Rod Thorn gave high praise to young LeBron: "There has never been a 21-year-old player as good as LeBron James. He is the best ever"

Yahoo

10-07-2025

Rod Thorn gave high praise to young LeBron: "There has never been a 21-year-old player as good as LeBron James. He is the best ever" originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Before LeBron James' 22nd birthday, Rod Thorn could already see greatness written all over him. The long-time NBA front office executive who famously drafted Michael Jordan had watched plenty of stars emerge. However, he believed James was on an entirely different track, someone who could dominate the league for a long time.
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"There has never been a 21-year-old player as good as LeBron James. He is the best ever," Thorn said of James in an interview with David Friedman. "I mean, his all-around game, his great quickness, his explosiveness off the dribble, his understanding of the game, his sight of the floor—there has never been a 21-year-old like him."
"He has a chance to be one of the all-time great players before his career is finished," added Thorn.
Thorn stopped short of predicting if LBJ could eventually surpass MJ, but he got his message across: The kid from Akron was a totally different beast.
LeBron's Year 3 was special
At 21, James was already a grizzled veteran. He had three years under his belt and had just carried the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first playoff series victory since 1993! In comparison, at the same age, Jordan was still preparing to leave North Carolina for the NBA through the draft.
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With this in mind, it's easy to see why Thorn spoke so highly of him. The King averaged 31.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 6.6 assists in the regular season as he led the Cavs to the fourth seed (50-32). He already finished second in MVP voting behind Steve Nash and earned All-NBA First Team honors alongside Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki and Shaquille O'Neal.
If Bron's regular season was insane by any metric, his postseason performances were not too far behind. James averaged 31 points, eight boards and six dimes across two series and had two triple-doubles in 13 outings. In fact, he managed to pull off this feat in his first playoff game, recording 32 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists while playing the entire 48 minutes.
The poise and production James showed in that postseason only strengthened the belief that he was something the league hadn't seen before. He took the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Detroit Pistons, to seven games and nearly willed the Cavs to an upset.
No one needed to squint to see what was coming. And to Thorn's credit, he already saw it in full view.
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Related: Rick Fox explains why Kobe never hung out with other teammates: "He was on a course and any minute or day wasted doing something else was going to slow him down getting to that point"
MJ and Kobe comparisons
Even then, the media has done its best to compare LeBron with the greats of the past, especially Jordan. Thorn was among the few who saw MJ's development as a rookie sensation, so nobody was as qualified to give an opinion.
"It's too early to say that (LeBron is going to be better than MJ), but I think that as far as all-around ability and athletic ability, plus size — see, he has size that even Julius (Erving), Michael and Kobe don't have. He's a bigger guy. You're talking about a 6'8", 250-pound guy," stated Thorn.
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Of course, Rod considered Jordan the best of all time and recognized Bryant as the closest to MJ in terms of play style. Still, what he saw from LeBron in 2006 convinced him that he was going to be an all-time great when all is said and done.
Fast-forward 19 years, and Thorn's early praise holds up. LeBron has played more seasons than Jordan and Bryant, made more All-NBA teams than anyone in history, and sits atop the league's all-time scoring list. He's won championships in three different cities, remained a top-tier player well into his late 30s and has outlasted most of his peers by nearly a decade.
Whether you have him at the top of the list or not, there's no denying LBJ's greatness anymore. The only thing Thorn missed was how long James would keep going.
Related: "Michael Jordan absolutely couldn't have played through those cramps" - When Isiah Thomas defended LeBron for sitting out in the 2014 NBA Finals
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.