CHICAGO _ Consider the NBA's Greatest of All Time debate settled. LeBron James has waved a white jersey, if not the white flag.
Michael Jordan remains the G.O.A.T.
James' surrender came with the Warner Bros. announcement that "Space Jam 2," his long-discussed sequel to Jordan's 1996 hit, will hit your neighborhood megaplex on July 16, 2021, the far-off release bookended by the next Indiana Jones and "Mission: Impossible" flicks.
A mock-up of a promotional poster for the James film, tweeted by his SpringHill Entertainment, showed him alongside Looney Tunes' Bugs Bunny and Lola Bunny, all decked out in the same white Tune Squad uniforms Jordan wore.
Both James and Jordan are great basketball players. There's no question about that.
Jordan, however, was an athletic, cultural and business phenomenon.
What makes him the G.O.A.T. goes beyond merely winning games and dominating his sport in style and substance. It's that he was bigger than the game. He blazed his own trail so brightly and distinctly that his silhouette became a logo, everything about him his own.
Jordan not only left his mark on the NBA, he changed the way endorsement deals were done, influenced fashion and, yes, made a silly animated/live-action movie with bunnies Bugs and Lola, Bill Murray, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, the Monstars, Newman from "Seinfeld" and Muggsy Bogues.
OK, it wasn't exactly "Roma," "The Favourite" or "BlacKkKlansman," but "Space Jam" took in $230 million worldwide. That's $372 million in today's dollars, enough to pay newly minted Padre Manny Machado for 10 years with a couple of Bryce Harper seasons left over.
For a true G.O.A.T., it wouldn't be enough just to be like Mike, merely building on what Jordan established, dressing up like Jordan for a new generation.
Better James should be out building more schools, which admittedly was a fantastic thing to do.
If the Lakers star is hell-bent on going Hollywood, he should do more of his own thing in movies, like the 2015 Amy Schumer-Bill Hader romantic comedy "Trainwreck."
Critics were impressed by James' ability to play himself and his deadpan reading of lines such as "Do you know Cleveland is great for the whole family?"
Try to imagine MJ saying that. You can't.
Making a new "Space Jam," James might as well be challenging Larry Bird in a shooting contest for a Big Mac or leaving Mars Blackmon hanging on the rim.
The G.O.A.T. imitates no one.
