For years, fans and analysts have engaged in a futile debate about who’s the greatest basketball player of all time. The GOAT distinction has gone from Bill Russell to Wilt Chamberlain to Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and never-ending etcetera.
However, Los Angeles Lakers’ Danny Green believes that the GOAT debate just doesn’t make sense at all and instead, people should talk about the GOTE, a.k.a the greatest of their era, according to a recent interview he had with ClutchPoints:
“I don’t like to do those talks, I like to spell G.O.A.T. differently,” Green started. “The greatest of their era G.O.T.E. Those guys are all the greatest of their eras. A lot of guys play different positions they’re all ahead of their time and I appreciate each and every one of them, especially the ones that I’m a part of, to see them up close and play with [them],” Green said.
“When I saw Mike [Jordan], I was young and I was a kid still idolize him, had the chance to watch him close and had these. All you see is the greatness, you don’t see any mistakes that’s what I try to do as a kid I don’t like to see mistakes in this great guy. What I’d like to see is the great plays and how well they do things, how efficiently they do things. So you see I don’t do the G.O.A.T. talks, but G.O.T.E. talks, the Greatest Of Their Era talks,” he concluded.
Green definitely has a valid point right here. I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense at all to try and compare players that didn’t play under the same rules or against the same competition. There will never be an objective, non-biased answer.
We should just stop comparing already and just enjoy greatness while we can. Those legends don’t come that often and we shouldn’t waste time trying to debate who’s the best when we can watch them thrive and continue to make history.
