Lionel Messi thinks Michael Jordan is the GOAT (Image of Michael Jordan via IMAGN)Lionel Messi thinks Michael Jordan is the GOAT (Image of Michael Jordan via IMAGN)

Many basketball players would argue that Michael Jordan is the greatest athlete to have ever played in the NBA. However, that take is not exclusive to hoopers only, as one great from another sport believes that the Chicago Bulls legend is the best player to have set foot on the hardwood.

That great is none other than Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi. Much like MJ, Messi is considered one of the greatest in his sport, which has resulted in him having admirers all over the world.

Messi shared his opinion regarding MJ with Argentine journalist Juan Pablo Varsky, and here is what the Inter Miami superstar had to say.

“It seems to me, in terms of sports, he’s the greatest there is,” Messi said.

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He then shared that he got to appreciate Michael Jordan a lot more after watching the 2020 docuseries “The Last Dance.”

“But after having seen his series and getting to know a bit more about him, you know, ‘The Last Dance,’ it just blows your mind, it’s a masterpiece, it’s impressive,” Messi said. “Well, that also brought me closer to him and to understand a bit more about who he was.

“It’s a pity that I couldn’t live through that era in person, because I would’ve loved it.”

Messi was born in June 1987, which was between MJ’s third and fourth NBA seasons. So while Messi was already around during the years that the Bulls dynasty was dominating the league, he was probably too young to fully grasp Jordan’s greatness.

Michael Jordan’s DPOY award from 1998 is under fire

Michael Jordan and the other players who are in the GOAT conversation have all won most of the same awards. Whether those are regular season or Finals MVPs, scoring titles, championships or All-Star selections.

However, there is one thing that sets MJ apart, and that is his Defensive Player of the Year award. Something that he won for the first and only time in his career in 1988. That season, MJ had the highest steals-per-game average at 3.2, while he also averaged 1.6 blocks per contest.

In total, he had 259 steals and 131 blocks that year. His season splits from 1987-88 show that he had 165 takeaways and 84 rejections when defending home court, while he totaled 94 steals and 47 blocks on the road.

This is a pretty significant discrepancy, and according to an article by Tom Haberstroh on Yahoo! Sports, it was because a stat-keeper, or a number of stat-keepers for the Bulls, inflated MJ’s numbers when he played at home.

Haberstroh named Alex Rucker, an ex-NBA stat-keeper, as his source for these claims. According to Rucker, who worked for the Grizzlies when they were based in Vancouver, it was common practice during that era for stat-keepers to artificially inflate the numbers of a star as it helped create a narrative of greatness around the stars.

Aside from Rucker’s words, some evidence was also presented that showed that Michael Jordan had an 182% difference between his stocks (combined blocks and steals) between home and away games.

This is not the first that fans have heard of this, though, as Scottie Pippen talked about this same issue in his memoir “Unguarded,” which was published in 2021.