Who's Taking The Final Shot, MJ Or LeBron? Here Is Rich Paul's Pick

It's an age-old question among NBA fans: If you could have anyone taking the last shot for a chance to win a game, which player would you trust with the ball?

Rich Paul knows who he's going with. And it's not his client, LeBron James.

"If I want the single, last shot, I'm taking Michael Jordan. No question about it," Paul said on a recent episode of the "Game Over" podcast.

Interesting, to say the least.

To Paul's credit, he didn't allow his close friendship with James to influence his opinion here. Jordan, after all, made a career out of hitting big shots with little to no time left on the game clock. Whether it was "The Shot" over Craig Ehlo in the 1989 playoffs or his "farewell" against the Utah Jazz in the 1998 Finals, MJ never shied away from the challenge of making high-pressure buckets.

On the other hand, a closer look at the context behind Paul's words shows that the Klutch Sports founder is constantly looking to sing the praises of LBJ. (Which, to be clear, are well-deserved by James.)

Here's the bigger picture: Paul and his podcast co-host, Max Kellerman, were having a conversation about the NBA's GOAT, and Paul decided to get into the nuances of this lofty title. While he would rather have Jordan taking the last shot in a tight game, he did not neglect to give James his flowers.

"If I'm starting a basketball team, I'm taking LeBron number one overall. There's no ifs, ands, or buts," Paul declared.

While James was technically drafted just once in his illustrious career, more than one team has done exactly what Paul described: anchor their future on the greatness of LBJ. The Cleveland Cavaliers did this on two separate occasions, and while the Miami Heat had two other elite talents in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, their title contention hinged on James' excellence.

Since 2018, the Los Angeles Lakers have been James' team. This is set to change in the next few years, thanks to the arrival of Luka Doncic, but there's no denying that James has been the center of the Lakers' gravity for quite some time now.

Others would argue that the titles of "franchise player" and "crunch-time hero" are one and the same, but in Paul's eyes, they're two different things. While Paul would gladly have James as the genesis of a successful basketball program, he has freely admitted that Jordan is the best option for punctuating an NBA game with a win.