The NBA season kicks off tomorrow with a great match-up between the defending champion Miami Heat and the up-and-coming Chicago Bulls.

The Bulls are championship contenders for the first time since Michael Jeffrey Jordan left the United Center floor eight years ago. It would be fitting for the Bulls to come back full circle and win the championship at the same time that the NBA is brimming with young stars and ready to recapture the glory that was lost after his “Airness” retired.

When the era of Magic, Bird, Hakeem, and Jordan passed, the NBA took a dive in the quality of basketball being played, thanks to a league saturated with plenty of unpolished talent and sloppy play. Now, the league is recovering thanks to young guns like Lebron, Carmelo, D-Wade, and exciting teams like the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks.

But one thing that needs to stop for the league to truly escape its past is the never-ending comparisons of every young star to Michael Jordan. There will never be another Michael Jordan, period. End of discussion.

Take Lebron James for example. Lebron has a complete different style of play than MJ. Lebron is big and strong and uses his combination of size and athletic ability to wear down defenders. At this point of his career, Jordan was skinny and used his incredible first step and his ability to hang in the air for seemingly forever to humiliate defenders.

Lebron also doesn’t play defense anywhere near as well as Jordan. In 1986-87, MJ’s third year, he led the league in steals and was the first player in history with over 100 blocks and 200 steals. He won defensive player of the year, which is amazing considering he also led the league in scoring and was named MVP that year.

Lebron’s not going to achieve those statistics, but every player is going to come up short when compared to Jordan. As those clever Nike commercials show, Lebron is trying to establish his own identity, and NBA fans should let him do that, without looking at the number on his jersey.

Another player who seems to have clearly been burdened by the comparisons to Jordan is Kobe Bryant. Part of it is Kobe’s own fault because he has emulated Jordan since he entered the league, from the way he talks to the Jordan fist pump after making a shot.

Even when Kobe won three straight championships, he was still slighted because he had Shaquille O’Neal on his team. The notion was that if MJ had Shaq on his team, they would have won an insanely huge amount of championships and dominated the league like no other duo.

Kobe, wanting to prove his own greatness, couldn’t handle being a sidekick, so he constantly feuded with Shaq and eventually got his wish when Shaq was traded from the Lakers. The Lakers have struggled since. Kobe has struggled with finding the balance between his personal goals and leading his TEAM to victory.

Take last year’s playoff series against the Phoenix Suns for example. In Game 6, Kobe got viciously clothes-lined by Phoenix guard Raja Bell. First of all, nobody would have dared to clothes-line Jordan out of fear and respect, but if that had happened to Jordan; in the next game MJ would not only have dropped 55 points on Raja Bell and made him cry, he also would have completely shut down Steve Nash on the defensive end, and the Bulls would have won the game.

Game 7 was the perfect chance for Kobe to prove to the world that he could carry a team by himself. Instead, the Lakers went down early, and Kobe attempted only three field goals in the second half as the Suns blew them out. Kobe had a great season last year, scoring 35.4 points per game, the highest since Jordan’s ’87 season, when MJ averaged 37.1 points per game.

Kobe has to realize, like Jordan did, that to be a true leader that you must get your teammates involved in the game and make them better in order to win in this league. In ’87, even with Jordan’s gaudy statistics that year, the Bulls were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. Jordan’s stats would never be as high after that year, but his team improved and it eventually led to NBA titles.

Which brings us back to tomorrow’s Bulls-Heat game, which features another young superstar, Dwyane Wade. Wade grew up in Chicago and idolized MJ growing up. Wade has thrived with Shaq on his team, and doesn’t mind stepping aside and letting the big man take over when needed. But he also has shown a knack for coming through in the clutch, like Jordan, and getting an insane amount of respect from the referees, like Jordan, and it ultimately led to him winning his first championship with the Heat last year.

But Wade has been quick to dispel any comparisons with Jordan, which takes an immense amount of pressure off his shoulders. Only entering his fourth year, Wade has the potential to be a player for the ages – but he’s not Michael Jordan.

He’s embraced that fact, so why don’t we?

Majesh Abraham is a junior in LAS. He can be reached at [email protected].