Who would have thought that Michael Jordan‘s six championships would have such significant ramifications on the current day superstars that were at the time viewers like us who “ooed” an “ahhed” at every fadeaway jumper that Jordan executed with unprecedented grace. Lebron James, who was 14 when Jordan won his last and final championship with the Chicago Bulls probably did not grasp what was headed his way. A mere five years later Lebron was in the national basketball association and immediately after sports nation decided to give him his workman tools and demanded he chip away at mount Jordan.

Take the case of Kobe Bryant who for the time now is looked at as the closest thing to Jordan we have seen since his glory days. He arguably more so then Lebron felt the weight of Jordan’s expectations on his shoulders. A burden so heavy that even after proving to be one of the main factors for the success of the first NBA dynasty of the new millennium still forced him to ask the question, did I do it by myself? Even today our modern day NBA greats feel the ripple effects of the tsunami like splash that Jordan made in the 90’s and often what washes up on shore are the overwhelming pressure’s we put on never before seen basketball phenoms like Lebron James and Kobe Bryant.

Both Kobe Bryant and Lebron James were coerced into believing that there achievements were simply not enough. That Kobe’s three championships, Lebron leading of the lowly Cavalier franchise to five consecutive playoff appearances, and adding hundreds of millions of dollars to there respective team’s worth just was not enough. Instead the NBA’s sports writers and its fans have created what I come to call the “Jordan Doctrine”. The Jordan Doctrine can be characterized as the unfair expectations of basketballs best to succeed the way we want them to. In today’s NBA environment its onlookers have made it abundantly clear that in order to be great you must win it all on your own. It is a mandate that a player who wants to be the best must never enlist the help of another superstar and win championships regardless of what the current NBA climate is or what that players franchise has done for them. Perhaps this is why Lebron’s “decision” to join fellow great Dwayne Wade has drawn the ire of so many sports fans because he has taken this Jordan doctrine and rendered it irrelevant and made it evident that he will do what he wants on his own terms, something not even Kobe Bryant could do when he opted out of pursuing more NBA championships with Shaquille O’Neal.