Steve Kerr: LeBron James more of a Scottie Pippen than Michael Jordan – NBA Update
Scottie Pippen stirred up a storm with his comments before the NBA Finals, when he labelled LeBron James as possibly the best player of all time, even better than Michael Jordan. Analysts and Basketball fans around the world criticized
Scottie to no end.
Now, with the NBA Finals over a former teammate of Scottie, Steve Kerr, has weighed in on the matter. LeBron James was nothing like Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals and the Miami Heat lost out to the Dallas Mavericks.
Dirk Nowitzki won the Finals MVP award and even Dwyane Wade outperformed LeBron James, who seemed to shirk responsibility on the offensive end. LeBron recorded a triple-double in game 5 and overall his performances were very good,
but way short of what was expected of him.
In the light of the Finals, Pippen’s comments look even more ridiculous, and Steve Kerr has now said that LeBron played more of Scottie Pippen’s role than that of Michael Jordan.
“The irony to me is that LeBron is not Michael. LeBron is actually Scottie,” said Steve Kerr, a former teammate of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.
Kerr went on to describe how Pippen and LeBron performed the same duties on their respective teams and how they are similar in their attributes,
“He’s so similar to Scottie in that defensively he was just a monster, could guard anybody, really more of a point forward than scoring guard. Scottie always loved to distribute the ball. That’s really where LeBron’s preference
is.”
James was not a presence on offence throughout the Finals and hit a low point when he scored just 8 in game 4. It was the first time in LeBron’s post season career that he didn’t hit double figures in a game. In fact, James point’s
average for the NBA Finals was lesser than that of Jason Terry, the man who he guarded.
Kerr believes that LeBron is simply not offensively as gifted as some other elite players are, another similarity to Scottie Pippen. Steve Kerr said that it was a weakness in LeBron’s game.
“Phil Jackson used to call Scottie a ‘sometimes shooter.’ Sometimes they would go in, sometimes they wouldn’t. That’s how it is with LeBron. He’s a great talent and a great player but you can see his flaws as a basketball player.”
Scottie Pippen was a great player. A corner stone of the Bulls team that won six NBA titles, Scottie Pippen was also named as one of the 50 all time great players of the NBA. However, LeBron James talent is such that people expect
him to be a much better player than Pippen.
At the end of the day greatness is measured by winning NBA championships and James still has plenty of time in his career to prove himself a great.
Tags: