Phelps has it. Tiger has it. Jordan had it. The new Olympic "Redeem Team" is very talented, and of course will win the gold this year. Upon watching some of the highlights, I think that both Kobe and LeBron will probably, in the end, rack up better career statistics than Jordan; one might even argue that physically, their talent matches Jordan's. They're both winners, and they're both fun to watch (beside the fact that I still cringe when considering Kobe's Colorado incident).
Yet, the reason why Kobe and LeBron will never be Jordan, and never ultimately compare to Jordan's greatness is not because of statistics or longevity or even championships. It's that, while Kobe and LeBron are indeed entertaining, they do not exhibit the physical grace Jordan did.
Jordan played a very stylized game of basketball. The way he moved, the proportions of his body, the way he carried himself while in flight, the way he walked down the court, his perfect jump-shot: he exuded effortlessness, even nonchalance, all while dominating. I'm not sure if that's a fair measure of greatness. But aesthetics remain an unrecognized, and un-theorized aspect of American sports. What made Jordan the greatest was that, like Ali did for the ring (and for so many other aspects of American culture), Jordan did for the court: he made dominance, determination, and push-to-the-limit physical exertion look, well, cool (in the Miles Davis sense of the word). I think of it as the ability to sustain a fundamental irony: coolness is normally synonomous with leisure, relaxation, and maintaining the appearance of remaining aloof from the type of anxieties and annoyances that usually impact the rest of us mortals. What Jordan does is to fuse that type of coolness with an intensity which would seem to be its opposite.
Anyone who plays basketball now retains traces of Jordan in their movements, but there's only one Real McCoy.
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