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Julius Erving may have retired from the NBA in 1987 and kept a low profile in the years since, but he hasn’t been shy about his opinions on the modern game.
He recently offered his list of the 10 greatest NBA players of all time. It was a somewhat controversial list because it didn’t include LeBron James, Kobe Bryant or Stephen Curry.
Los Angeles Lakers great Shaquille O’Neal was another legend who was excluded from Erving’s list. O’Neal told the Los Angeles Times that he didn’t have a problem with Erving’s list.
However, he proceeded to give his own top-10 list, which was considerably different from Erving’s list (h/t Lakers Daily).
Via Los Angeles Times:
“He said his first team, in no particular order, was Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron James and then ‘(expletive) me,’” wrote Broderick Turner.
“O’Neal said coming off his bench would be (Stephen) Curry, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, (Karl) Malone and Isiah Thomas,”
At first, it seemed as if O’Neal had snubbed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is considered by some to be the greatest center ever. But he then made an amendment to his list.
“O’Neal paused for a moment, adding, ‘also, you got to put Kareem on that second team, too,’ which, of course, is now a top 11,” wrote Turner.
While Erving’s ranking had an abundance of players from many decades ago, the majority of the players on O’Neal’s list played in the NBA within the last quarter-century.