Former NBA Player Scottie Pippen Puts LeBron James Ahead of Michael Jordan In G.O.A.T. Debate

Scottie Pippen believes LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan

The endless G.O.A.T. debate between LeBron James and Michael Jordan continues to get better.

On a recent episode of Stacey King’s Gimme The Hot Sauce podcast, former NBA player Scottie Pippen put James ahead of Jordan due to his personal stats. James, who played four years with the Miami Heat and won back-to-back championships, collected a large amount of stats in his lengthy career. This season, he also became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"LeBron will be the greatest statistical guy to ever play the game of basketball,” Pippen said. “And there's no comparison to him. None. So does that make him the greatest player to ever play the game? I'll leave that up for debate, because I don't believe there's a great player because our game's a team game, and one player can't do it.”

He didn’t leave it there. Pippen said Jordan used to be a “horrible” player before playing together.

“I saw Jordan play before I came to play with the Bulls,” Pippen said. “You guys saw him play. He was a horrible player. He was horrible to play with. He was all one-on-one, he's shooting bad shots, and all of a sudden we become a team and we start winning and everybody forgot who he was."

This isn't the first time Pippen criticized Jordan, who he won six titles with when they were teammates with the Bulls. In his book “Unguarded”, Pippen called Jordan “condescending” after The Last Dance documentary was centered around himself. There have even been numerous occasions when Pippen announced James as his G.O.A.T.

Cory Nelson is a contributor to Inside The Heat. He attended Northern Virginia Community College. He can be reached at corymckenzienelson@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @CKenzyNelson. You can also check out his personal blog HERE