Super-agent Rich Paul recently stopped by Gilbert Arenas's podcast "Gil's Arena" for what many are calling the sports interview of the year. Despite the many gems Paul dropped in the conversation related to the business side of the NBA, he necessarily weighed in on the GOAT debate which pits his best friend and client LeBron James against Michael Jordan.
According to Paul, the debate should account for the outside forces that each player had to face in addition to their on-court performance. For Paul, the path LeBron has taken is much more difficult than what Jordan had to endure in his career.
"Mike transcended the game. When Kobe came, Kobe was a silhouette of Mike. That's everything, which is great. But LeBron is the first player to have to deal with a 24/7/365 news cycle of sports and opinions from those that's not even capable or carry the expertise to give a valid opinion."
He continued, "In addition to, 'I'm not really gonna do it how y'all want me to do. I'm probably going to decide how I wanna do it.' We all know that don't go over well, right? And so then, you have this environment in this sports society that's created and so now you have to root against. That's a whole other thing Mike never had to deal with because his hardest critic was probably, Peter Vecsey."
Paul added, "I just think LeBron's antlers is in platinum and Michael Jordan's may be in gold. Why? Because he had to be compared to Mike. Who did Mike have to be compared to?"
