As for James, it's a business. So what. But if he does win now, it won't be his legacy. It'll be what he did with an All-Star team. Now he may be remembered as great, but never on a Jordan level. He's got too much help now to claim that. But again, so what. Winners write history.
I saw that he called this the 'challenge' he was looking for. Riiiiiight; he -had- a challenge. What he opted for is shooting fish in a barrel.
Warning... hoops rant on the way...
The whole Jordan comparison is just an example of people remembering more recent history than the full scope of the game. Superteams were what made the NBA great. Wilt Chamberlain played on a team with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. Magic Johnson played with the best center of all time and James Worthy. Bird played with
four other hall of famers at one point in his career. Julius Ervin played with Moses Malone. None of those guys have tarnished legacies due to playing alongside other legends.
The league spent more than half the decade trying to christen the next Jordan. Kobe, Vince Carter, T-Mac, on and on. The problem was, Jordan was like a freak experiment that can't be duplicated. Super talented, some reasonably imitable signature moves and moments (as classically displayed in this
commercial), good looking, good name, good voice, and supremely successful because he ALSO had a hall of famer and top 50 player in Pippen at his side, plus, honestly, the league was at a downturn during Jordan's prime compared to the teams that graced the league in the 80's.
It was a bad look for the league to be driven by single-superstar teams, and it showed in the declining ratings. Then the KG trade gave Boston a monster trio (no one knocked KG for wanting to bail out on Minnesota, I guess there's a time limit on how long you have to suffer with a dismal franchise before people give you a pass?), forcing everyone else in the league who wanted to compete to do what they could to assemble their own star studded squad to match. Thus the Lakers bring in Gasol to join Kobe and steer him toward his path to the Hall, the Mavericks reach for Jason Kidd to join Dirk, the Suns reached for Shaq to join Amar'e and Nash, so on and so forth. Meanwhile the Cavs reached for an even older, slower and more rundown Shaq than the one who failed in Phoenix and... Antwan Jamison?
One of these things is not like the other.
The fact is, when the NBA was at its best it always had stacked teams, even back to the ridiculously overpowering Celtics team with Cousy, Havlicek, K.C. Jones and Bill Russel.
Lebron joining the Heat isn't as good for the league as if he had joined Chicago, because Bron + Rose + Boozer vs. Wade + Bosh for years to come would have been epic. But it's still better for the league than continuing to let its most talented player waste away on a team whose second best player isn't even identifiable and would have been coming off the bench for the Celtics, Lakers, Suns and Magic.
Chasing the "Jordan level" is like trying to chase Babe Ruth's legacy in baseball or trying to achieve Muhammad Ali's greatness above winning a championship. It's a foolish endeavor. Lebron failed the Jordan test as soon as he lost in the Finals, and really just by having guys like Kobe and D-Wade in the league with him at the same time. That kind of success requires a perfect storm that it's ridiculous to try to duplicate. The better option is to just focus on
winning, which is what we bash athletes for losing sight of all the time anyway.