Similar to Kobe, Michael Jordan offered the same type of mentorship to James. However, they could not develop a similar friendship.
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LeBron James and Michael Jordan are arguably the two greatest names in basketball on and off the court. They will be forever paired together. No matter who the greatest of all time is, both are known globally with huge fan bases.
While Jordan was known for being a fierce competitor, he did his part to share his wisdom to the next generation. The 6 time NBA champion recently let us in on his relationship with LeBron over the years on Jackie MacMullan’s podcast ‘Icons Club.’
While speaking on the podcast, Jordan spoke about the close bond he shared with Kobe Bryant off the court. The two spoke regularly as Jordan became Bryant’s mentor during his rise to stardom.
“At first he was a irritant but then secondly, it became man it’s a sense of respect, you know, and I respect him for that and from that point on it was like, I’m gonna do whatever I can to help them out.”
Similar to Kobe, Jordan offered the same type of mentorship to James. However, they could not develop a similar friendship as Jordan mentioned he barely reached out to him.
“To his Credit. He’s never called. I mean, he may have called a couple of times but nothing to the magnitude of Kobe.”
“If he’s gonna call, he should call Magic Johnson. In the sense that his style, his basketball, talent is more Magic Johnson than Michael Jordan whereas Kobe, you know his style of play was identical to mine, so I can understand the dialogue.”
Quite rightly, Magic Johnson makes a lot more sense to be the legend James calls. Even before he stepped foot in the NBA, Johnson was the player James was often compared to.
Only two players in NBA history have averaged 30/8/6 on 50% shooting in a season:
Michael Jordan
LeBron James— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) April 8, 2022
However, Jordan did the right thing by offering to mentor James the same way he did with Bryant but should not be surprised things played out differently.
