{"id":28,"date":"2026-05-26T19:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=28"},"modified":"2026-05-26T19:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T19:45:22","slug":"lebron-james-is-doing-something-michael-jordan-could-and-would-never-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James is doing something Michael Jordan could and would never do"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

LeBron James turned 41 years old more than four months ago. Monday night, with 21 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, he became the oldest player to record a triple-double. Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers forward surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and became the all-time NBA wins leader at 1,229 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Overshadowing the Final Four was Trump\u2019s threat to hamstring college athletes<\/a><\/p>\n

John Thompson, Jr., the late, great Georgetown coach said comparing players across eras was foolish because \u201cThe moment you pick one is the moment you diminish the entire legacy of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, with eternal apologies to Coach Thompson, it\u2019s becoming clear that LeBron will soon have no peer, not even Michael Jordan.<\/p>\n

There, I said it. LeBron will be the G.O.A.T. when he retires, if he is not already.<\/p>\n

No player in any major-revenue team sport has been this good for this long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Before Kobe Bryant, Steph Curry and others entered the pantheon of the best non-centers to ever play the game, Jordan, Magic and Bird were hoop\u2019s holy trinity.<\/p>\n

Magic and Bird each played 13 seasons, retiring at 36 and 35, respectively. Michael Jordan played 15 seasons. Because he went straight from high school to the pros, this is LeBron\u2019s 23rd season. He has been non-committal about retirement, but even if he hangs it up after this season he will have played a full decade more than Magic and Bird and eight years more than Jordan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a break in a game 2023, Jabari Smith, Jr., of the Houston Rockets told James,\u00a0 \u201cHey, you played against my dad your first NBA game ever.\u201d When LeBron said, \u201cReally?\u201d Smith responded, \u201cYou feel old don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

He must not be feeling that<\/em> old. Last month, James viciously dunked on Smith during a fast break.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more There\u2019s a valuable lesson in tonight\u2019s WNBA draft that Congress could really learn<\/a><\/p>\n

Besides his longevity, LeBron will be remembered as a player who led three separate franchises \u2013 Miami, Cleveland and the Lakers \u2013 to a championship. But no one saw coming the\u00a0 intangible that\u2019s currently setting him apart: his \u00a0willingness to hand the baton to a better player on his own team. He has accepted that Luka Doncic is indeed the present and future of the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Many of team\u2019s three best players \u2013 LeBron, Doncic and Austin Reaves \u2013 have been injured at different times this season. They\u2019ve only appeared together in 24 of the 76 games the Lakers have played this season. And yet, the Lakers have already won 50 games. Why? Because the player who should be viewed as the greatest ever to play when he retires has suddenly realized that being the second-best player on the roster at this moment in time makes the Lakers that much better. There are nights when Reaves is playing so well that LeBron is actually the third-best Laker on the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No player I remember covering has received more ugly vitriol from fans who don\u2019t like him. So I\u2019m sure there will be a chorus of folks out there who\u2019ll claim that LeBron doesn\u2019t want the\u00a0 pressure all on him anymore and that he\u2019s more than glad to see someone else get the grief for losing and when things go bad.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maybe. But it\u2019s more likely that LeBron has morphed into a high-end role player because he doesn\u2019t want to upset the apple cart that carries the wins, that he realizes that if he indeed has a chance for one more run at a title it\u2019s because Doncic is now an MVP candidate \u2014 and he\u2019s fine with that.<\/p>\n

I sat courtside or a few levels above the floor and watched Jordan and James in both of their primes for my job, and \u00a0 I can say this with conviction: Michael Jordan would never allow a player better than him to become the focal point of his team. Yes, that stubbornness and Alpha Male-to-the-n<\/em>th power made him as great as he was. That\u2019s not debatable.. But LeBron\u2019s ability to live out the legendary UCLA coach John Wooden\u2019s mantra \u2013 \u201cLosing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that\u2019s teamwork\u201d \u2013 at this age is truly something extraordinary to see in this, the twilight of his career. It\u2019s a rebuke to those who\u2019ve accused him making everything All-LeBron, All the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the end, he was neither selfish nor so hard-headed that he couldn\u2019t understand what it would take to keep the machine purring at the ripe old age of 41: hand over the keys. Pass the baton just as he\u2019s always been willing to pass the ball. It\u2019s a gift to the game no one could see from a player who\u2019s given us so many.<\/p>\n

Read more On this Jackie Robinson Day, reject this lie Major League Baseball tells about itself<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After winning championships and setting records for points scored and wins, LeBron James is exhibiting his greatness in a surprising new way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nLeBron James is doing something Michael Jordan could and would never do - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=28\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LeBron James is doing something Michael Jordan could and would never do - 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