Chris Broussard and Rob Parker (in the video above) react to a survey conducted by The Athletic polling 108 players anonymously across 30 NBA teams. In this survey, they were asked their opinion on who should be MVP, most overrated player, most underrated player, including best defender. They even asked who they would think would be the player to build a roster around.
Chris and Rob focused their discussion on the GOAT aka Greatest of All-Time question and the results revealed Michael Jordan at 58%, LeBron James at 33%, and Kobe Bryant at 6.8%. According to The Athletic's findings this year versus four years ago, the gap between LeBron and Jordan appears to be closing:
What’s more noteworthy is that the gap between His Airness and King James is closing — and is closing fast, fast, fast. When The Athletic polled NBA players four years ago, Jordan won 73.0 percent of the vote, with James a distant second, at 11.9 percent.
So, what’s changed? James has added to his incredible list of accomplishments, winning his fourth NBA title (with a third team) and passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the league’s career points leader. No one in league history, with the possible exception of Abdul-Jabbar, has played as well at 38 years old as James played this season.
But there’s something else at work: New players have entered the league over the last four years, and with their arrival, an increasing proportion of current NBA players grew up watching James when James was the league’s most dominant player.
As one player who voted for James told us: “I grew up in the 2000s.”
Chris Broussard talks about the changing conversation on the NBA's greatest: "When the younger people are controlling the narrative and the discussion, and they're on TV and radio, it's very likely that they will recognize LeBron as the GOAT as we do Jordan and this to me is a little bit of an example of that. Obviously, the league is younger than it was four years ago, and now all of a sudden LeBron has gotten more of the vote."
Rob Parker disagrees and says: "People still know who Babe Ruth is and still consider him one of the greatest players...We saw after The Last Dance on a survey of younger fans who use the internet and use social media; they picked Michael Jordan for every category and even one or two of them that should've been for LeBron. The longer LeBron plays without winning, the more he hurts his legacy."