To be fair, he could have called him The Admiral and we would know who he meant without a full name.

My occasional thought experiment on 'Who's #1' ...

You are at the gym with your buddy and Lebron and MJ walk in and offer to play 2-on-2. Who do you pick first?

Lebron is bugger, stronger, faster....but MJ would humiliate you and several generations of your family if you didn't pick him #1. I'd go with MJ because the passion and fury he brought was as much as part of why he's #1 as the actual play.

I haven't thought this through lately, but the latest generation of crazy-good bigs would be tough to choose against in that 2-on-2 choice.. Giannis or AD are bigs unlike anything MJ ever went against... I guess Olajuwan was close to as nimble, but I don't remember him shooting from distance ( just checked 25 3's made in his 18 seasons at 20% shooting). I think I might just pick the Freak over MJ in that game...

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978