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Message: [QUOTE="tzznandrew, post: 3550391, member: 168"] It really is almost all young people who didn't see MJ at his absolute prime who make this argument. It's recency bias, largely from people now in their 20s and early 30s who also didn't see Bird, Thomas, Magic, Kareem. If they don't watch the games, no amount of argument is going to change their minds. Meanwhile, people who played against both, people around the league who watched both, etc. all pick Jordan. And what's interesting is that this isn't a hardened position, as it is for the people who didn't really see Jordan. Many of these former players and journalists, if you asked them in the 1980s, would have picked any number of people as the best ever: Robertson, Kareem, Russell, Chamberlain, Magic (by the late 80s). But after watching Jordan for his whole career, they changed their mind. I think that's important: most of the Jordan supporters aren't people my age or a little older, born in the early-mid 80s wanting to be like Mike. They're people who have been around the game a whole hell of a lot longer than the LeBron fans. And saying LeBron is one of the 5 best players ever--certainly that's not a criticism! Many agree he's #2, but I think that crowning him that is a bit of recency bias, and I think there are arguments for Magic or Kareem ahead of him even if I might ultimately come out with LeBron being the best of that trio. [/QUOTE]