Sure you can. We can't even consider guys like Stockton, Barkley, Iverson, etc. in those discussions? You gotta win titles. I can't even think of a guy who was considered the best player in the league that never won at least one championship. LeBron is relatively openly accepted as the best player in the league right now. I'm not old enough to know for sure, but I would imagine that Jordan was too. Did Jordan become a better player in the clinching game of his first championship? It's an absolutely ridiculous argument. It would be like saying a pitcher has to have twenty wins to be accepted as the best pitcher in baseball (and, sadly, wins still hold far too much weight as well). Wins, like championships, will almost certainly come if the individual plays at a high enough level. But, bad pitchers still end up with high win totals, and great pitchers still end up with low win totals. They are team stats. Not individual stats. Jordan was a better player under Jackson than he was under Loughery, Collins, etc. Maybe not a more dominant individual talent, but a player more conducive to winning. And I'm fully expecting Lebron to rip off a bunch of titles. If he doesn't win one (barring some freak injury) it'd blow away the Marinos, Malones, etc. of the world in terms of being a giant black mark on a player's career.