Lebron James Defers To Greatness...or at Least Some Part of It

In what would seemingly be an innocent attempt at deferring to greatness, LeBron James has decided to give up the heralded number "23," most notably dawned by the great Michael Jordan, and has instead opted for his Olympic number of "6." 

Apparently James had been considering this move as far back as November, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but has now officially submitted the paperwork to the NBA to make the change official.

Many well known basketball players have changed their numbers, most recently Kobe Bryant who went from No. 8 to his high school No. 24.  Bryant had initially wanted No. 33, his father's high school digits, but it was retired by the Lakers in honor of Kareem Abdul-Jabaar.  The No. 8 was arrived upon because it was the combined total of his Adidas ABCD Camp number of 143 (1+4+3=8, for those scoring at home). 

However, in choosing No. 24 no one wondered why Bryant chose not to respect the likes of Bill Bradley, Tom Chambers, or Sam Jones, great players in their own right, but none of them the level of Bryant. 

James on the other hand, has chosen the legendary No. 6, and while the nod to Jordan is admirable, the not-so-obvious dis to former legends Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Bill Russell seems a bit more surprising.

In the end though, Dr. J and most likely, Russell, pranced around the hardwood in a pair of Converse sneakers, where James is clearly the "Air" apparent to the Nike brand, which is really all this is about. 

Now folks in Cleveland need to run out and buy themselves the NEW LeBron James jersey because almost all of the die-hards probably own something with No. 23 already on it, which is now "old." 

This new purchase, unfortunately, won't seemingly be relevant too long, for James will either remain in Cleveland for three more years, or what is seemingly more likely, three more months. Of course, he could realize Bill Russell was a legend, and make another change, thus starting this process all over.

Either way, this was not done out of respect to Michael Jordan, or any other player, if considering a player's legacy really mattered in the first place.  It was a decision made somewhere in Oregon inside a Nike meeting room, solely to define LeBron James as his own person, and own player. 

A number that when people see it going forward, they think of Lebron, and no one else.

If James had been slightly forthright about this fact I'd feel a whole better about his supposed decision.