by Jimmy Patrick

Created on: December 10, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

The media and that shoe company want so badly to turn James into another Jordan. Jordan made a lot of money for people involved in basketball and if they can push James in our face enough, they figure he can make them just as much. James, however, is not Jordan and probably will never be.

I am not going to talk about stats because James puts up stats like you wouldn't believe. I think he is more of a stats machine than Jordan was.

I am not going to talk about championships because even if James somehow did go on to win six or more championships he still would not be Michael Jordan. Heck, Robert Horry has seven championships and we don't make that comparison.

Jordan was a true artist on the hardwood court. He walked around with a swagger like nobody else had before or since. The truth is, Jordan's greatness had nothing to do with stats or championships. Jordan played basketball because he loved it. He even had it in his contract that he be allowed to play whenever and wherever he wanted even if he might get hurt.

Jordan was absolute grace in action. It wasn't that he flew through the air, or that he made the jump shot, it was how he looked when he did those things. Lebron looks, at times, like a robot soaring high, yes and fast, yes, but with the personality of a two-by-four. Jordan looked like he was born to play ball; he looked liquid in his movement, whether he was dribbling the ball or shooting or playing defense.

Fans of Lebron James will rattle off stats and talk about his athletic ability and his youth and how, if healthy, he could break all the records in the book. Fans of Jordan can just pop in a video of Jordan playing ball on an asphalt court somewhere and simply say: watch this. After a few minutes of watching, Jordan fans can rest their case.

I could sit here and tell you how James doesn't have the shooting touch that Jordan had or the free-throw percentage, or the leadership skills. Do you know why other players followed Jordan, why he led so well? Because they watched the way he handled himself on the court. They saw the same things we all saw as spectators and said, "Wow, I will do whatever you say." The crazy thing is, Jordan didn't have to say anything to them at all.

We will hear the media debating this and that all the time about when Lebron James is going to reach that Jordan-like level. I'm not going to sell him short and say he won't ever reach that level. I will only say that if he does reach that level, it won't be measured by how many points he scores per game or how many games his team won; it will be measured by our eyes. If he becomes greater than Michael Jordan, we will see it. So far, we haven't seen it.

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