A topic that you will hear come up ether in the locker room or just on the streets with your friends is who is the best basketball player to ever play. This question alone can cause some serious heated discussions. Its also a question that cant really be answered unless you took the top basketball players from this time and had them travel back into the future to play. All you can go off of now are stats. Most people like to compare LeBron James to Michael Jordan. So for James, these are what the stats say LeBron’s  got 7 All-NBA Selections, 5 All-Defensive first team selections, 4 MVP awards in 5 years, 10 selections to the All-Star game, and a pair of championship rings. That’s pretty rad. It’s not quite Jordanesque, though. LeBron’s in his 11th season, and when Jordan was at that same point he’d taken two years off in order to cope with the murder of his father, so his 11th season was the 1996 season when the Bulls ran rampant over everyone  he was still better. Jordan, in 1996, was a 10-time All-Star, 8 time All-NBA first team,   Defensive Player of the Year, Four time MVP, Four time Finals MVP, Four time NBA Champion, and 7-time All Defense first team. Again, that’s when he took two years off, so it would be pretty easy to add a pair to the All-NBA and All-Star award count. As you can see when you compare both of them together they both stand out but one is more clutch than the other. Not only do stats and numbers play a huge role in the debate but the fact the Jordan’s will to win was above any other athletes ever. When in an interview with MJ they asked him why he never lost playoff games. MJ said it’s because I trained my mind to never fail. When the game was on the line I knew that I worked harder than anyone on the court at that time so I wanted the ball in my hands. Now this has nothing against James because that guy is a giant and one of the best players to ever play the game. But in all honesty the only thing that matters at the end of the day is how many rings do you have. And MJ has the most rings to this day. I also find it very inspiring that MJ was cut from his high school basketball team and he was able not only to come back from that but to be the best basketball player to ever play the game. So when it comes to the question who is the best basketball player to ever play the game of basketball? Well for one no one will ever know because Jordan and James will never be in there prime at the same time unless there is basketball in heaven. But when it comes down to numbers and stats I’m going to have to give it to MJ