Plenty of people consider LeBron James and Michael Jordan to be the two greatest players in NBA history. Some have likely fantasized about both playing together on the same team and what that might have looked like.
Since James and Jordan are different players with somewhat different skill sets and mindsets, perhaps it could’ve worked. During an episode of the “Mind the Game” podcast, James said his game would’ve fit alongside Jordan’s game, since he is essentially a point forward and Jordan was a pure scorer.
“I think our games would have complemented [each other] as well,” James said during a live episode of his Mind the Game podcast with Steve Nash. “MJ was a flat-out scorer. He was a scorer, scorer, scorer. He had a scorer’s mentality. … MJ was an inspiration. Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway was an inspiration to me. Grant Hill was an inspiration to me growing up. Like that point-forward—Scottie Pippen, like Penny, like Hill—those guys kinda inspired me, because I kinda wanted to be that point-forward.”
Although James is the NBA’s all-time leading career scorer and has amassed 42,184 regular-season points, he is often seen as more of a facilitator than a pure scorer. He seems to get at least as much pleasure from notching an assist as he does from scoring a basket.
Jordan was able to facilitate and hit the open man, but at his core, he was a scorer and finisher. He’s the all-time leader in scoring average during both the regular season and the playoffs, and he won a record 10 scoring titles, including seven in a row from the 1986-87 season to the 1992-93 season. Of course, he won six NBA championships during the 1990s, while James has won four championships and lost on another six occasions in the NBA Finals.