Basketball Legends: Michael Jordan

In most sports, there will be long and heated conversations daily about who was the best ever to play it. Was the best soccer player Pélé, or Diego Maradona? Is Roger Federer the best tennis player of all time, or was it Rod Laver, or someone else? In basketball, these conversations do happen, but there is more of a consensus than in possibly any other sport. People will continually state that the greatest ever basketball player was Michael “Air” Jordan. And seeing his career achievements it is hard to disagree.

It is true that Jordan was for much of his career part of a team that would make any player look good – team mates like Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Toni Kukoc would certainly have walked on to most other teams and been the star player – but that does not account for his many achievements, including a record six Most Valuable Player awards for the NBA finals and ten NBA scoring titles. He also showed he was no slouch on defense, winning nine nominations to the All-Defensive team during his storied career.

There are other players who have matched Michael Jordan in certain categories, but none who have ever achieved the dominance he did in as many different categories. His Chicago Bulls years saw the team do the unheard of – twice winning three consecutive NBA titles in the space of one decade (the 1990s), and although he was able to call on the rare talents of a sublime supporting cast, Michael Jordan is the name most associate with that rare period of dominance.