Here’s why we should now, at this moment, and forever more, stop comparing LeBron James and every other player who ever will play in the NBA to Michael Jordan. Not because it’s ruining the enjoyment of otherwise exemplary players, and not because it’s applied too easily and ripped away so tauntingly from inferior players.

But because of all of Jordan’s classic, unforgettable playoff game-winners and clutch baskets, to my recollection none of them was a dunk. Or a layup.

Last night against the Pistons in Game 5 at Auburn Hills, pretty much all of LeBron’s huge last-second, game-extending or game-clinching baskets were right at the rim, accomplished by him taking the ball at the top and blasting through and past one of the very best defensive teams and most playoff-hardened units in the league as if they were your kid’s CYO team down at the community center.

That was the player we saw last year, in his first-ever playoff series. If that player had been around for the first two games of this series – instead of the one who passed up an open layup to pass to Donyell Marshall and the player who tried to draw a foul in the lane, the one every said didn’t have the heart to play at this level, the one people said was a fraud – an awful lot of people would be trying to find direct flights from Cleveland to San Antonio today.

Most telling moment of that game, an instant classic, a text-your-friends, wake-em-up epic? It was after the game. Craig Sager of TNT recited to an exhausted LeBron his stats from the game and asked, “Did you know you were that good?’’ LeBron gulped and said, “No.’’

I believe him. I don’t think he figured it out until Game 3, and maybe not thoroughly even until last night. I thought that at the time he was passing up that Game 1 layup: He was surprised that he got so close to the basket so easily. He never expected it. He never intended to shoot at all. He’d better straighten that out and recognize what all he can do.

Back to the MJ comparisons: ESPN has been running a graphic all morning listing the five players who have scored 48 or more points in a conference final or NBA Finals game on the road. LeBron did it last night. Guess who wasn’t on the list? I mean, by law, aren’t Jordan and Wilt required to be on every most-points list, regular season and playoffs, in the league record book?

And he had nine rebounds and seven assists. Many of the assists were absolutely breathtaking. None of them took place in the two overtimes, because LeBron scored every single point for the Cavaliers, their last 25, and every basket from the middle of the fourth quarter until the end.

One more Jordan check: at age 22, he was finishing his rookie season and going down in four games of a best-of-five first-round playoff series. OK, so he went to college for three years. After four years in the NBA, Jordan was getting out of the first round for the first time in his career, losing in the second round to, of course, Detroit in five games.

At age 22, and in his fourth NBA season, LeBron James is one win from reaching the NBA Finals. From a wretched conference, yes, but he has the lead on a team whose core players went to two straight NBA Finals and won one and is in its fifth straight East final, and his own “supporting cast’’ (to use a phrase Jordan himself coined) stinks compared to Jordan’s back in the championship and pre-championship days.

This is not to say LeBron is better than Michael. It’s just to say he’s different. Unique. Himself. His own creation.

So for everybody’s sake, particularly LeBron’s, let’s end the Jordan comparisons and let him be who he is, because if this is who he is, we should all be perfectly content, and at this point, downright giddy. And yes, tired, because that game and that performance were worth staying up late for.