Parenting & Family Quote by Julius Erving

“They are taking steps, but they are baby steps” is the kind of measured critique Julius Erving perfected as a public figure: firm, readable, and impossible to dismiss as pure negativity. Coming from an athlete, the metaphor lands because progress in sports is literally legible in footwork. Steps are how you close out on a shooter, how you learn a new move, how you come back from injury. Dr. J uses that shared athletic grammar to translate a larger frustration: yes, movement is happening, but it’s cautious, controlled, maybe even performative.

The intent is calibrated accountability. He grants the opposition its one shield - “we’re improving” - and then shrinks it. “Baby steps” doesn’t just mean slow; it implies immaturity, dependence, a process being guided by someone else’s comfort. It’s a phrase that calls out institutions that want credit for trying without paying the full cost of change. You can picture a league office, a front office, a workplace announcing a new policy, a new committee, a new initiative. Erving’s line punctures the PR balloon without sounding like a flamethrower.

Subtextually, it’s also an insider’s warning: incrementalism is sometimes necessary, but it’s also a favorite hiding place for people who benefit from the status quo. The bite is in the contrast. “Taking steps” signals momentum; “baby” signals how easily that momentum can be stopped, praised, or redirected. In a culture that confuses motion with progress, Erving draws a clean distinction - and does it in a sentence that still sounds like locker-room talk, not a lecture.