Who Would You Pick: LeBron James or Blake Griffin?

You're an NBA general manager in this exact moment and you can get either LeBron James or Blake Griffin in a deal. Whom would you choose?

Let's state the obvious: Blake Griffin and LeBron James play different positions and are at somewhat different points in their careers, although both are very young, 22 and 27, respectively. No matter, what they have in common is that they are the two greatest landscape changers in the NBA today.

Of the players currently in the NBA, LeBron James or Blake Griffin can bring the most instant respectability and highest implicit potential to a team. That is, wins. They also bring a bit of—yeah—glamor and excitement.

Since LeBron James entered the league, the only player to be as electrifying, and as equally impactful upon entry, has been Blake Griffin in 2010-2011. James came in with a legendary legion of hype, but Griffin is quickly catching up to him in ballyhoo.

Whatever, each player has already revolutionized the positions they play, LeBron at point forward and Blake at power forward, in that they have smashed the old limits thought to be in place for those positions. Each man possesses a celestial physicality heretofore unseen.

Sharing a weight of 250 pounds, if either of these two athletes has a path to the basket, defenders usually seek shelter in some distant place under the basket. Out of their way. James, at 6'8", and Griffin, at 6'10", attack the rim with such speed, daring and power. Like King Kong attacking the Empire State Building.

And, what might surprise a traditionalist, is that James and Griffin have the all-around basketball skills to match their physicality.

For example, Griffin, playing a big man's position, averaged 3.8 assists last year, to go along with his 22 PPG average, and his 12 RPG accomplishment. James' high assist (seven) and rebound (seven) ratios from the guard or small forward position are known. He does it every year. James is the superior defender now, but Griffin is quite able in this regard and is only going to get more capable.

So the question arises: Who would you take if you wanted to start a team, LeBron or Blake? Or, if you had a point guard and a center, which one of the two would you next take? Or even more plainly, if you could have one of them in any case, which would it be?

LeBron James has shown that he can take a team to the conference finals and even the league finals (his Miami Heat team got there last June), but no further. Blake Griffin has shown, in his very first crack at pro balling, that he can change the culture of a moribund franchise, one which was an international joke.

With or without Chris Paul this year, Griffin's Los Angeles Clippers would have improved significantly in the win column.

So what is the crux of the matter? What separates the two athletes? Perhaps it's disposition, attitude or soul.

LeBron James expresses that he wants to win, but does he have the fourth-quarter makeup champions have? Not yet he doesn't, for sure, and it gnaws at him. The basketball public mocks him. Will it eat away at him too much? The 2011-2012 campaign is huge for LeBron.

True, Michael (Jordan) didn't win for a while, but he had to go through Larry, Magic and Isaiah. LeBron has had no such obstacles. And, when Michael won, he won big-time, many times. There is no comparison right now between James and Jordan. But LeBron is smart, he understands all of this, and he is on a mission.

As for Blake Griffin, in his second year in professional hoops, he says all of the right things.

When the Clippers won their first game of this 2011-2012 year, just a few nights ago, Griffin calmed fans who expected to see a blowout and constant images of “lob city”: "Not every game is going to be just alley-oop left and right"…. We'll take a win. If it's like this every game and we get a win, we'll take it."

Wise words from a young man.

Griffin, who won state titles in all four years in high school, and took his college team, the Oklahoma Sooners, to a regional final, understands the competitive degree of difficulty in the NBA. Most games are going to be a war, as was the Clippers' first encounter against Golden State.

Here's some more Griffin goodies:

"When I look in the future, I want to set extremely high goals. I think that's important. Because the higher you set your goals, the more motivation you have and the harder you work." 

And also:

“Being a coach’s son [in high school under his father Tommy Griffin at the Oklahoma Christian School, I feel like I understand, through his eyes, through a coach’s eyes, what they want from a player. It’s not all about how many points you can score, it’s about helping make your teammates better, and helping, almost kind of control the game in a sense, where you have a large part in the outcome.” 

Both LeBron James and Blake Griffin want to win, both have the requisite basketball IQ, and both possess nonpareil on-court skills.

You choose.