{"id":400564,"date":"2026-01-08T21:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/400564\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T21:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T21:37:08","slug":"isiah-thomas-questions-why-todays-generation-still-views-michael-jordan-as-the-goat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/400564\/","title":{"rendered":"Isiah Thomas Questions Why Today\u2019s Generation Still Views Michael Jordan As The GOAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isiah Thomas<\/a> has never been the type to tiptoe around basketball\u2019s unwritten rules, and this time he went straight for the most protected one of all. While appearing on Run It Back TV, Thomas questioned why the GOAT conversation still feels frozen in time, with Michael Jordan<\/a> treated as untouchable while modern greatness is constantly picked apart.<\/p>\n

His point was uncomfortable because it was simple. We are watching LeBron James<\/a> in real time, a player who owns or is closing in on nearly every meaningful longevity and cumulative record the league has. Yet when people are asked who the greatest ever is, the answer is often reflexive, almost automatic. To Thomas, that disconnect is strange. In most sports, records matter. In basketball, mythology tends to override the numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what I don\u2019t understand about your era, right? You guys are playing with arguably the greatest player to ever play. And excuse me when I say this, but y\u2019all treat him like he ain\u2019t nothing. Instead of plugging your era up, y\u2019all go back and say, our era was the greatest. You know, Michael Jordan was the greatest. Nobody could ever be greater than Michael Jordan, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then you turn around, but in your era, LeBron James is sitting there. He\u2019s holding every single basketball record. I mean, every single one of them. And you\u2019re looking at a Kevin Durant, and you\u2019re looking at a Steph Curry. But then when y\u2019all say who the greatest is, y\u2019all talk about the guy that gave you some shoes and gave you some warm-ups.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he\u2019s going to make you change your mind on, or at least critically think about it, right? And I\u2019m a historian of the game. And I\u2019m not a hater. When I speak facts, people think it\u2019s hate. But you can\u2019t, in no sports category, when we talk about track, when we talk about tennis, when we talk about football, baseball, arguably the best players or athletes in those sports, they hold the world records.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we talk about Jordan, but he leads in no statistical basketball category. But yet we say there\u2019s an argument about him being the best. But then when you look at Kareem and you look at LeBron, those guys lead in several statistical categories. Yet we say somebody else is better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just giving you the evidence, right? Here\u2019s the evidence. And 15 years from now, when the next generation comes along, and they talk about how great LeBron James was and how great Kevin Durant was, and Steph Curry was, it won\u2019t even be a conversation or a debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour generation right now is the only one. Y\u2019all say we hatin\u2019 on y\u2019all, but y\u2019all hatin\u2019 on yourselves. Every time we ask you who your top 10 is, you list 10 guys from the 80s. You don\u2019t list none of your guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew what we had in Jordan, right? And we gave Jordan his flowers. We were all like, hey, this dude looks different than everybody. I hear y\u2019all talk about LeBron at 41, and your generation acts like, oh, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

What made the conversation more interesting was that he did not stop with LeBron. Thomas brought up Kevin Durant<\/a> and Stephen Curry<\/a>, pointing out how both have fundamentally reshaped how scoring and shooting are understood. His belief is that fifteen years from now, their greatness will not even be debated. It will simply be accepted. The resistance, in his view, belongs to the present moment, not the future.<\/p>\n

That idea lands differently depending on when you grew up. I was born in 1998, squarely in Gen Z. I grew up watching LeBron evolve, Curry change the geometry of the court, and Durant score in ways that still feel unfair. Now I am watching Nikola Jokic<\/a>, Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, Luka Doncic<\/a>, Victor Wembanyama<\/a>, Anthony Edwards<\/a>, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> carry the game forward in real time.<\/p>\n

I respect the legends deeply. None of this exists without Jordan, Magic Johnson<\/a>, Larry Bird<\/a>, Kobe Bryant<\/a>, or Zeke himself. I would not even be a sports writer without what that era built.<\/p>\n

Still, the way LeBron is treated borders on absurd. A 41-year-old in his 23rd season, still performing at an elite level, is dissected daily like a punchline. The criticism never stops, and a lot of it feels detached from reality. At the same time, today\u2019s stars are casually labeled soft or overrated by voices that dominate basketball media. When legends repeatedly frame the modern game as lesser, fans follow that lead.<\/p>\n

It does not have to be this way. You can respect Jordan without tearing down LeBron. You can honor older eras without pretending the current one is trash. Comparing generations is part of what makes sports fun. Turning it into hate serves no one.<\/p>\n

Isiah Thomas is not trying to tear anyone down. He is asking people to think, to look at the evidence, and to appreciate greatness while it is still happening, not decades after the fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isiah Thomas has never been the type to tiptoe around basketball\u2019s unwritten rules, and this time he went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-400564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}