Julius Erving no longer has a pick for the greatest player in NBA history. Appearing on the Beyond the Curve podcast, the Hall of Famer argued that the whole exercise is pointless.
“I think it’s very time-consuming, and there is no GOAT,” Erving said. “I mean, there’s no one athlete who you can look at in any sport and just say, ‘Well, that was the best that ever did it.’ It’s all an opinion.”
The position is a departure for a basketball legend who has fed the GOAT conversation more than once. On The Rich Eisen Show, Erving had declared that LeBron James would “re-establish the bar” for greatness in the sport.
“He’s going to be the guy who re-establishes the bar for what the GOAT is,” Erving said at the time.
By May 2024 he had changed lanes, telling ClutchPoints that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was his pick over Jordan and James, citing Abdul-Jabbar’s dominance from high school through the pros, his MVPs, titles and scoring records.
Jordan has said the same for years
In adopting a “there is no GOAT” stance, Erving ends up precisely where Jordan has been. Speaking to Gayle King on CBS News Sunday Morning, Jordan dismissed the concept outright.
“There’s no such thing as a GOAT. Not to me. It’s only because I think we learn from other athletes. We progress the game.”
Jordan has repeated the line in other interviews, calling the comparison “empty” and arguing that the hype around it “creates animosity” between generations. On an episode of Insights to Excellence he was more blunt.
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“The whole GOAT term is never going to be something that I ever will get high or low about. You know, it just doesn’t exist with me.”
That is the camp Erving has now joined. It contrasts sharply with LeBron James, who has repeatedly cast himself as the greatest to have played the game.
From ice cream flavours to no pick at all
Erving has been chipping away at the idea of a definitive GOAT for a while. In a 2025 interview he compared the debate to picking an ice cream flavor, each one a matter of taste rather than ranking.
“What flavor ice cream do you like? You like strawberry, you like chocolate, you like vanilla, you like banana, or whatever, they’re both ice cream.”
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At that stage he was still naming Abdul-Jabbar as his personal choice. The latest comments remove even that one.
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