Stephen A. Smith SHUTS DOWN Dr. J for snubbing LeBron James from NBA’s Top 10

NBA legend Julius Erving did not name a single active player on his Top 10 list.

Stephen A. Smith SHUTS DOWN Dr. J for snubbing LeBron James from NBA’s Top 10

(L) Stephen A. Smith, (R) Dr. J back from his playing days (Image Credits: ESPN)

NBA legend and one of the greatest players of all-time Julius Erving recently did an interesting interview with NBA personality Joy De’Angela in which he named his Top 10 players of all time. The list included names like Nathaniel Archibald, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Karl Malone. What surprised many was the fact that Erving did not include any active players in his list, especially someone of the caliber of ‘The King’ LeBron James.

Not surprisingly, Stephen A. Smith has a bone to pick with Erving for excluding James from his Top 10 list. While he did say that Erving is entitled to have an opinion of his own but having an all-time top 10 list without LeBron James is unacceptable.

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“You cannot have, I don’t care what players you mention, you cannot have an all-time Top 10 list and LeBron James is out, you just can’t. I’ve got LeBron James as a top-two player all time, what do you mean he’s not on the list?… LeBron James has been in the league for 20 years. He played more years than most of the players Dr. J had on the list, so certainly experience is not an issue there,” said Smith on ‘First Take’.

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Smith also mentioned some more notable names that were omitted from Dr. J’s list, such as Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Larry Bird. He said that while Erving has shown deference and respect to some of the pioneers that paved the way for the current crop of players, he must show respect to the likes of James, Curry, and even some of the other players like Russell Westbrook, Jason Kidd, and Chris Paul.

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Julius Erving offered an explanation as to why he left active players out of his list

LeBron James and Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry (# 30) and LeBron James (# 6) (Image via Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Erving’s main reasoning behind picking the players he has on his all-time Top 10 list is that all of those players have finished out their careers and have retired from the game. He stated that James and Curry are yet to finish their careers. “Everybody whose name is on there, their career is finished. LeBron, Steph, people hate on me when I give them my list, when I put those first five, that just messes up everybody’s list, they’re like you gotta have somebody from today. Let them finish,” said Erving.

He further added that two players that could definitely be replaced on his list would be Malone and Archibald. Durant and James would be the front runners to replace those two-all time greats.

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