Zach Lowe has a great piece on ESPN dot com and the ESPN app right now on why the goat debate between LeBron and Jordan is different.

And hey, look at this.

We're welcoming in ESPN senior writer Zach Lowe, who has been with us all year round to cover this extremely long season.

Zach, when I say year round, I really mean year round, LeBron said.

He wants his damn respect.

So how does last night change the debate that has been had over and over and over and over again between him and Michael Jordan?

Uh, I think the terms are different.

Look, I mean, LeBron is still going.

That's the crazy thing.

He's almost 36 years old.

When the chips are down, he's still the best player in the N B A.

That's incredible in itself.

He's probably gonna be the all time leading scorer in NBA history is already number two.

If you combine regular season and playoff points.

He just passed Karl Malone and you know, this season he did it with defense to he bought in from Day one on defense, which is something we haven't seen from him since Miami, probably and grinding the entire year.

And, yeah, I think you know he'll never be six, you know, like Michael Jordan in the Finals.

He's four and six.

He had he had a very human moment in 2011 against the Dallas Mavericks when he melted down.

But the cumulative longevity, the endless peak, the peak is still going on.

It's really incredible.

Has the debate changed for you, Richard?

Well, I I think it's always hard to do this debate before an individual's career is over until, unless the individual has, like, surpassed, uh, that person, right?

And so I think it is.

I think it is difficult because we see LeBron every single year.

He adds something else, whether it's an assist title, Um, you know, being the best player on the best team in the Western Conference, something that he had never done before.

So it's like, you know, Teoh.

Is he gaining ground?

Yes, like that.

That's obviously if there is a Michael Jordan is at the mountaintop, every accomplishment, and it doesn't have to be scoring titles.

It could be assist titles.

It could be, you know, little bitty things that closes that gap between him and MJ, but it is very, very close.

I like the random goat that was just thrown into that montage spectacular producing there.

I look.

We talked about this a little bit the other day that that there's a Mount Rushmore right of the greatest players in NBA history.

And that one, too, are comparing players between eras where there are, frankly, such different rules and such different.

You know, when we go back to Bill Russell or Kareem, different levels of competition with how many teams there were in the MBA who got to be on them either globally or just coming from an American talent pool, that sort of thing.

It's almost like you're comparing players playing not completely different games, but somewhat different games, which makes that harder as well.

But it's interesting and it's getting more interesting.