Watch: Tiger Woods chimes in on LeBron-Jordan GOAT debate

Picking one over the other in the heated LeBron James versus Michael Jordan debate for who is the greatest NBA player of all time is a slippery slope to walk.

When asked for his thoughts on the true GOAT - a term he remembers as being "a bad thing" when he was growing up - at a press conference on Tuesday ahead of The Players Championship, legendary golfer Tiger Woods handled the subject as delicately as he could without actually picking a winner.

"They're both great in different ways. You look at MJ, he was a prolific scorer and played defense like no other. He was always First Team All-Defense. But LeBron's different. He's like a hybrid of MJ and Magic which is so different because he's bringing the ball up a lot. MJ never really did that. He had Pip(pen) as a point-forward a lot of times, and you would think that's kind of LeBron-ish. They're very different in how they help both teams," Woods said.

"I think what MJ did, getting to the Finals and dominating the league like he did, he did it in a different way than LeBron's doing it. It's because the nature of their body, the build, and their game, and their mental makeup. At the end of the day, they both win. They're both guys that we look at and say, 'It's unbelievable what they're doing. They're just changing the game and how it's played. We didn't know it could be played that way.' And they both have done it."

James and the Cleveland Cavaliers swept the No. 1 seed Toronto Raptors out of the playoffs on Monday, and will now advance to their fourth straight Eastern Conference finals.