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Chicago Bulls: Michael Jordan doesn’t need our protection

By Khari Thompson

Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Allsport
Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Allsport /
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No matter how much praise LeBron James gets, it means nothing toward changing or minimizing Michael Jordan‘s legacy. The Chicago Bulls legend is far beyond needing us to champion him.

Is it just me, or is Michael Jordan’s shadow following LeBron James around even more heavily than usual?

The same day that James’ Cleveland Cavaliers went down 0-2 to the Golden State Warriors in the 2018 NBA Finals, we were reminded that Jordan did this back in 1992.

And of course, the day after LeBron James put up a performance for the ages in the NBA Finals only to lose in mind-numbing fashion (looking at you, JR and George Hill), I happened to see the defining play of Jordan’s Chicago Bulls career floating around on the internet.

While I don’t hold with people pointing to Jordan in EVERY case as an example of the right basketball play to make, seeing that smooth demeanor in a huge moment juxtaposed with Wednesday night’s madness was pretty jarring.

Even in comparison with all the amazing things he had done before (And setting aside all that came after), Jordan’s game-winner against the Utah Jazz in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals represented both the absolute pinnacle as well as the perfect ending (if he’d wanted it) to everything he had done in basketball.

The defensive stop. The inevitability of knowing that Jordan, even after scoring 43 of his team’s 85 points, was coming for the win. And, of course, the shot itself, and the victory that followed.

Now, I’m not typically a nostalgic person by nature. I don’t pine for the “good old days” of anything. I don’t think basketball players were better back in the day (they weren’t), and I don’t necessarily miss the days of being able to clothesline people on the court. Today’s game isn’t perfect, obviously, but the 80s and 90s were just…ugly a lot of the time. Trust me, I’ve watched a ton of it.

But seeing that play took me way back.

A 7-year-old (and curfew-breaking) me watched that scene unfold by myself after everyone had gone to sleep. And while I knew I had just seen something amazing, maybe I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of it. And I most definitely wasn’t sure I’d see a player that made me feel like this again. Even though Jordan himself claimed that there would be a player greater than him, did any of us really believe it?

That’s how complete his dominance and legacy were even back then, and time hasn’t lessened that memory for me in the slightest.

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Whether LeBron James is greater than Michael Jordan or not is always going to be the question that people ask, though I’m becoming increasingly unsure about whether or not that question is even fair. Truthfully, it may be impossible, given both how the game has changed and the fact that we’re demanding things from LeBron that are borderline inhuman just to say that he’s not in the conversation whether he meets the standards or not.

One thing I am sure about though: nothing that happens with LeBron James in tonight’s Game 2 or beyond can take away from what Michael Jordan did on the basketball court.

His legacy is just as ironclad now as it ever was. He has the greatest resume in basketball history. And though I always point out that team records (including that 6-0 Finals record) are team accomplishments, not individual ones, he also has those unimpeachable numbers going for him.

Long story short: we don’t need to protect Michael Jordan. Not in the slightest. People can say whatever they want about LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell‘s place in relation to Jordan’s, and that’s totally fine. Sports fans love those debates to no end. It’s how we get to feel like we’re part of the game and share something with those that play it.

But when incoming players say they want to be the greatest player of all time, they know that it’s Jordan that they’re being measured against. No matter how many years get put between him and the current crops of players, his imprint on basketball will always be larger than life.

No matter what anyone else does on the basketball court, I’m sure Michael Jordan feels just fine about his legacy. We all should, too. Celebrating players from this era doesn’t mean that people don’t appreciate the greatest from yesteryear.

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Besides, as I’ve said, with the standards being imposed on today’s greats living in Jordan’s shadow, is being greatest than him even possible? I’m honestly not sure at this point. LeBron James is perhaps the only player that’s ever truly evoked that conversation (sorry, Kobe), and in response, we’ve raised our expectations higher than even he can reach.

But that’s what it takes to unseat Jordan as the greatest of all time, and that’s also why his legacy is as safe as ever. Rest easy, Chicago Bulls fans.

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