Baffoe: MJ's Flu Game Vs. LeBron's Head Wound Game

By Tim Baffoe--

(CBS) Sometimes the gods of sport smile down on us, but sometimes it's not a benevolent smile. Instead, it's a sick, twisted smile like that of a dentist hovering over you at the exact moment you realize the medical degree on the wall is from something called "Louisiana State University."

Those sadistic deities just love by chance pitting an athlete of the present against an athlete of the past and even more so putting up for comparison singular game performances involving some parallel. Thursday happened to be the 18th anniversary of Michael Jordan's "Flu Game" for the Chicago Bulls in the 1997 NBA Finals in which he dropped 38 points in Utah on the Jazz. And of course, on that very anniversary, LeBron James cut his head on a camera underneath the basket in the second quarter of Game 4 of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors, causing him to bleed profusely.

Thus, now we have to — have to — compare the two games of these superstars. It's practically sports law, and resistance to the laws of sports gods is futile. Each player his respective era's best, each playing in the NBA Finals, each finding himself having to overcome the unexpected handicap coming from off the court — in James' case mere inches off of it.

We must have a cut-and-dry superior performance. So who wore his almost-debilitating condition better?

Let's make this a best-of-seven series, eh?

Prior to the start of his game back in 1997, Jordan was too ill to show up to the team shootaround. A weakened, visibly shaken Airness moved deliberately through his usual pregame motions as a camera stalked him, doing his best to conserve every ounce of energy he would need to overcome an opponent that had already won two games in the series. James, on the other hand, flashed his Australian shooting guard at the camera.

LeBron 1, MJ 0

Jordan poured in 38 points in 44 minutes while teammate Steve Kerr's lazy butt put up a big, fat goose egg in 24 minutes. Kerr not only scored zero points against James on Thursday, but he also lied to the media and the Cavs about his starting lineup. James responded with only 20 points, 12 rebounds, and eight assists, something that's happened in the Finals a blasé 13 other times and twice by Jordan (and three times by James, but whatever). James didn't even punch Kerr after the game like Jordan would have.

LeBron 1, MJ 1

After Game 4, LeBron got stitches in his head before meeting the media and avoided the league's concussion protocol because concussions are for players who TV money that also pays the refs to fix James' games doesn't care about. After Game 5, Jordan found himself suffering the slings and arrows of an Ahmad Rashad interview and then sitting on and/or hugging a toilet in Utah.

LeBron 2, MJ 1

The cameras around the base of the hoop are a menace. As years go by, we see more and more how justified Dennis Rodman was for kicking that one cameraman in the crotch for unintentionally almost prematurely creating our nation's ambassador to North Korea. NBA players have long cried foul of the proximity of cameras to the court, and Thursday night was no different.

While those camerapersons are certainly a hazard, we haven't yet been able in Obama's America to subject them to airport style security screenings to ensure they aren't hired guns. Whereas it's fairly believable that is wasn't flu that Jordan overcame but rather an assassination attempt. Was he poisoned by the Jazz? By an overzealous Utah fan? By his soon-to-be ex-wife? We may never know.

Series tied 2-2, typical MJ refusing to quit

Besides (not) flu and head gashes, both men lost their respective battles with male pattern baldness. Jordan, though, was gracious in defeat, shaved his head to become a trademark and saved his fashion jokes for when he became America's basketball dad. James' headband has looked more and more like the eroding shoreline of Florida due to the myth of climate change.

Jordan takes control and is up 3-2

Air Jordan and the #brand it embodied existed in an era free of the binds of amateur filmmakers recording a Vine of him losing a bonus check at a crap table or a groupie Instagramming him asleep the next morning. He only had to deal with becoming a played-out cliché after he was retired, fat and fairly unremembered by kids on the Internet.

James had to up against the super creative jokes on social media, people. There's an entire other sport's group of ego-fragile, Napoleon-complexed fans constantly measuring him against their favorite sport. Just look at this wit that could measure up against any Entourage movie.

LeBron evens the series 3-3, but just because Matthew Dellavedova's grit and hustle mitigates much of the Internet's desire to hate the Cavaliers

We're to the seventh and deciding point, the decider once and for all on whose game of attempting to overcome a sudden curveball is the microcosm of the truly greater career.

Michael Jordan won the flu game, on the road, putting the Bulls up 3-2 en route to another championship, further making Chicago a city known for basketball and nothing negative. James failed, at home, evening a series that can still go either way -- possibly opening a gash in the city of Cleveland itself, sending a burgeoning, cosmopolitan metropolis into a tailspin of plight, depression and self-loathing.

Was there ever any doubt who would emerge victorious here and be forever the greatest basketball player of all time*?

Michael Jordan, the once and forever King, defeats LeBron James, 4-3. Glad we have that settled.

* Time ending at the turn of the century when you stopped watching the NBA because they "stopped playing defense."

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.

In:
• NBA Finals
• LeBron James
• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Michael Jordan