George Gervin: ABA vs NBA, Life After Basketball, And ACTING |

February 25, 2026·1 hr 5 min·5 clips

David Thompson scored 73 points to steal the scoring lead, and Gervin responded by dropping 33 in a single quarter en route to 63 points in 33 minutes.

1. The Ricky Cobb Show features George Gervin, four-time NBA scoring champion and ABA star, discussing the 50th anniversary of the ABA-NBA merger and his life after basketball. 2. George Gervin, known as 'The Iceman,' is the guest; host Ricky Cobb describes Gervin as one of his childhood heroes and posts a photo of Gervin on his personal wall of honor alongside Earl Campbell and Larry Bird. 3. The episode's core thesis is that ABA players built the foundation of modern NBA basketball but receive insufficient historical credit, a gap that the Prime docuseries Soul Power aims to close. 4. Gervin was discovered playing semi-pro basketball by Johnny Reed Kerr, who called Virginia Squires owner Earl Foreman, who signed Gervin on the spot after watching a single shoot-around. 5. As a young Squire in 1973, Gervin became Julius Erving's teammate; he describes Erving refusing to let the rookie leave practice early, forcing daily one-on-one sessions that Gervin credits with building his confidence and sense of belonging. 6. The Virginia Squires sold Gervin's contract to the San Antonio Spurs due to financial struggles, a culture shock that took him from an all-Black environment in Virginia to a predominantly Hispanic community in San Antonio — where he has now lived for 50 years. 7. Coach Bob Bass converted Gervin from forward to guard in San Antonio, a positional shift Gervin calls career-defining: 'I went from guys 240, 250, pushing me around, to the 6'2", 6'1" — I thought I was in heaven.' 8. Gervin and host Cobb discuss the Kentucky Colonels being excluded from the 1976 ABA-NBA merger despite being arguably the league's dominant franchise, with Gervin attributing the exclusion to 'the old establishment' that 'just didn't want to change.' 9. Gervin argues that seven or eight ABA players made the NBA All-Star team in the year following the merger, and that the slam dunk contest (first held in Denver in 1976) and the three-point shot both originated in the ABA more than a decade before the NBA adopted them. 10. On the 1978 scoring title race: rival David Thompson scored 73 points in an afternoon game to take the lead by 'some percentage points,' and the media called Gervin to say he needed 59 to reclaim it; after missing his first six shots, he scored 33 in the second quarter and finished with 63 points in 33 minutes. 11. Gervin says his purpose that night was not to chase Wilt Chamberlain's record but simply to reach 59: 'When I got 59, the trainer said, all right, Ice, you got 59. I said, wait a minute — let me get a few more points just in case they miscalculated. That's how I got 63.' 12. Coach Doug Moe, who died shortly before the interview was recorded, rallied the whole team to help Gervin: 'He let David go off and tried to steal the scoring chance from George, from Ice. Let's help Ice get the scoring title back.' 13. Gervin cites his career totals — 26,595 points and over 50% shooting as a guard — as the measure of efficiency that modern high-volume scorers don't match: 'What they sell today is a guy that averaged what I averaged, but he's shooting 30 times to average it.' 14. Director Josh Safdie contacted Gervin three to four years after they met at a card show in New York, asking him to play Lawrence — a Black ping-pong parlor owner in 1950s America — in the film Marty Supreme alongside Timothée Chalamet. 15. Gervin spent one day on set, arriving at 3 p.m. and leaving at 4 a.m., and describes Chalamet as 'a hardworking little young man' who 'is going to be a superstar because he just got it.' 16. Gervin reports that a new generation now recognizes him primarily as an actor from Marty Supreme rather than as a basketball player: 'I get calls from around the country and people saying, I ain't know you was an actor.' 17. The conversation is warm and conversational throughout, with Cobb openly emotional about interviewing a childhood hero; Gervin is reflective and calm, frequently circling back to gratitude for teammates and the value of historical research. 18. The interview style is fan-to-legend, with Cobb supplying specific statistical details and Gervin responding with behind-the-scenes context and personal memory. 19. Basketball historians, ABA documentary viewers, and fans of the 1970s–80s NBA who want first-person accounts from a primary source will appreciate this episode. 20. Listeners looking for tactical analysis of the modern game or who have no frame of reference for 1970s basketball may find the episode less engaging.

As heard by us

A scoring-title showdown opens into a wider case for why the ABA mattered.

George Gervin turns this into a history lesson that still has some bite. Rick Cobb steers the conversation from the ABA's place in basketball history to the David Thompson scoring-title chase, and the 63-point night in New Orleans gives it a clear center.

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Why you'd press play

You want George Gervin explaining the ABA before somebody else rewrites the score.

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