Ronnie Fields Ranks Michael Jordan And Kobe Bryant Above LeBron James In GOAT Debate Credit: Fadeaway World

Ronnie Fields Ranks Michael Jordan And Kobe Bryant Above LeBron James In GOAT Debate
Credit: Fadeaway World

MICHAEL JORDAN
Ronnie Fields Ranks Michael Jordan And Kobe Bryant Above LeBron James In GOAT Debate
Former CBA player Ronnie Fields says Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are better than LeBron James when asked to rank all three players.
AADITYA KRISHNAMURTHYUPDATED:JUL 5, 2024ORIGINAL:JUL 5, 2024
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MICHAEL JORDAN
LEBRON JAMES
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Former CBA player Ronnie Fields was asked to rank Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James on the ‘All The Smoke’ podcast. Presented with an unordered list, Fields kept his list in the same sequence, saying that Michael Jordan was the best out of the three, followed by Kobe Bryant, and then LeBron James in third.

“Oh, MJ, Kobe, Bron. [Laughs]”

1:10:50 onwards

Ronnie Fields was one of the most talked-about high school basketball prospects in the 1990s. He played high school basketball between 1992 to 1996 at Farragut Academy in Chicago, and even played with NBA legend Kevin Garnett during his time there. As a senior at Farragut Academy, he averaged 32.2 points, 12.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 4.5 blocked shots per game.

Fields was considered one of the best high school prospects in the country, and there was talk of him entering the NBA directly out of high school. Fields looked set to be a stand-out in the NBA, and at his young age, he would’ve found great success in the league for years to come.

A brutal car accident that injured his neck significantly altered his career. By the time he recovered, the NBA Draft was over, and no team was going to draft a player with a major neck injury. He was set to play college basketball for DePaul University in Chicago after leaving high school, but his poor academic qualifications left him ineligible to do so.

Fields would enter the 1996 Continental Basketball Association (CBA) Draft. He played for the Rockford Lightning for the first few years. Fields declared for the 1998 NBA Draft but didn’t get picked. Fields would spend the rest of his career bouncing around from the CBA (until its discontinuation), to playing in the Philippines, several teams in the United States Basketball League, Venezuela, Greece, and even Lebanon.

Fields was once expected to be a major star in the NBA, with many tipping him to enter the league directly out of high school like his teammate, Kevin Garnett. But the car accident would change the trajectory of his career and his life.

Ronnie Fields Got The Chance To Play Against Michael Jordan
In the same podcast, Ronnie Fields also talked about getting to play against Michael Jordan as he prepared to make his comeback to the NBA. Fields recalled being recruited by current NBA VP of basketball operations David Booth. Jordan made the game very difficult for him and challenged Fields to not run away from his defensive assignment.

37:00 onwards:

“When he made his second comeback. This is the craziest thing… David Booth, who’s now working in the league office. He was there too, he was playing with an ABA team. They had the guys come down to hoop, shut the gym down, we’re going to play.”

“He just wanted to get some games in. I’m thinking David Booth finna go, ‘Okay you draft Mike, I’m going to grab DJ’. He’s (MJ) like, ‘No, young fella, you come guard me’… I was maybe like 20, post-accident. I watched and mirrored everything he did. So the moment, now everybody in the gym starts watching this matchup. My first thing… is just understanding his moves.”

“Okay, he can shoot over me with a fade away, so that’s the first thing I’m biting on. Realizing he still had a light dribble. So he’ll get you right on that elbow. The first thing was this (gestures), and then he turned right, hasn’t bounced the ball. So I’m like yeah, he’s going right to that fadeaway. So I go to reach and come off my feet. He steps through, one dribble, dunk.”

“Now, it’s a real game, so I got to run back down… Play come down later, he throws me a lob, back door on them. Next, you know he always, in his pick-up games he had Shelly Clarke, who set the hardest screens like (Charles) Oakley. Mike always had him with him.”

“I was like, ‘Look man, Shelly. Hey dude, this is pick-up’. He is out here dislocating dudes’ shoulders. That’s all he did – set screens and rebound, get the ball back to Mike. I end up catching the lob on the backside. So now, he’s like ‘okay’. Come back down, he catches the ball. He didn’t pass for the first 10 plays.”

“Now, you can’t get caught at all, you just got to play. So Jordan is like, ‘Hey, defend, go over the stuff’. I tried to get a switch off with David… he kept on telling me, ‘Switch back’. That was one of the times, you even heard when AI said, the Aura being around MJ, you had to be in that moment… and play. For him, it was getting runs, for us it was like practicing.”

Ronnie Fields was clearly not awestruck playing against Michael Jordan. Despite only being 20 years old, he tried to compete with the player who would’ve undoubtedly been an inspiration for him growing up in Chicago.

One can wonder what Fields’ career would have looked like had he not suffered the massive neck injury. But he seems to be at peace with where his life has gone. As long as he has his health and his peace of mind, Fields can be glad that he survived that car accident, something few others would have been able to at his age.

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BY AADITYA KRISHNAMURTHY
A writer with more than two years of experience covering the NBA, Aaditya Krishnamurthy reports on the world’s most famous basketball teams and figures in an interesting and insightful way while priding himself on letting his sense of humor shine when it comes to discussing the best and brightest of the NBA.

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