NBA Playoffs: Who Will Be The Next Number 23?

Brendan Haywood said it best, “If you want to wear that number 23, you better be prepared to take everything that comes with it.”  In a season that saw “King James” crowned league MVP, his Cleveland Cavaliers win a league high sixty six games and the MJ comparisons taking off like something out of Cape Canaveral, the Cav’s cakewalk to the Finals fell short, 4 – 2 and leaving the league with a championship series that nobody planned on.

Since his retirement following the '98 Championship season, David Stern has been clamoring for another NBA superstar to carry the league in the same way Jordan did for nearly two decades. And not to sell short the Barkley’s, Ewings, Thomas’ and Olajuwon’s of the world, but MJ’s greatness on the court, charisma and marketability off of it transcended the league and transformed him into an internationally recognizable figure, he became a global icon.

In 1995, several D-1 colleges were coveting a tall lanky kid playing high school basketball in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. Called a “complete player who dominates” by his high school coach, in his senior year Kobe Bean Bryant averaged 30.8 points, twelve rebounds, six and a half assists, four steals, and 3.8 blocked shots while leading his school to a 31–3 record and it’s first state title in fifty three years. With such advanced basketball skills at such a young age, Bryant decided to forego college and make the jump to the NBA.  He was taken thirteenth overall by the then Charlotte Hornets but was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Vlade Divac. When entering the league at age seventeen, it didn’t take long for people to notice who Bryant was trying emulate. With his shaved head, mannerisms on the court and the way he answered questions, it was clear to everyone that he was trying to be the next "MJ" instead of the first "KB".

Let’s fast forward about eight years.  There’s another kid. This one playing high school basketball in Akron, Ohio. A man amongst boys, a 6’8”, dribbling like Iverson, dishing like Magic and jumping out of the gym. Gracing the cover of S.I. and having his high school games aired live on ESPN, this kid not only led his high school to two straight titles, but he wore the number 23. Coming into the NBA with never before seen hype, Lebron James was taken number one overall in the 2003 NBA draft.  The media, NBA fans and the league itself had already chosen James to be the face of basketball, the same way Jordan was years before. What James didn’t count on outside of the glitz and glamour is the pressure and scrutiny he has faced since he took that first shot against the Sacramento Kings back in 2003.

Michael Jordan was the greatest NBA player to ever play the game. Period. And this is not me talking, this is from his peers and other all-time greats. Larry Bird once referred to him as “God disguised as Michael Jordan”. There’s a reason for this-because the man was incredible. He was so good for so long that we as NBA fans took his greatness for granted. The thing that made MJ great was not just his physical ability or his ability to get the most from his teammates, but the way he handled pressure on and off the court and most importantly, his pathological need to win. He may be the most competitive person to play organized sports. To us it was just a game, but for Jordan, every game he played was in his mind a titanic battle between himself and whatever he used to get himself motivated. To him, losing hurt, this is what made him the player we hold in such reverence.


Lebron James is a great player. Like Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade, James will go down as one of the greatest players from this current crop of NBA superstars. For the media to put that kind of pressure on him, labeling him the next MJ is unfair. Now Lebron is not innocent in all of this either. First choosing to wear the number 23 and then his whole routine with the powder before his home games, which he completely ripped off from Jordan, may have lead us on, just a little bit. James is just the latest in a long list of players labeled the next MJ, from Grant Hill, to Vince Carter and Bryant who has come closest, many have been prematurely anointed and all have failed. Maybe not in their overall careers, but failed to reach that mountaintop where his "Airness" currently sits alone.

This year was supposed to be the NBA Finals matchup that would officially get the league out from under Jordan's shadow. Like Bryant’s Lakers and the Celtics last year, this was supposed to be the NBA’s second straight dream series between its two biggest superstars:

“Lakers vs. Cavs, the NBA on ABC!”

"Kobe vs. Lebron!"

"Gasol vs Ilgauskus"

Okay, I made that third one up, but the excitement for this championship series began before All-Star voting opened on NBA.com. Nike’s commercials with the Lebron and Kobe puppets starting about a month ago while everyone was behaving like those two teams in the finals was a foregone conclusion. What the league didn’t count on was an Orlando Magic team that got hot at the right time of the season, knocking off the defending world champions and taking care of the number one seed in six games en route to the finals. So it looks like the league will have to wait at least one more year.


Two players, coming into the league with similar hype, nearly a decade apart, both connected by the media’s need for them to fill the void left by the retirement of the league’s greatest player.

For Bryant a finals victory would not only mean a fourth title, but his chance to get out from under Shaquille O’neal’s 350lb. shadow. This is a chance for him to win a title without the Diesel and get the proverbial monkey off of his back, ala Steve Young in 1994.

For Lebron, a title would cement his short legacy and bring a much needed lift to a sports city that has always managed to find itself on the losing end of some of the greatest sports moments over the last twenty years. Sadly, Lebron will have to wait another year to try and end the nearly fifty years of disappointment in Cleveland. Instead, he’ll watch the finals from home, just like the rest of us who wonder if Bryant will finally win one on his own and get a little closer to the man he has idolized and hope to one day replace as the best ever.