Michael Jordan vs LeBron James: The 15-Year Comparison That Could End The GOAT Debate

#8 Amount of help/Level of teammates

Cleveland Cavaliers v Sacramento Kings

This is a bone of contention, as LeBron has advanced past the first round in the playoffs with a supporting cast that would hit the lottery every year thrice now (2006, 2007, 2018). But during his championship years, the Cavaliers have had the most well-rounded roster in basketball (2012, 2013 and 2016).

In 2016, while the Warriors did have 3 All-Stars like LeBron did on their squad, Draymond Green wasn't much of a scoring threat. Kevin Love did come up a dud for that series, but he still had to be guarded as an elite perimeter threat, which opened up driving lanes for LeBron and Kyrie to exploit.

Between the trios of LeBron, Kyrie, and Love vs Steph, Klay, and Draymond, most people would probably pick the former trio. Not to mention how the likes of Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson, Iman Shumpert and Mo Williams would constitute a more well-rounded bench than the Warriors had at the time.

Yes, LeBron did win the Finals in a large part due to himself, but in a series that came down to the last couple of minutes, he would definitely be thankful for all the help that he did have.

Michael Jordan, on the other hand, had the incalculable benefit of playing under Hall of Famers Phil Jackson and Tex Winter, who developed the triangle offense and allowed a number of average NBA players to become solid contributors to the Bulls system.

While the only big names that Jordan played with were Pippen and Rodman, the amount of help he had in the other roster spots with the likes of Toni Kukoc, Steve Kerr and BJ Armstrong cannot be underestimated. Over the years, they always rose to the occasion in the playoffs. But nobody in Jordan's supporting cast was ever the kind of scoring threat who needed to be double-teamed at times, or could go on to drop 40 points or so like The Flash or Kyrie.

Jordan has never had a 20-ppg scorer on 45+% efficiency like LeBron had from 2010 to 2017 in the playoffs, and for that reason, LeBron's teams edge Michael Jordan's in a head-to-head matchup. Essentially increasing the degree of difficulty Jordan had to overcome.

Edge: Michael Jordan