And here's why when we start counting up how great a player was when you start when you start comparing players, let's use Michael Jordan, LeBron James.

There's the most oft compared players, and the number that everyone always brings up, of course, is rings.

Jordan has six and LeBron has four.

You can bring up finals, MVPs and those matter.

You get your team to the championship, you win the title and you were the best player in the finals that matters a lot.

What shouldn't matter is regular season MVPs, and that disappoints me because that should be an important award.

It should be an incredibly important award, But Michael Jordan, 15 regular season MVP awards.

Michael Jordan was the best player in the NBA for 15 years.

He was only given that award five times.

It is not an accurate reflection or representation of how good he was, and he gave me some numbers to back that up.

There's a statistic called wind shares that basically gives out credit for team's success to individuals.

What was your wind share?

Michael Jordan led the NBA in wind shares every full season.

He played 1987 through 1997.

He led the league in scoring and every one of those seasons, too.

In 87 he was the best player in the NBA.

He averaged 37 points a game, and he finished second behind Magic Johnson and the M V P.

In 89 he was the best player in the NBA.

He finished second behind Magic Johnson in the M V P.

1990 was the best player in the NBA, finished third behind Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley 93.

He was the best player in the NBA, finished third behind Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon, 97.

He was the best player finished second behind Karl Malone.

Let me say this again.

He led the NBA every full season.

He played from 87 through 97 in wind share and led the league in scoring in every one of those seasons and was only named the MVP five times.

So what does that award mean?

We're just giving it out.

It's just a narrative he didn't win one.

Give him one.

He didn't win.

What's the old Oprah thing?

You get an M V P.

You get an M v.

P.

You got a triple double.

You get an M V P.

What the hell does it mean?

Well, the last time LeBron James won the M v P was 2000 and 13.

That's a different lifetime ago.

The whole four seasons he was in Cleveland.

He never once won the M v p.

You're telling me he wasn't the best player in the league.

He was the best player in the league.

All four of those seasons.

There have been five players who have won the award since last.

LeBron did Kevin Durant, Steph Curry twice Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Yanez twice.

No disrespect to any of them.

I'm glad they're all MVPs.

They're all great players.

But you made an interesting analogy.

Hambo to me, which is in boxing.

There's the concept of the lineal champion, and and and and well, I'll make it for you here because I don't have a lot of time.

So I'll just basically paraphrase what I think you were telling me was that if someone is the champion for 10 consecutive years.

They remain the champion, even if someone else wins four fights and the only one to They weren't necessarily the best fighter that year, but they don't lose the championship belt.

LeBron James is the lineal champion.

He's the best player in the sport.

It's not debatable.

He has been for some period of time.

The last time there could be any reasonable argument, I think, would be when Kobe finished winning his title.

So what was the last Kobe title 09 2010, whatever year he won the last 1 to 2010 27.

So for the last 11 years, there's been no debate that LeBron James is the best player in the NBA.

So starting in 11, how many MVPs has he won just to 12 and 13?

So in an 11 year period, it's actually 12.

Well, this one hasn't happened yet, and an 11 season period has been named the MVP twice, and he's been the best player in the league the entire time, so it just doesn't make sense to me.

So look, I appreciate the award.

I'm not saying we should stop giving it.

I'm not even saying they should change the way they go about it.

But what I am saying is the next time we start comparing the players all time greatness, just ignore how many regular season MVPs they want, which we would never do in any other sport.

We would never do that in baseball, right?

Never.

And we would never do it in football.

So it kind of bothers me that we have to do it in basketball.

It doesn't sit well, thank you for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.

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