In an NBA All-Star weekend filled with iconic moments, there was none more memorable than Michael Jordan‘s shock arrival in Cleveland for the NBA 75 anniversary.
As the six-time NBA champion strutted towards the centre of Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, he passed former teammate Dennis Rodman. Standing next to Rodman was the man who Jordan is compared to and pitted against most: LeBron James.
After the initial excitement over Jordan’s shock entrance subsided, eagle-eyed fans turned their attention to what ‘His Airness’ was doing and who he’d interact with.
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Footage soon emerged online of Jordan in the presence of Dwyane Wade and Jason Kidd, stone-faced after challenging Magic Johnson to a game of one-on-one in the locker room.
Another video lobbed on the internet minutes later. This time it was vision from a fan’s phone of Jordan and Johnson chopping it up with Stephen Curry as the trio waited to enter as a part of the guard group of the top-75 list.
Seconds after Jordan’s entrance to the top of the podium, cameras caught him dapping up Rodman with his back turned to James, who stood to the left of Rodman, before he continued to chat with Boston Celtics icon Kevin McHale.
As the content came rolling through, fans wondered: Had Jordan, one of the pettiest athletes ever, actually snubbed James?
The possibility of Jordan snubbing James only seemed like a reality due to the infamously icy relationship between the two men who are widely thought to be the two greatest players to ever touch a basketball.
You’d think that two legends in such close proximity with each other on the record charts would share a healthy relationship, or at least have a relationship at all – right? Wrong.
When James entered the NBA in 2003 as the No.1 pick, the man he was already being talked about as being the next coming of, Jordan, had just retired after a brief stint with the Washington Wizards.
The pair’s first meeting came in April 2003, ironically inside the bowels of the same arena that hosted the NBA 75 meeting. James, by then a high-school phenom with Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary, shook Jordan’s hand when his Wizards were in town to take on the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that would draft the then-18-year-old just months later.
The brief meeting had a profound impact on James, who has been open about idolising Jordan growing up.
“I literally couldn’t believe it was him,” James said in an interview with Uninterrupted.
“I couldn’t believe it. The dude looked like Jesus Christ to me. He was Black Jesus to me. Nobody could say to me anything different.”
Despite James’ open reverence towards Jordan, the love was never reciprocated by Jordan himself. The chasm between the two stars was especially more obvious when compared to Jordan’s relationship with Kobe Bryant, who he’s referred to as a little brother.
As James entered the league and skyrocketed up the record books towards Jordan’s numbers, the relationship remained non-existent.
Seven years into his career, James attempted to get Jordan’s No.23 jersey retired across the NBA as a mark of respect towards the legend, changing his number to No.6. Still, there was no response from Jordan. James wore the No.6 for four years in Miami before reverting back to No.23 when he returned to Cleveland in 2014.
James was in attendance when Jordan threw a lavish party for his 50th birthday during the 2013 All-Star weekend in Houston, but revealed then that the relationship had not improved for reasons unbeknownst to him.
“I don’t know the reasons, but it’s never been sparked,” he told ESPN.
“I’ve seen him at times. Of course, I’ve met him a few times. I went to his 50th birthday party at All-Star weekend. I went to his party to show respect and pay homage to the greatest. I had a conversation with him there. Obviously, there were a lot of people there. But I don’t know.”
A year after that meeting they met again when James, now with the Miami Heat, faced the Jordan-owned Charlotte Bobcats (now Hornets) in the 2014 NBA playoffs.
The Heat were two-time defending champions and James a two-time reigning MVP and they swept Jordan’s team out of the post-season, but it didn’t happen before another curious glimpse into the pair’s icy relationship.
Already holding a 2-0 lead in the series, the Heat were up 17 on the Bobcats when James stole the ball and went down the other end for a signature tomahawk dunk.
At first, it appeared to be a regulation finish, before cameras noticed James staring down Jordan, who was seated courtside to the left of the basket as he soared towards the hoop.
Cameras panned to Jordan seconds following the James jam as his team took free throws down the other end of the court and the former MVP looked furious and ready to lace up the sneakers once again.
It was three years later, during the 2017 playoffs, that James first took one of Jordan’s iconic records.
In the process of booking his ticket to a seventh-straight NBA finals appearance, James surpassed Jordan as the all-time post-season scorer. Following that feat, the then-Cavs star elaborated on just how much Jordan had inspired him.
“I think I fell in love with the game because of Mike, just seeing what he was able to accomplish,” James said.
“I did pretty much everything that MJ did when I was a kid. I shot fadeaways before I should have.
“I wore a leg sleeve on my leg and folded it down so you saw the red part. I wore black-and-red shoes with white socks. I wore short shorts so you could see my undershorts underneath. I did everything Mike did, man. I wanted to be Mike.”
Three years after he was passed by James on the all-time playoff scoring list, Jordan was asked about the comparisons to James prior to the NBA Paris Game in 2020. Even then, Jordan seemed somewhat hesitant to give James his crown.
“We play in different eras,” Jordan said.
“He’s an unbelievable player, he’s one of the best players in the world, if not the best player in the world.
“I know it’s a natural tendency to compare eras to eras and it’s going to continue to happen. I’m a fan of his, I love watching him play, but as you can see our league is starting to expand on very talented players.
“I think he’s made his mark and he will continue to do so, but when you start the comparisons it is what it is. I take it with a grain of salt.”
Months later, Jordan’s The Last Dance documentary dropped as the world went into lockdown. It emerged that Jordan had the executive decision on when to get started on the documentary, with the footage withheld for almost two decades.
He pulled the trigger in 2016, days after James had done the unthinkable and brought Cleveland its first pro sports title in 52 years.
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In the days following his title win, James told Sports Illustrated how he was “chasing the ghost that played in Chicago” before the Cavaliers embarked on their championship parade. As footage aired on TV of the Cavs’ float traversing around downtown Cleveland, Jordan made the call to get the ball rolling.
The release of the documentary caused fans from all generations to fawn over one of the most iconic teams in sporting history, and James too became a fan.
When the episode covering Jordan’s first retirement in 1993 aired, James said he’d cried.
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The release of the 10-part Netflix documentary further fuelled the Jordan-LeBron debate and yet there was nothing but love from James’ end as he called Jordan his “angel, inspiration (and) superhero”.
Just before the end of the half-time break in the 2022 NBA All-Star game, the clip fans had waited for finally arrived on the Twittersphere: James and Jordan not only in each other’s proximity, but sharing in what looked to be a warm and heartfelt embrace.
The exchange lasted for 20 seconds, curiously without sound for much of it, further adding to the mystery of the pair’s relationship.
Fans and reporters inside the building noted James had lingered around as Jordan greeted others around him, adamant that he would not miss his chance. James admitted as much after the All-Star game.
“I did not want to lose the opportunity to shake the man’s hand that inspired me throughout my childhood,” he said.
“Haven’t had much dialogue with him in my 19 years in this business. But part of me wouldn’t be here without MJ’s inspiration.
“I always wanted to be like him growing up. It’s crazy that the game-winning shot tonight was a fadeaway, and it was inspired by MJ. The way he wore his shoes, the way he wore his uniform, all the way down to some of the cars that he drove.
“I didn’t want to waste that opportunity because we’re just not in the same building a lot, and haven’t been in the same building a lot throughout my career. It meant something to me.”
James has now surpassed a lot of Jordan’s career numbers. Last week he became the greatest combined regular season and playoff scorer, passing Lakers icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
He is currently third on the regular season scoring list, and will almost certainly pass Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone. Jordan is fifth.
James’ 18 All-Star appearances outweigh Jordan’s 14, as do his 13 First-Team All-NBA nods compared to Jordan’s 10. Jordan outweighs James with six titles to four and five league MVP’s to four.
While James has run down almost every one of Jordan’s records, he’s still chasing one thing of Jordan’s that truly matters to him: his affection.
James’ former teammate Jared Dudley revealed that the four-time MVP had even played golf, a famous Jordan pastime, as a potential way to get closer to the basketball icon.
“We went golfing one time during the day. We went to watch golf, and that’s something he thinks about getting into. So he could golf with Jordan,” Dudley told Bill Simmons in 2020.
“But right now he is so in the moment and Jordan knows he’s in the moment. It’s kind of more like a healthy race. He’s always respected him, he’s always liked him.
“Looking at it from the outside, I thought the relationship will grow once he is done playing. Bron could potentially be an owner and then he could be on that side of the ball, talking.”
James is at the tail-end of his career. Much like Jordan, he has ownership aspirations.
Maybe this All-Star embrace could be the start of a new chapter in his relationship with Jordan. Or maybe history will repeat itself and the NBA star will get iced out once again.