Who’s the greatest basketball player of all time?
Former Chicago Bulls/Washington Wizards shooting guard Michael Jordan, former Milwaukee Bucks/Los Angeles Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, former Boston Celtics center Bill Russell, former Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson, and current Los Angeles Lakers combo forward LeBron James generally are the names floated around in NBA GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) debates.
Now, one of Jordan’s elite champion Bulls comrades has weighed in on the modern vintage of this argument, which seems to generally center around Jordan and James.
Rodman to the Rescue
While on a live stream with content creator NEON, Rodman came to the defense of his former bitter rival and later beloved teammate — and shot down the concept that James deserves the crown.
NBA Legend DENNIS RODMAN explains why MJ LeBron (HE SAID LEBRON A DUMP TRUCK 😂😭) #n3on #dennisrodman #mj #lebron #nbagoat #basketball #funny pic.twitter.com/Yrkks59ybi
— DUXCLIPPING (@ClipsAmp) August 21, 2025
“Michael Jordan was too sexy, man, when he had the ball or something like that,” Rodman continued. “I mean, LeBron is like a goddamn [expletive] dump truck. What the [expletive] man? Michael Jordan sits there dancing like barista coffee. What? And sit there and look at you and just keep doing and making it look so easy.”
The 6-foot-6 North Carolina swingman was one of the most ferocious two-way talents the game has ever seen. Jordan led Chicago to six championships in eight seasons (and was fully retired for one of those eight seasons), and in so doing thoroughly obliterated nearly all of his Hall of Fame contemporaries in the playoffs. Jordan and Rodman were teammates during the 1995-96 and 1997-98 seasons, winning championships in all three campaigns.
Across 15 career regular seasons, Jordan averaged a league-best 30.1 points on .497/.327/.835 shooting splits, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 0.8 blocks a night. He was named league MVP five times — and Defensive Player of the Year during the first of those MVP seasons, 1987-88 — while being named to 14 All-Star teams, 11 All-NBA teams and nine All-Defensive Teams.
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James, meanwhile, is set to break his own record for the longest NBA career ever this season, and is expected to play at an All-NBA level once again in Year 23.
The 6-foot-9 forward has been the best player on 10 Finals teams, including four winners, and has been named to a record 21 All-Star and All-NBA squads, along with six All-Defensive Teams. James has also earned four MVP awards of his own.
This is hardly the first time the two-time Defensive Player of the Year has taken pot shots at James.
“I would’ve locked his a– up,” Rodman declared during a 2019 interview on the Overtime podcast.
“LeBron is so easy to play [against],” Rodman said. “He’s so [expletive] easy to play, he don’t have any moves. His game was too simple, he was just big. Now, 260 whatever, six foot eight, six foot nine, that’s the only thing he got pretty much. I played against 7-foot-3 hundred [pounds], so it don’t even matter.”
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