I feel like Hakeem isn't talked about enough. Dude was a monster. I love when Rodman blasts LeBron lol. Not that I don't think LeBron is great, I just think he's kind of a bitch on the court. Seems like a real good hearted dude though.
I think LeBron acts the way he does due to the rules of the game. He's smart, he's not going to deck a guy a risk a 20 game suspension.
It's not like the 1980s where you could literally punch a guy and maybe only get a technical (depending on the punch). If you were suspended then, it was small. It wasn't until the Heat and Knicks started brawling all the time that suspensions became more serious and consequential. And when you had Ron Artest and the Malice at the Palace in 2004, and then Carmelo Anthony's sucker punch at the Garden in 2006, you had two very big changing events when it came to fighting and discipline in the NBA. Honestly the Palace fight was something completely unseen before and the NBA knew you had to have drastic actions. The fact Ron Artest is mentally insane and didn't even understand what he had done afterwards, you had to punish the crap out of him.
Carmelo's sucker punch in 2006 landed him a 15 game suspension, while Nate Rob and JR Smith ended up fighting spilling into the crowd and got 10 game suspensions.
Meanwhile go back to the 1994 playoffs between the Bulls and Knicks and you had a fight spill into the crowd literally in front of the Commissioner.. you had a one game suspension... granted suspensions are different in the playoffs, but I feel like today they'd be suspended the rest of the series and into the next.
But that's just fighting. There have been other rule changes that ease things up on defense, more things are a foul. Add in there's been a lot of science done on recovery, extending your shelf life, and such that those are things LeBron is going for. I also don't think LeBron has ever had Jordan's mentality of everything is a competition and he lacks that drive Jordan had. I think he just likes playing basketball, uses his talents to the best of his ability, and is very intelligent about it. Those three things he has in common with Jordan, but he doesn't have that same drive Jordan has. And he doesn't have the pissed off motivation of things said about him in the media, or by other people.