Magic Johnson speaking at Albany University:
“Everybody’s always asking, ‘Who is better between Kobe (Bryant) and LeBron?’ I’m like, Are you kidding me? I’m like, you’re kidding me … Kobe, five championships; LeBron, zero.”
Magic on comparisons to the great Michael Jordan:
“Come on, man, six championships for Jordan. You know that Michael averaged over 30 points every playoff series? Don’t try to touch that,” he said.
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LeBron owns a piece of Liverpool FC
Lebron owns more than just a Liverpool scarf. He owns shares in the team – and was at Anfield to watch “his team” draw with mighty Manchester United.
“One of the single best experiences of my life!” tweeted the multimillionaire Miami Heat basketballer and minority Liverpool shareholder of his first trip to Anfield.
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Very, very cool footage. But what is Lebron doing in Barcelona?
Isn’t that Kobe Bryant’s turf?
Kobe is famous for being a big Barca fan > Check it out.
Maybe Lebron wants some choice Kobe-Barca karma so that he can be a champion too : ) ?
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Kobe with Puyol and Busquets
It’s the off-season and the NBA has locked-out it’s players, so what’s a player to do? Well, if you’re Kobe Bryant you go into fan mode and do a few interviews.
Kobe was front and centre - actually on the field – on Saturday as his beloved Barcelona faced Manchester United in a friendly at FedEx Field in Washington.
And he was in ESPN’s studio’s for an interview in which he was asked his opinion on Lebron James. His response? The world needs to lay-off of Lebron and “let him play”. I guess that Kobe has forgotten about “the Decision” and all of that nonsense that Lebron heaped upon himself. And I guess he wants the world to forget too. I guess that’s to be expected during a time of player union solidarity. Wonder if he’ll go as easy on Lebron when the league resumes?
The other interesting notion that comes up in the interview is that Kobe expects his team to win next year. So typically Kobe but can the squad do it? And can he? While he’s had a superb career, he seems to be less and less part of the best player debate as he ages and the days pass.
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Will Lebron ever match up to Mr. Clutch, Michael Jordan?
Lebron James has been compared to Michael Jordan probably since the day he could walk. And the comparisons have not ceased despite his mediocre performances in this final round of the 2011 NBA play-offs.
How can anyone really compare Lebron to Jordan these days?
But it goes on and on.
There is a great post by Henry Abbot (no he is not Bestplayer’s the Abbot) on the ESPN blog, TrueHoop, which through Alok Pattani’s research and analysis shows just how great Jordan was and how far James has to go before he can rightfully be compared to probably the best player to ever have played the game of basketball.
What Abbot and Pattani have managed to do is figure out empirically how great Jordan was in clutch moments. In doing so Abbot and Pattani have done us a great service because they have confirmed what most of us thought from simply observing Jordan deliver time and again, over the years, in countless moments for his 6-time championship winning Chicago Bulls.
Here in a nutshell is the criteria they settled on for judging Jordan’s clutch-ness:
Based on that criteria, Jordan had 18 opportunities to be Mr. Clutch and delivered on them an incredible 9 times for a 50% Clutch Rating.
What is really interesting though – and it contradicts the tone of my piece thus far – is that of current players, two of the clutch-iest players around are…Dirk Nowitzki at 38.5% and…wait for it…Lebron James at 41.7%.
(Check out Abbot’s very cool post to see for yourself.)
Not a bad rating for Lebron.
Hmm – maybe we will be able to compare him to Jordan – some day.
But Lebron has a hell-of-a-lot of work to do before “someday” comes.
Maybe he’ll start tonight with Game 6 as he faces the embarrassing prospect of losing the NBA title to Nowitzki and the underdog Mavericks.
Can’t wait to see what will unfold. This is Lebron’s moment. Let’s see if he grabs it the way Jordan could. Let’s see if he can be “Like Mike”.
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There was “the Decision” to leave Cleveland, then there was “the Apology” for how he left and now we have “the Question”.
The Question, posed so brazenly after Game 3 by CBS Sports reporter Greg Doyle, was: “Three games in a row for you, fourth quarter…not much…that’s the moment superstars become superstars…seems like you’re almost shrinking from it. What’s going on?”
Wow.
Tough question. Maybe a great question in the minds of those who keep wanting to see more from Lebron, who want to see if he can indeed match the magic that Michael Jordan brought to the game all those years ago.
But maybe it was below the belt though – that question. And maybe it was a question intended to be controversial and get the reporter some attention. And maybe Lebron should have leapt over that press room table and laid a beating on the reporter?
But he didn’t. Good thing. I thought that Lebron showed amazing restraint in the way he answered the question. His controlled response showed me that he is simply focused on winning and not on the kind of nonsense we saw from the reporter.
I think that if Lebron can keep his head like that we will soon see the full continuum of the Lebron Opus:
The Decision > the Apology > the Question > the Response > the Championship.
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