John Starks: LeBron James Changing Teams to Win Rings Will Hurt Legacy

LeBron James has established himself as one of the greatest players in NBA history, but one former All-Star believes the Los Angeles Lakers superstar's legacy will forever be tarnished by the fact that he changed teams on numerous occasions.

Former New York Knick John Stark recently told Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson on Scoop B Radio (h/t Ashish Mathur of AmicoHoops.net) that Michael Jordan has a stronger legacy because MJ played for just one franchise for the majority of his career and didn't go somewhere else to form a superteam:

"Mike did all his championships on one team and guys wanted to play for him. Scottie [Pippen] and Horace [Grant], he kind of raised those guys. Later on when he got back, other guys like [Dennis] Rodman and [Ron] Harper joined the team.

"Mike didn't move around, didn't want to move around. He wanted to play against the best. He felt like he didn't need to go chase players to join his team to beat the best because he felt like he was the best, and I think that's the difference. I think that's probably going to hurt LeBron when you look at it in that perspective against Michael, [Larry] Bird and Magic [Johnson]. Those guys stayed with one team, and they won with that team."

James is now a member of his third organization. He played the first seven years of his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers before spending four years in South Beach with Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat. He then returned home to lead the Cavs to four consecutive NBA Finals and their first-ever championship.

Now, he has moved on to the Lakers.

Then again, Jordan played for a pair of teams—the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Wizards—during his 15-year career. Not to mention he left the Bulls the same number of times James left the Cavs (twice), albeit once was just a one-year break to play baseball.

Staying with one organization for the duration of a career like Kobe Bryant or Dirk Nowitzki is admirable, but James has his reasons for changing uniforms. If he is able to lead the Lakers to a championship, it would be the third different team he accomplished the feat with, which would seemingly only help his legacy.