After the Miami Heat beat the Chicago Bulls in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals and punched their ticket to the NBA Finals, former Bulls forward Scottie Pippen made a bold statement by saying that LeBron James might be a better all-around player than former teammate Michael Jordan.

Ever since MJ called it a career after a short stint with the Washington Wizards, the debate over who will be heir to the throne as the best player in the NBA and possibly of all-time began. The clear favorite to be Michael Jordan’s successor as the best basketball player to play the game was Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers.

With Kobe the closest in comparison in terms of championship rings and the consensus that he was the best player in the league, there was no real debate about who was next in line, but when LeBron James burst on the scene in 2003 some people believed he could be on his way to being the greatest of all-time.

The one big knock on LeBron ever since he came into the league with the Cleveland Cavaliers is his inability to hit big shots with the game on the line and the fact that he has failed to win an NBA title. Winning MVPs has been no challenge for LeBron has he already has two to his credit, but the rings have eluded him.

In the playoffs so far, LeBron has stepped up his game and become the kind of closer everyone has been waiting for, but he still has to win that NBA title to convince people that he has made that next step towards being compared to arguably the greatest player of all-time.

Personally, I think LeBron can do some things that MJ couldn’t, but in terms of all-around game, Jordan was and still is the best the NBA has ever seen.

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