. LeBron has won only 1. Quite underwhelming. As far as NBA mvp awards go, that is not the most important award. First off, LeBron has only won 3 while Jordan has won 5. But the most important award is winning the NBA championship, which as said earlier, Jordan was won way more. Many great players have won regular season mvp awards and never won an NBA championship. Steve Nash won 2, Karl Malone won 2, Iverson won 1 in 2001, and they all have not won an NBA championship. LeBron has won only 1 scoring championship in 2008, but Jordan won 10 scoring championships. So far your argument has been weak. "Armando- First off, Jordan had NO competition in most of the games he had played. That explains the 6 championships he won. LeBron has way much more competition in today"s game that would definitely shut down Jordan. Like you mean to tell me that LeBron needs to beat teams like the Spurs, Lakers, Boston, ect. That"s crazy talk! LeBron is actually facing some completion that has MVP qualities. Its cool Jordan played against Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Reggie Miller, but that"s the only completion I see Jordan had. Now in today"s game, there are at least 2 superstars in each team. Except for the Washington Wizards. Where Jordan last played, the Jordan that no one seems to talk about, the team Jordan owns. That"s just embarrassing. Also, if you want to talk about Championships, than Bill Russell has 13 fingers. So you can"t really bring championships into this conversation cause I would have than said Russell is a better player than Jordan. As well LeBron is looking forward to his 4th MVP this season and more to come. "Alan- Wow, that is laughable. First off I see it is obvious you do not watch a lot of basketball. I guess you"ve only been watching basketball for like a year or something. First off, this era of basketball is very weak compared to past eras. First off, previous era players were much better than this eras players. The young stars of today, are LeBron, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard, James Harden, Rajon Rondo. Now compare these players to all star players of the 90s alone. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Denis Rodman, Shaquille O" Neal, Reggie Miller, Penny Hardaway, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Charles Barkley, Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Jason Kidd, David Robinson, Karl Malone, John Stockton. I haven"t even gone through all of them and these are the 90s players alone. I should also include Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant on here. These players would own this generation of players without competition. Dwight Howard is the considered the best center in the NBA today and if you put him in 90s basketball, he would just be a average center. He would be dominated and outplayed by Patrick Ewing and Hakeem, let alone Shaq. Blake Griffin is terrible. He would also be killed by 90s players. Blake Griffin can dunk. That"s it, he has no inside post moves whatsoever. He"s going end up like Vince Carter when he gets older, a player who showcases great athleticism when they are young but when they get older, have no real skills to compete. Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul have nothing on the greatest point guard of all time in John Stockton. This generation of basketball is so weak because you have most players coming into the league only attending for 1 year or not going to college at all while 90s players worked on their game in college for more than 2 years. People are wondering why Damian Lillard is so good. He"s good because he went to college for 4 years. While most of these 1 and done players struggle to learn how to play, here you have Damian Lillard completely dominating in his first year alone simply because he learned how to play in college. I would take the 1992 Dream team over the 2012 USA men"s basketball. This generation of players is a joke. The real competition is long gone. I mean who"s the favorable team to come out East in this seasons playoffs. LeBron"s heat. Whos his competiton, Williams Net"s? Jennings Buck"s? a Derrick Rose-less Bulls? He literally has no competition in the east. He has an easy ride to the finals. Jordan had to go through Ewing"s Knicks, Reggie"s Pacers, Shaq"s Magic, Isiah"s Pistons, Birds Celtics, I could go on. I"ve pretty much proven my point that Jordan was in a much tougher generation. Second, Jordan is part owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, not he Wizards. Second, Bill Russell won 11 rings not 13. And he has 10 fingers not 13. Also, LeBron has a lot to catch up with in terms of achievements with Jordan. "Armando- Silly little kid, were you born yesterday? What I meant was that these days are difficult to win a championship because there are now more than one superstar in each team. The players you named are superstars but did the team have a Manu Ginobili coming off the bench. Or a JR Smith? I"m just saying that the teams are harder to beat now, then back then. Also, I like how you are dodging the original question! All I am saying is that LeBron will out power Jordan, meaning post. Shoot over Jordan, stop Jordan with his defense. I just think this is really silly that you think that Jordan can go be LeBron or even dunk over LeBron. The only thing I would probably give Jordan is his mid-range shot that LeBron has already developed and still has. "Alan- So what, they were stars teaming up back then also. This is not new. Bulls had Jordan, Pippen and later Rodman. Jazz had Malone and Stockton. Sonics had Kemp and Payton. Teams having more than 1 superstar was as common back then as it is today. Second, bench players existed back then also. This is also not a new thing. I did not dodge the original question you made, you clearly stated "Jordan had NO competition". I already proved you wrong in my previous statement. As far as outpowering that is true. But that is because Lebron plays small Forward while Jordan was a shooting guard. As far as shooting goes, give me a break, Jordan is a far better shooter than LeBron. He"s a shooting guard. As far as stopping him with his defense, Jordan scored on Hakeem, Mutombo, Kareem, Eaton, Robinson, Ewing, Shaq, Duncan, Rollins and Parish, who happen to be the top 10 all time in blocks. So LeBron"s defense won"t stop Jordan. Jordan dunked on all these guys so dunking on LeBron won"t be a problem for him. Answer this, why hasn"t LeBron won the defensive player of the year award yet while Jordan won one, him being the 1 of the only 2 guards to ever win the award . "Armando- You still don"t get! LeBron could play any position he wanted, with no problem. Maybe you could understand this: If you switched LeBron to Jordan"s era, and Jordan in LeBron"s era, this argument would have never existed. LeBron would have not been named King LeBron, but God LeBron. He would have had the shoe deal, he would have probably still be playing in the NBA, have more championships than Jordan, etc. Jordan would have just been an average NBA superstar and would be fighting to see who the best basketball player between himself and Kobe is. But since so many people have their heart on only Jordan, it won"t change. LeBron is already getting compared to Jordan and that is a good thing, and I think he has surpassed that point, and he is not even retired. LeBron still has more records to beat. I leave you with this, if you think Jordan is best, who was the best before Jordan played basketball? I think that the best players never stay the best cause there is always going to be someone better than the best later on in the future and LeBron proves my point! "Alan- "You still don"t get it!" No I think you don"t get it. You are the one that is completely changing the topic. So far I have proven you wrong on everything that you have thrown at me. It doesn"t matter if you switch Jordan with LeBron because like I said in my previous argument, the past eras were much stronger than this era. That means Jordan would"ve won much more championships now than in the 90s. He would look around and see all the easy competition. Meanwhile put LeBron in Jordan"s place and while I think he would still be a star in the past era due to his strength. But even then LeBron would not dominate as easily as he is now with all the weak competition. I think I"m done arguing about this. You have failed to give a valid argument about LeBron being better. In fact you actually made it easier for me to prove that Jordan is indeed the better basketball player. I do agree that maybe one day Jordan will be surpassed by someone else. But LeBron is clearly not that person. Jordan did what no other player has done. He changed the game. There"s a reason why ratings were sky high when Jordan was playing. He was a living legend. Jordan has had so many amazing moments in his career. The Shot, The Shot II, The Flu game, his dunk contest performances (LeBron has yet to get in the dunk contest), The Shrug, his 6 finals performances (Jordan didn"t lose a single finals, LeBron lost the finals twice). I could go on. What amazing moments has LeBron made that match up with the like of the Flue Game? You think LeBron is better because you didn"t see Jordan play, if you saw him when he played, you would understand why he is better. But you only saw LeBron play so you think he"s better. I"ve seen countless Jordan games and clips on the Internet for a long time and I can conclude this while watching LeBron play now. LeBron may be the best player in the NBA right now, but he will never surpass Jordan in skill, achievements and popularity. This argument is over. Questions and Work Cited on Blackboard!!! GO SPURS GO!!!