Is Lebron the GOAT of Basketball?

 

            In Lebron James's 20th season it only seems like he is getting better when most players regress. He added another accolade to his career on Tuesday night when he surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most points in NBA history, but is he the goat of basketball yet?

            This has been a debated discussion now for awhile whether Lebron is the goat of basketball or not and to me I believe he is not there just yet. While everyone is praising Lebron that he broke the scoring record, people have to realize that the Kareem's record was much more impressive than Lebron's.

            Kareem played in a time where the three-pointer was not as widely used as it is today and as a result only made one career three pointer compared to Lebron's 2,237 made three-pointers and counting. If Kareem shot the three-pointer more like Lebron does then Lebron would be nowhere close to breaking Kareem's record anytime soon.

            The fact that Kareem scored over 38,000 points with one career three-pointer and the rest of them being two-pointers and free throws is pretty unbelievable. Kareem is just one of the players that stands in the way of Lebron being classified as the goat of the NBA as some people believe that Abdul-Jabbar is the greatest to ever do it.

            Others like myself have Michael Jordan ahead of Lebron James. Jordan, one of the most clutch players of all time, 6-0 in the finals, the list goes on, but he has all of the accolades as well. He may not have the most points of all time, but who knows what would've happened if he didn't go play baseball for a couple of years.

            There is a large argument between the goat debate of Lebron vs MJ and I feel like the younger generation is more swayed to go with Lebron because they grew up with him and the older generation feels the same towards MJ. I side with the older generation because I believe that it was much harder to succeed at the rate that Jordan did when he played compared to Lebron's era now.

            Either way, breaking the NBA all-time scoring record is an impressive thing to do, but I don't think this makes Lebron James the greatest basketball player of all time just yet. I still have MJ as my goat and Lebron in 2nd, with Kareem behind at 3rd. The debate will continue for a long time and there is no right answer, but in my opinion, MJ is the goat.