Draymond Green picks LeBron James over Michael Jordan: ‘M.J. didn’t beat the greatest team ever assembled’

Everyone has an opinion on the two-man race for the title of greatest NBA player of all time. Older players and fans tend to lean toward Michael Jordan. Younger ones might veer towards LeBron James. There is no consensus answer, and while James is still playing, his resume is still being written.

But one of the players who knows James best weighed in on the debate on Uninterrupted’s Throwing Bones. Draymond Green has faced James in the Finals four times, and he explained in depth why he’d pick the current Los Angeles Lakers star over Jordan. 

“Bron started in ’03. By 2005, Bron was the best player in the NBA. In 2020 he was still the best player in the NBA. He was the best player in the NBA no matter what the game did. The game went from two slugs, like two big men, to like, a stretch four big man, back to two big men, to no big men, and he’s been the best no matter what. When you look at the teams that Bron has carried to championships or carried to the Finals. M.J. didn’t beat the greatest team ever assembled, nor did he run up against the greatest team ever assembled every year. You look at the skillset that Bron has. There’s nobody that has ever played the game of basketball that can do what LeBron James does on a basketball court. Nobody.

You all want to be like Mike, but what LeBron has been able to do and how he can control a game, like, to do it this long. M.J. retired. This s*** is grueling. Going to the Finals year after year after year, Bron went to eight or nine straight. M.J. took a break right in the heat of that s***. Bron didn’t take a break, you know what he did? He went again and again and again again. And again. So for me, that’s why it’s Bron over M.J. for me.

And on top of that, the talent nowadays is way better. And I’m sure one of the old f**** gonna say ‘you’re out of you’re mind’ blah blah blah. The talent is way better, just like the talent at Apple is way better than the talent that was working at Apple in 1991.”

There are a few important caveats worth mentioning here. First of all, the interview itself took place on a platform that James founded. Green is represented by the same agent as James in Rich Paul. And of course, it doesn’t hurt Green’s legacy to say that he beat the greatest player of all time in the Finals three times.

None of this undermines Green’s choice. Every point he made was perfectly valid. At this stage of the debate, the resumes are close enough that anyone’s choice is going to be subjective. There just isn’t a wrong answer, even if you believe that one is closer to being the right pick.