Column: LeBron will never be Jordan

I’ve heard and digested the same proclamation on more occasions than I care to remember.

“LeBron James is the best player to have ever played the game of basketball.”

If that’s your opinion, then more power to you. It’s your constitutional right, but I’m inclined to tell you your opinion is as false as can be.

Let me take you back to the evening of June 19, 1984.

It was during that evening’s NBA Draft that the greatest player of all time was inducted into the world’s most renowned professional basketball league.

Both the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers passed on Michael Jeffrey Jordan, opting instead to select Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie, respectively.

Such a perceived slight didn’t faze Jordan; he had failed to make the varsity squad at Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, N.C. as a sophomore because he was deemed too short — Jordan stood 5 feet 11 inches — to play at the varsity level.

Fast-forward 18 years after the 1984 draft, and Jordan had become not only the greatest of all time, but a transcending figure on a global stage.

He retired for good in 2003 as a six-time NBA champion, six-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, 14-time NBA All-Star and five-time NBA Most Valuable Player, among a treasure trove of other awards.

While those accolades alone confirm Jordan’s legacy as the greatest of all time, consider his humble beginnings as a professional.

His first six seasons in the league — each with the Chicago Bulls — ended without a championship.

Yet Jordan’s patience paid off, as the Bulls went on to win championships in six of the next eight seasons, and likely would have won seven had Jordan not retired from the game prior to the 1993-94 season to pursue a career in baseball.

Jordan allowed the Bulls’ front office management to build a championship-caliber team around him.

Jordan’s first season with the Bulls included a rotation of players such as Dave Corzine, Dave Greenwood, Steve Johnson, Caldwell Jones, Wes Matthews and Ennis Whatley.

Have you heard those names before? I certainly haven’t.

Fast forward to Jordan’s final championship season with the Bulls — 14 years after his initial season — and the realization that his patience had paid off sets in: He was surrounded by the likes of Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr, Toni Kukoc, Luc Longley and Bill Wennington.

“His Airness” slowly but surely built a legacy throughout his career. He accomplished it brick-by-brick, day-by-day and season-by-season.

Jordan’s heir-apparent, James, who is also known as “King James,” had no such patience or willingness to build the same type of legacy as the player and man he grew up idolizing as a kid on the courts in Akron, Ohio.

After spending his first seven seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, James packed his bags and headed for Miami, where he joined up with All-Stars Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the Heat in a rather distasteful incident known as “The Decision.”

Shortly thereafter, James’ idol, Jordan, broke his silence on the matter.

“There’s no way, with hindsight, I would have ever called up Larry (Bird), called up Magic (Johnson) and said, ‘Hey, look, let’s get together and play on one team,’” Jordan said during an interview with NBC. “Things are different. I can’t say that’s a bad thing. It’s an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys.”

I’ll say what Jordan truly wanted to say during that interview: James didn’t have the guts or the courage to remain in Cleveland and build a legacy there.

He couldn’t do it on his own. He didn’t have the resolve or the toughness to accomplish what Jordan did in Chicago.

Instead, James chose the easy path to championships by joining players he should have had a hunger to defeat, to echo Jordan’s sentiments.

It was a wise choice to change your jersey number from 23 to 6 when you joined the Heat, LeBron.

You’ll never be Jordan.

­— ckillore@indiana.edu