Similar to the stories of Steve Jobs berating colleagues, employees, rivals, etc. there are anecdotes about Jordan doing the same in his field.
He's not known as the Greatest Human Of All Time...he's the Greatest Basketball Player Of All Time.
Likewise, the NBA has become vastly more competitive and international since Jordan's prime, i.e. greater demographics competing to enter, overall raising the mean athletic ability.
Jordan is clearly a great, but one among others, like Kobe and LeBron, neither of whom are actually A-holes like Jordan.
Kobe and Lebron are both giant assholes. I'm not sure how you don't agree with this. Do you not follow sports news? Jordan is also a giant asshole. He is just far enough removed from playing the game that people forget about how he redefined/saved the NBA, they only judge him on the past 5 years.
There is plenty of debate. Don't forget the league-wide diluting effects of the '89 and '95 expansion drafts, something I neglected to mention. People really do underestimate how less competitive Jordan's era was than today (but many fans do get it).
I'm a longtime NBA fan, and I follow basketball news regularly + compete in bball fantasy leagues.
And no, Kobe and LBJ are not assholes on Jordan's level. Jordan is notorious for being an asshole, unlike the former two.
Also, I've thought for years that LeBron not being more of an a-hole is why he doesn't win more often. He loves to win. Jordan hated to lose. That's the difference.
PS - Tracy McGrady's scoring didn't dip from 32 to 22 overnight, and when it did dip, it had more to do with his lack of conditioning and his body breaking down than it did with any rule changes.
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird weren't. Kareem Abdul Jabbar wasn't. Hakeem Olajuwon wasn't. Brady and Manning aren't. Jerry Rice wasn't. Emmitt Smith wasn't. Tim Duncan isn't. Derek Jeter wasn't. Greg Maddux wasn't. Hank Aaron wasn't. Tony Gwynn wasn't. Ken Griffey Jr wasn't. Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson aren't.
I'd argue that the radical majority of elite athletes are not.
Even Tiger Woods, who is famous for being chilly in public, isn't known to be a big ahole despite whatever his personal life failings are/were.
(Come on!)
The other thing to note is that, as long as you avoid doing something stupid like throwing people through plate glass windows, it's easy for PR to do a lot of magic. Most people never realized what MJ was really like while he was still playing. Brett Favre was kind of a dick, but it took most of his career until that was found out. Ultimately we don't know what these people are really like. Who knows what lies behind Tim Duncan's placid exterior?
Because they absorb so much energy from the universe in order to fulfill their self serving destiny that they cannot help but be viewed as selfish. They quite literally demand the respect that they receive.
Call it the theory of conservation of human energy.
And whether it's that attitude that helps them achieve, or more that the success enables poor behaviour.
Personally, I find 2) unbearably obnoxious, but it's something I'm willing to forgive if they provide evidence in the affirmative, as Federer certainly has. I think we have to permit a certain amount of elitism, because it would be dishonest to expect that these players refrain from acknowledging their positions within the respective pantheons of their sports.