Basketball On The Internet.

FOR the life of me I cannot fathom why virtually any debate about the "Greatest Of All Time" sparks such vitriol and profanity among basketball fans.

It's almost as if to support Michael Jordan makes you someone "buying into the myth" or to support LeBron James means you've "gotten sucked in by the hype" etcetera etcetera ad nauseam.

No opinion can be challenged or measured, it seems, without an emotional or even irrational comment being spewed forth to diminish the thought or berate the person expressing it.

What happened to "agreeing to disagree" and enjoying a challenging "what if" debate in the process?

The level of animosity strikes me as ridiculous and, of course, has surfaced powerfully today with Michael Jordan saying he believes, in his prime, he would beat LeBron James in a game of one-on-one.

Anyone with half a clue knows he made the comment to stir discussion and boost sales for the NBA 2K14 video game being released today in the USA.

In a video promoting the game, his Airness includes a list of players he would have liked to play one-on-one against, legends such as Lakers greats Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, the immortal Dr J - Julius Erving, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant and King James.

Funnily enough, they're on the cover of the video game.

"I don't think I would lose,'' Jordan says in the video and the anti-MJ lobby is out in force pointing to his insecurities and arrogance.

Wow. Smart folk indeed.

When footy writing doyen Mike Sheahan suggested on the Fox show "On the Couch" a few weeks ago that Gary Ablett Jnr had closed in on and possibly surpassed Leigh Matthews as football's GOAT, it barely raised a ripple. Just a lot of heads nodding and saying: "He might be right."

Frankly, I think he is. Matthews might have been the toughest footballer of his era - though I can never forgive him for intentionally breaking Barrie Robran's leg - and widely regarded as the AFL's best. And yes, I would agree he is tougher than Gary Ablett Jnr. But better? No. He has been caught and surpassed in my mind.

But that opinion has never brought a tirade of "what would you know you dumb-ass?" type of reaction. Just reasoned argument for or against.

Talk basketball though and it seems if you love Kobe, you're supporting a rapist. It's not that you admire and marvel at his offensive strengths and indomitable will-to-win. Hell no. You like him because you must hate women!

Trust me. That's the level of the debate, or the level to which it so regularly and extraordinarily quickly deteriorates and degenerates.

Mention Oscar Robertson and most of today's loudest debaters won't even know to who you are referring. The few that do will say when the 6-6 superstar AVERAGED a triple-double, there were only X-amount of teams playing so the talent level wasn't as high and therefore it was easier and blah blah.

Yeah. Triple doubles are easy.

Same for the Boston Celtics' zillion 60s Championships. They don't stack up now because there were less teams, or something equally irrelevant will be trotted out as indisputable fact!

And so many folk want to hang their hat on championships-won as the cornerstone of greatness. It is relevant, of course. But was Kurt Rambis a better player than Charles Barkley because he won multiple titles with the Lakers while Sir Charles fell short?

David Stiff has won six NBL Championships. Was he a better player than Andrew Gaze who won two? 

You see my point I hope; that Championships are just part of the package that goes into measuring greatness.

MJ won six, was MVP of all six Championship series and no team was able to take his Chicago Bulls to seven games in the title deciding series.

It's a fairly decent legacy, not including league MVPs and scoring titles, All Star Games, Olympic Gold Medals and a thousand other accolades.

(I love the truism that the only person who could ever keep Michael Jordan to 15 points a game was Dean Smith at North Carolina.)

For me, having seen Jordan blossom from a player in the shadow of teammates James Worthy and Sam Perkins in college to the megastar who met every challenge, rating him as the GOAT sits fairly comfortably.

His shortcomings as an executive or owner and that his eye for talent isn't as good as his self-confidence against any opponent, is completely irrelevant.

Just as Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird could be appreciated as the greatest players of the 80s era - the men who changed the face of NBA basketball back to a positive one - you can still appreciate Julius Erving sits comfortably in there somewhere as well.

Not to mention Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Or going back further to Bill Russell.

LeBron James is a 203cm, 114kg prototype who, like him or not - and we are harsh to judge young men caught up in their own fame at times - is GOOT, as in Greatest Of Our Time.

The baton is always passed along, from Magic and Bird to his Airness, to Kobe, to LBJ ... with a lot of very good basketball players in between.

In a fantasy one-on-one battle, MJ, even at a measly 198cm and 97kg, would just have too much quickness and too many moves for LBJ. Other than backing him down, I'm not sure what else LBJ could do to overpower MJ.

Now if there were no other variables and their two teams were dead even but for the two key protagonists' individual points of difference, I'd be less confident MJ would beat LBJ in five-on-five.

But then MJ always found a way to win and the same cannot be said of LBJ, until the past few years.

Frankly, one-on-one, MJ versus Kobe would be way more interesting.

In my opinion, Oscar, Bill and Wilt Chamberlain were GOTEs (Greatests of Their Era), as were Magic and Bird.

For mine, MJ is the GOAT and LBJ the GOOT.

Just enjoying the skills and memories they have all brought makes life better every single day.

But it's just an opinion and opinions are like arseholes. Everybody's got one. You just don't have to act like one when the debate starts.