One of the biggest regrets for NBA fans is that we can never witness Michael Jordan take on LeBron James. Jordan walked away from the game for good in 2003, just a few months before LeBron James entered the league as the stand-out high school prospect from his draft class. Jordan and LeBron James have had similar success in the NBA, but are very different players.
Regardless, both players are obsessed with winning and always striving to be the best. Jordan and LeBron define two separate eras in the NBA and have been the faces of the league for almost their entire stint in the NBA. But fans can't help but wonder what a game between the two of them would look like.
Well, a game between the two did take place, but it was behind closed doors. Former NBA star Antoine Walker spoke in an interview about Michael Jordan. Walker revealed that Jordan approached him in 2001 when he was preparing for a comeback and asked him to train with him.
As part of these training sessions, Jordan invited players across the country to play with him. Players like Michael Finley, Juwan Howard, Quentin Richardson, Corey Maggette, Bobby Simmons, Tim Hardaway, and others.
One of the players lucky enough to get an invite was none other than LeBron James. James was a sophomore in high school at the time and making waves as a potential future superstar in the league.
According to Walker, all the players gave LeBron a concession because of his age. And they would split into two teams and play pick-up games together. Jordan, unsurprisingly, made sure the games were very competitive and was even talking trash to all the players around him.
"He called me. And he was like, 'Hey, I'm thinking about making a comeback. I need you in the gym with me.'"
"We treated LeBron like a 16-year-old,"
"He's going to pick Charles Oakley first. He's always going to pick Oaks. And he's going to pick a really good point guard. That's one thing that always stood out. And then he likes to get less aggressive guys. Like, he'll take a Bobby Simmons, the guys that aren't really looking to score the basketball, so he can work on his game."
"Michael likes to get his shots up now. He's going to make sure he's working on his game. So, that's how Michael was."
"Very competitive. All we talked about every day was winning. He used to give me so much stuff about not winning a championship.
"If you weren't a winner, he had little respect for you."
LeBron himself spoke about the experience of playing with Jordan last year. During those games, James didn't get to play much, as most of the players were already in the league and were more experienced than him.
But once they got tired, James got a chance to go up against his idol. LeBron quickly got to see what most players in the 80s and 90s saw: Jordan dominating the court, before hitting the game-winner. MJ even had some hilarious remarks after he hit the game-winning shot, screaming "that's why they pay me $33 million to do this".
"And the only reason I played is because the guys that was in the league you know, after a few hours some of them get tired,"
"For me to be on the court at 16 years old, sophomore in high school, with my favorite player of all time [Jordan] it was like, this can't be real, man."
Jordan and LeBron have a different approach and a different mentality when it comes to the sport of basketball. But even in this scenario, one can only imagine how the games between the two went. Aside from a few details, we can never really know what went down in those games.
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