The debate of who the greatest NBA player of all time is has become more interesting in recent years, as LeBron James has collected more championship rings and individual accomplishments.
Although the Los Angeles Lakers superstar is now the league’s all-time leading career scorer, many still feel that former Chicago Bulls luminary Michael Jordan was the greatest player the game had ever seen.
In fact, sports personality Colin Cowherd says that Jordan is the one NBA player, past or present, who people cannot get away with criticizing.
"You can criticize every basketball player ever — except for Michael Jordan"
—@ColinCowherd gets real about how Michael Jordan is shielded from criticism pic.twitter.com/0GZ3ngvLCu
— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) March 20, 2023
Jordan’s resume, which includes six NBA championships, five regular season MVP awards, six NBA Finals MVPs and 10 scoring titles, seems above reproach.
But the reality is that no human being is above criticism.
Throughout his career, Jordan’s marketing campaign created the image of a superstar who had a harmless and nonchalant personality that even seemed a bit bland, something which Cowherd pointed out.
His few missteps, which included punching teammate Steve Kerr and rumors of a gambling addiction, are generally swept under the rug or rationalized as simply byproducts of a borderline-pathological competitive drive, which itself is rationalized as nothing but a beneficial quality he has.
On the other hand, Jordan was the product of the 1980s and early 1990s, an era before the explosion of the internet and social media when America was far less polarized than it has been in the 21st century.
There is always the possibility that if Jordan played in today’s era instead, he would still be greatly loved, but not as universally loved as he was 20-30 years ago.
NEXT: NBA Fans React To What Colin Cowherd Said About Michael Jordan
