The Next MJ?

Watched the 2nd half of yesterday's Cavaliers-Pistons game. I have to admit that I thought the series would be a true blowout in favor of the Pistons, who are despite the current 2-2 series tie are still my pick to win the NBA Finals. LeBron James was pretty damn impressive--nearly had a triple-double despite missing a couple of shots, had some sweet fall-away treys when it mattered, and seemed to be able to drive to the basket pretty much whenever he wanted to. There's been a lot of talk about LeBron being "The Next Michael Jordan", but I always cringe when I hear that phrase.

"The Next MJ" has been used to describe a number of players already, many of whom have failed to live up to their namesake. Grant Hill looked pretty impressive early on in his career, but several ankle surgeries later is a shadow of his former self. Kobe scored 81 this year, true--but his team lost in the playoffs after being up 3-1 and he's not that young anymore. I remember a time when even Jerry Stackhouse was being compared favorably to his fellow Tar Heel alum.

Sure, LeBron is crazy good, and his potential to improve is mind-boggling. But there are still so many things that have to happen before LeBron can be mentioned in the same sentence as Jordan. First, he needs to get some better teammates--I don't see him winning the title with this group, not that they're terrible. Second, he'll need to win some rings. Not just one, either--one of the great things about Jordan is the number of consecutive championships he won, not to mention the fact that every single time he made it into the Finals, his team won. Third, he needs to stay healthy--one fluke game could turn him into Grant Hill II. Finally, he'll need to add to his legend, which as of right now consists mostly of his potential. Jordan had the 2 heart-breaker game winning shots against the Cavs, the Slam Dunk contest dunks where he took off from the free-throw line, scored a playoff-record 63 against the Bird Celtics in their heyday, and hit a sweet J against the Utah Jazz as his last shot to win the title prior to retiring for the 2nd time.

So we can start talking about comparisons after LeBron does all these things.