Steve Kerr is one of the few basketball minds out there who is uniquely qualified to compare LeBron James and Michael Jordan. Kerr played with Jordan for three-plus seasons on the Chicago Bulls, winning three straight titles with MJ from 1996 to 1998.
As a coach, Kerr had to gameplan against LeBron in four straight NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018, one of which, 2016, saw James defeat Kerr's Golden State Warriors in arguably the greatest Finals accomplishment in the history of the league.
Kerr has also coached LeBron on Team USA. Kerr has seen both LeBron and MJ playing at the highest level the sport has ever witnessed, and it makes one wonder, who does Kerr think is/was the greater player?
Steve Kerr explains the difference between LeBron James and Michael Jordan
In a new interview with The New Yorker, Kerr was basically asked this exact question, and his responses about both MJ and LeBron were pretty interesting.
When it came to LeBron, Kerr didn't stop short of calling James the greatest athlete that mankind has ever witnessed. "I think he’s literally the greatest athlete on the face of the planet and in human history," Kerr said of LeBron. “(Compared to Jordan, LeBron has) more of a holistic game where he dominates with his space and his athleticism and his passing."
In discussing MJ, Kerr did note that Jordan possessed a quality that James does not. “The killer instinct, the emotional dominance he had over not only the other team but the officials, the entire arena," Kerr said of Jordan. "I don’t see that with LeBron. Everybody came into a series against Michael knowing they were going to lose.”
NBA fans will be debating Steve Kerr's MJ-LeBron remarks forever
There are plenty of MJ purists and LeBron purists on both sides of the aisle when it comes to propping one legend up over the other in the all-time NBA player rankings, and all of those fans are sure to react strongly to Kerr's comments, one way or another.
Jordan fans might be the more irritated of the two crowds. Kerr's appointment of LeBron as the greatest athlete in the history of the world was a more intense compliment than anything Kerr dished out to MJ.
Steve Kerr low-key rated LeBron higher than Michael Jordan
Though Kerr's language was a bit strong, it's worth noting that LeBron has a fairly obvious case for being considered, if not the greatest athlete in the history of the Earth, the greatest athlete in the history of the NBA.
This was already a discussion during LeBron's athletic prime in Miami, and, in my opinion, it's become an even more legitimate conversation now that we've seen what James has been able to do north of 40 years old. Yeah, let's just say ... that's not what Wizards Jordan looked like.
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