George Gervin has famously taken up a position against Michael Jordan whenever he could during his career, and after his retirement. One can argue that from his interview, it looks like he does not like the former Chicago Bulls superstar.
But he would still take him over Kobe Bryant and LeBron James because he has not seen those two play. Talking to Matt Barnes on the ‘All the Smoke’ podcast, Gervin opened up about his take on these heavily debated issues.
“Oh man, I played against MJ. I didn’t play against Kobe or Bron, so I’d go with Mike, Kobe, because I’ve played against his dad and LeBron,” Gervin reluctantly offered.
‘Iceman’ was amongst the top scorers of his era and remains one of the best pure scorers in league history. He’s also regularly featured on any sports segment discussing the most underrated legends in NBA history.
But when it comes to the GOAT debate, he does not follow common protocol. For him, Jordan does not feature at the top of his list. He went viral for calling out that ‘his airness’ has fewer championship rings than Bill Russell and fewer points than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, so for the former Spurs star, it is not possible to consider Jordan the greatest of all time.
He’s even said on record that Jordan could not even score as smoothly as he did, so ‘greatest of all time’ is out of the question. He honestly does not even put the six-time champion in the top-five all-time pure scorers list. When asked if he could describe Jordan in a word, he used “a****le.” For Bryant, he used “clutch.”
Although if it comes to picking between him and the newer players, he’ll pick Jordan. That could lead the viewer to think that he’s admittedly biased towards the era he played in, and looks at Jordan also as a player from a later generation than him. Thus, maybe not worthy of the adoration that he has for his seniors or contemporaries.
Ralph Sampson, Houston Rockets legend, also claimed he doesn’t see the same killer mentality in newer players. It adds to the narrative that, as legends of the sport, once you’ve distanced yourself from the game and aren’t actively analyzing it, it is very difficult to remove bias from your opinions.
Even Gervin’s reason to pick Bryant over James seems irrational if you deeply analyze it, because how can Gervin make a judgment about Bryant’s game by looking at his father?
He’s visibly reluctant to answer such questions because, for him, these three probably do not define greatness. The Spurs legend has different names in mind when he thinks of greatness. Gervin played primarily in the 80s; he played alongside some all-time greats such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.
The nine-time All-Star even got the chance to have a relationship with a man who was an inspiration to an entire generation, Julius Erving. Gervin talked about the close bond he shared with him and how Irving helped him develop as a young athlete in the league.
So when someone’s grown up around completely different superstars and understands how tough it was at that time to break through the societal norms and make it big, he considers them as the ones to do it better than the guys who came later.
