Editor's note: This story was originally published on May 19, 2020.
Whether it was Michael Jordan's intention or not, the five-week run of ESPN's documentary "The Last Dance" featuring the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls has reestablished Jordan's place in the popular consciousness as the NBA's greatest of all time.
When did Jordan claim the GOAT title? From whom did he snatch it?
Going back to a time before "The Last Dance" reveals that the answers to those questions aren't as simple as they might seem in hindsight.
Let's break it down, FAQ style, to see which players Jordan surpassed, how and when.
MORE: How to replay "The Last Dance"
When did we start using the term GOAT?
It was well after Jordan had earned the title. The phrase itself ("greatest of all time") was popularized by legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, who naturally applied it to himself during his career, particularly in the 1960s and '70s. Then in 1992, Ali's wife, Lonnie, named the company incorporated to license the boxer's likeness Greatest of All Time Inc. (G.O.A.T. Inc.).
However, as detailed by USA Today in 2017, the acronym GOAT doesn't seem to have come into use until LL Cool J's 2000 album "G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time)." With time, both the periods and the need for an explanatory parenthetical would fade, leaving us with a four-letter term for the ultimate in greatness -- one with a convenient (if sometimes messy) animal tie for the purposes of emojis and physical representation.
Who was considered the GOAT before Jordan?
The title was ripe for consolidation because, through the 1980s, there wasn't any consensus on the greatest basketball player ever.
The conversation usually started with the great NBA debate: Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell? The contemporary rivals presented contrasting cases for the moniker, Chamberlain's built on unparalleled individual stats and Russell's on a run of team success (11 championships in 13 seasons) unseen before or since.
Because of that contrast, the choice between Chamberlain and Russell was as much a statement of values as a reflection on their careers. And so it was that while Russell was the first choice by the Pro Basketball Writers Association in 1980, when the NBA was honoring its 35th anniversary team, the 1988 book "100 Greatest Basketball Players" by Wayne Patterson and Lisa Fisher favored Chamberlain.
By then, the other choice was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who surpassed Chamberlain as the league's career scoring leader in 1984 and had overtaken Russell with six MVP awards -- still the most ever. With Abdul-Jabbar still active in 1986, a 60-member panel of current and former coaches and GMs and retired players selected by The Dallas Morning News picked him as the greatest ever, with Oscar Robertson a surprising second place, Russell third and Chamberlain fourth.
During the 1980s, stars Larry Bird and Magic Johnson also got some "greatest of all time" consideration as their Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers repeatedly battled in the NBA Finals. But by that point, the star who would eclipse them all had already begun his ascent.
When did Jordan become a GOAT contender?
In a 2009 interview, Michael Jordan explains why he doesn't want to be referred to as the greatest basketball player of all time.
Remarkably, after coaching Jordan during the 1984 Olympics, USA coach Bob Knight called Jordan "the best basketball player I've ever seen play."
While others waited to see how Jordan's skills would translate to the pro game, it didn't take long for him to find his way into the discussion for greatest ever. As early as 1989, when Jordan had won only a single MVP and was appearing in the conference finals for the first time, The Dallas Morning News reported that GMs debated during the draft lottery whether he might deserve consideration.
According to Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle, a similar debate raged in playoff pressrooms as Jordan -- then playing point guard for coach Doug Collins -- averaged 34.8 points, 7.6 assists and 7.0 rebounds per game during the postseason.
Still, Jordan was dogged by the question of whether he could make his teammates better -- essentially code for whether he could translate his individual success into championships. Even Jordan's coach, Phil Jackson, seemed to share this concern.
When Jackson first joined the Bulls' coaching staff as an assistant to Collins in 1987, Sam Smith's book "The Jordan Rules" quotes him as telling Collins, "We had a rule of thumb in New York: A star makes the players around him better. That was our belief. That was the measure of what a star was, [Walt] Frazier or [Willis] Reed picking up for you, covering you defensively, allowing you to play harder because they could intimidate an opponent."
As late as 1990, after replacing Collins, Jackson noted that teams with the NBA's leading scorer had rarely won the championship. In fact, Smith related, at the time only one scoring champion had won the title that same season since the introduction of the shot clock: Abdul-Jabbar in 1970-71 (when he was still known as Lew Alcindor). Hence Jackson's desire to create more balance with the triangle offense.
(Of course, Jordan remained the league's scoring leader during all six Chicago championship seasons. So much for that precedent.)
When the Bulls rampaged through the 1991 playoffs, going 15-2 en route to Jordan's first title, any questions about his ability to win were removed. By that September, then-Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser could casually refer to Jordan as "the greatest player. Ever." (When Jordan was picked as Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year that December, SI's Jack McCallum left the question a bit more open but leaned toward Jordan.)
When did Jordan remove any doubt?
By the time Jordan announced his first retirement in October 1993, the idea that he was the best basketball player we'd ever seen was something of a consensus. Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf used the phrase "greatest of all time" during the news conference, and while Reinsdorf was biased, SI's McCallum echoed the sentiment. So too did then-SI colleague Steve Wulf in his infamous article urging Jordan to give up his baseball career.
And when Bob Costas put the question to Johnson during the 1993 NBA Finals, Johnson -- having retired and then serving as a commentator for NBC -- didn't hesitate to call Jordan the best ever. "Michael Jordan is not only the best basketball player but he's probably the most exciting basketball player to ever play," Johnson said during a segment assessing the Bulls' legacy.
That's remarkable given Jordan had played just nine NBA seasons, far fewer than Russell (13) and Chamberlain (14), let alone Abdul-Jabbar (20) -- testament to the heights Jordan had already reached, as well as the fact that the discussion among basketball players is shaped more by peak performance than by the kind of career milestones that are paramount in baseball.
It was only after Jordan's return, though, that he could pull away from the field by adding two more MVP trophies (matching Russell and surpassing Wilt) and leading Chicago to three more championships -- including the best record for any championship team at 72-10, then the most wins ever in the regular season.
Essentially, Jordan transcended the Chamberlain-Russell stats vs. titles debate. Jordan offered more team success than Chamberlain and greater individual stats than Russell.
When Jordan retired a second time, having capped his Bulls career with one of the most iconic shots in NBA history, the question was less whether he was the greatest basketball player of all time so much as the best ever in any sport. Shortly thereafter, ESPN's SportsCentury ranked Jordan ahead of Ali (No. 3) and Babe Ruth (No. 2) as the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century. (Chamberlain was the next basketball player on the list at No. 13.)
It's unclear how long Jordan will remain the consensus GOAT. The same recency factor that has worked in Jordan's favor vis-à-vis the likes of Ruth might eventually turn against him as LeBron James makes his own case. As my colleague Ohm Youngmisuk detailed last week, younger NBA players have known Jordan only through YouTube highlights and have grown up idolizing James and Kobe Bryant instead. It remains to be seen whether "The Last Dance" will elevate Jordan's status among those who never saw him play.
One thing is certain: Jordan's greatness will make him more difficult to displace as GOAT than anyone who came before him.