It’s rare to find a player who faced Michael Jordan and LeBron James when each was in their prime, but Allen Iverson did.
Iverson was just a rookie when he played MJ in 1996, while in the 2000s he matched up against the modern day GOAT, LeBron.
When pressed about who is his all-time GOAT, Iverson seemed to struggle to pick, but gave a very detailed explanation to Marc J. Spears of Andcape:
“I hate it because I love both of them so much and both of them did so much for our game,” Iverson said during All-Star Weekend. “LeBron, I think, to me is the best overall basketball player that we’ll ever see. If you look in the dictionary and look up basketball player, there’ll be a picture of LeBron.
“But for me, it’s so different because Mike was everything to me. He gave me the vision. He made me want to play basketball. He’s my everything. I wanted to actually be like him, like the commercial, ‘Be like Mike,’ I really wanted to be him. I’m still starstruck every time I see him. I’m still nervous every time. Because he’s Mike to me. He’s my guy. So there’ll never be no one at the top of my list besides Mike. But LeBron is just everything that you want in a basketball player. He’s a total package. He’s God’s gift to the basketball world.”
Jordan and James are without a doubt the two greatest NBA players to ever grace the court.
James, among many other things, is the all-time scoring leader, a 19-time All-Star, and the only player to ever record 10,000+ points, 10,000+ rebounds and 10,000+ assists.
On the other hand Jordan won six titles across two three-peats, six finals MVPs, five league MVPs, and was selected to 10 All-NBA First Teams.