President Donald Trump waded into basketball’s tireless GOAT debate on Friday, and like every guy who’s never boxed out a day in his life, he swung elbows at the wrong people.
“Michael Jordan is a guy that’s a friend of mine, play golf with him, he’s a really good guy,” Trump said. “I think maybe LeBron is a racist. But maybe he doesn’t like Trump. I don’t know. I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.”
The remarks landed hours after James agreed to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers, where he’ll join Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown, and Tyrese Maxey for what could be the final championship push of a career now entering its third decade. Neither James nor his representatives have publicly responded to the president’s comments.
The history between these two is longer than most offensive drives. Trump once tweeted that James was a “great player and great guy” back in 2013. That was before James endorsed Hillary Clinton in a 2016 Akron Beacon Journal op-ed, before he opened the I Promise School for at-risk kids in Akron the same week Trump fired off a late-night tweet attacking him, before James told Don Lemon he’d “never sit across” from Trump and accused the president of using sports to divide the country.
James criticized the 2017 travel ban. He ripped Trump for canceling the Philadelphia Eagles’ White House visit in 2018. After Biden won in 2020, James posted an edited image of his iconic Game 7 block on Andre Iguodala with Biden’s and Trump’s faces photoshopped onto the players. So no, this isn’t a new beef. It’s a slow-cooked roast that’s been in the oven since the Obama years.
Meanwhile, Charles Barkley — who has spent his entire post-playing career guarding Jordan’s legacy like it’s the goal line with four seconds left — actually budged. Speaking on Stephen A. Smith’s SiriusXM show Friday, Barkley said that if James wins back-to-back championships in Philadelphia and walks away at 44 or 45, he’d say something he’s never said before.
“I think I just saw the greatest basketball ever,” Barkley said.
When Smith pressed him on whether he’d truly crown LeBron over Jordan, Barkley conceded: “I probably would. It ain’t no shame saying he’s the third best basketball player you’ve ever seen. But if he can win two more now — I didn’t say one more, you said two more. If he wins two more, you’d have to be kinda crazy not to say he’s the best to ever do it.”
That’s a seismic shift from a man who has publicly ranked James seventh on his all-time list — behind Jordan, Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and Kobe Bryant. Earlier this offseason, Barkley said there was nothing LeBron could do to catch Jordan, criticizing him for chasing rings by stacking super-teams. Now James has stacked another one, and Barkley moved the goalposts. Funny how that works.
The catch, of course, is that no team has won back-to-back titles since the Warriors in 2017 and 2018. James did it once, with Miami in 2012 and 2013. Doing it again on a new roster in his 40s, in a league that has only gotten faster and younger, is a long shot by any measure. The 76ers have to stay healthy. They have to gel. They have to survive a playoff gauntlet in an Eastern Conference that eats veterans alive.
Barkley and Jordan just reconciled after a 14-year estrangement. If LeBron somehow pulls off the two-peat, that friendship might get tested again.
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