Charles Barkley writes off LeBron James from the GOAT debate as he can’t do what Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant could.
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James wrapped up the 22nd season of his NBA career, albeit with his team eliminated in the opening round.
Considering LBJ was 40 years old and apparently playing through an injury, it’s understandable that he couldn’t carry the Lakers beyond the first round.
However, let’s keep that aside for a while and focus on James’ case for the GOAT debate. Over the years, the 4x NBA champion has turned a lot of critics into fans, but NBA legend Charles Barkley isn’t among them.
Barkley recently turned heads after he ranked James as the seventh-best basketball player of all time. However, Chuck isn’t done downplaying LBJ’s legacy in the league just yet.
The ‘Inside the NBA’ analyst recently made an appearance on Spittin’ Chicklets podcast as he pointed to why James can never surpass Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant in the GOAT debate.
“The difference between Michael, LeBron, and Kobe – first of all, they are three of the greatest players ever, but LeBron’s a nice guy,” Barkley said.
He added: “Nobody ever said that s___ about Michael and Kobe. Nobody ever said, ‘Man, that’s Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, they’re nice guys,’”
As far as accolades and records are concerned, Kobe, MJ, and Bron are hard to separate. However, Barkley claims the difference is between Kobe and Jordan’s approach to the game.
Adding to his answer about the GOAT debate, Barkley believes that James can’t learn MJ and Kobe’s killer instinct as they were born with it.
“Michael and Kobe, they were dangerous. They’d kill your a__. LeBron’s great, but he’s a nice guy. He had to learn to be competitive… They will kill you to win,” Barkley continued.
“He wants to win, but LeBron, at the end of the day, is a really nice guy. So you can’t learn to be a natural-born killer,” he concluded.
Sure, there are a plethora of stories about Jordan and Bryant’s killer instinct. But using James being a ‘nice guy’ against him? That’s an underwhelming argument.
