The Lebron Comparisons

Once again the basketball analysts, speculators, commentators are annointing a player as the next "Michael Jordan". Unfortunately, as many know, there will never be another Jordan in this sport. There may be a player who comes close to his feats or surpasses, but there will never be that legend, period.

There's been many "next Jordans" who have come into the league and faded out of the public/basketball eye. Examples would be JR Rider, Harold Miner, Anfernee Hardaway, Grant Hill and Jerry Stackhouse. Those guys alone were pretty good players, some even won Dunk titles along the way and made all-star appearances. None of them have picked up any NBA rings or the accolades, scoring titles and MVP awards that MJ racked up. And none of those names are as good as Lebron James.

Before crowning James as one day being better than Jordan, you do have to stop and think of 2 other current players. Those are Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. Kobe has notched 3 NBA titles, which is half of what Jordan achieved. He could conceivably be traded to the right scenario and achieve more titles, possibly more than Jordan did. He still has not won the league MVP award yet. Dwyane Wade is the younger guy and already has an NBA title to his credit as well as the NBA finals MVP award. You would have to start looking at him as a benefactor as the next great player in the same light as you look at Lebron. It's hard to see Lebron as the next Jordan or top star until he has at least that first title.

Unfortunately, expectations were quite high on Lebron and he failed to capture his first title. People seemed to expect Lebron to just win it on his own, and that is always unfair, as basketball is a team game. But sit back and watch as he continues to grow and let that hunger for his first title take him to great heights.