In a loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 7, LeBron James, playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, made NBA history (for probably the thousandths time) and grabbed the all-time scoring record. The previous record (held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was thought to be unbreakable, which I think is pretty plausible as he had one of the longest and most dominant careers in NBA history and played at an extremely high level for more than a decade.

But then LeBron James came along and ruined the balance of talent. At his peak, no one could touch him. He was as close to the objectively best player in the league as someone can be. The scoring title is just one more accolade to his ever growing list, but there is still one thing that shadows his legacy, The GOAT debate.

For those who don’t know, GOAT stands for Greatest of All Time. And the debate is between LeBron James, and Michael Jordan, the man who ruled the 1990s with an iron fist and won six NBA championships. There are already hundreds of factors that contribute to the debate, including but not limited to; LeBron’s longevity, Jordan’s playoff success, a verified competition between eras and different play styles in the different eras. And with the all-time scoring record now belonging to LeBron James, a new factor just got added, and a big one at that.

Now I’m not going to say this debate is stupid, but it’s kind of stupid. Comparing two players from completely different eras is not going to prove who is better. I believe the only comparisons going on should be between two players who were at their peak at the same time. For example, Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki, two big men who were playing MVP-caliber basketball in the mid to late 2000’s. However, I will admit that the GOAT debate is fun, so I’ll play along.

This new accomplishment puts LeBron just that much closer to MJ, but it still feels like there is something missing from him for me to be able to jump him up. Maybe it’s another championship, maybe it’s him not retiring before his son Bronny gets drafted. There will always be people who way MJ is better no matter what James does. For me, I was born after he retired. I never got to watch him play. I barely even got to see LeBron at his absolute peak, but what I can see is statistics (if my brain is working right, which it isn’t half the time.) 

First, we have to look at points. As I’ve said, LeBron just took the number one spot all time, but where does Michael Jordan stand? According to the official NBA website (nba.com) with 31,560 points he is fifth all-time. One thing that LeBron has proven is that he has an incredible longevity playing at all star or MVP levels for almost his entire career. MJ also had an incredible longevity though not to the extent of LeBron. Both players have nearly two decades of NBA experience, however, with Michael Jordan retiring and unretiring multiple items he missed a couple of years and his last two or three years were spent wasting away in Washington with almost no production.

Michael Jordan played 15 years for the Bulls and Wizards in the NBA. LeBron has barely missed a game let alone a season and has always been an all-star caliber player even in his early years. LeBron has played 20 years in the NBA and finally achieved postseason success. Michael Jordan has never lost the NBA finals. Every time he got that far, he won it. This leads to a lot of championships, six in total while LeBron only has four, which is still impressive but not what Jordan did. Plus one of those championships was during quarantine, which lead to a completely different experience for basketball. I’m not saying you take it away, but it might have affected things if this championship wasn’t during quarantine, but that’s a story for another time.

The impact of both of these players is ginormous. A whole generation of people were enthralled by Jordan by a young age being one the most popular players of all time. LeBron has done something similar, even with what I think is much better competition. Sure, Jordan had his rivals, but LeBron was surrounded by some of the best scorers and teams in history and it is a wonder how he has that many championships at all.