Julius 'The Doctor' Erving elevates to No. 15 in 'The Basketball 100': 'Doc was so special'

“The Basketball 100” is the definitive rating of the 100 best NBA gamers of all time from The Athletic’s group of award-winning writers and analysts, together with veteran columnists David Aldridge and John Hollinger. This excerpt is reprinted from the e-book, which additionally incorporates a foreword by Corridor of Famer Charles Barkley.

“The Basketball 100” is obtainable Nov. 26. Learn David Aldridge’s introduction and the entire excerpts right here.

You’ll be able to’t blame Michael Cooper for making one of many first recorded enterprise selections.

On January 5, 1983, Cooper — who would go on to change into an eight-time NBA All-Defensive Workforce choice and the 1986-87 NBA Defensive Participant of the 12 months — and his Los Angeles Lakers had been in Philadelphia to satisfy the 76ers, whom they’d vanquished within the earlier season’s NBA Finals. Huge recreation, huge implications. The sport, as befitting two of the league’s titans, went to additional time.

Within the further session, James Worthy tried a cross to Jamaal Wilkes, the Lakers’ silky small ahead. However Philly’s Maurice Cheeks deflected the cross, and the ball bounced away from Wilkes and to Cooper close to midcourt.

Besides Julius Erving obtained to the ball first, slicing in entrance of Cooper. Two dribbles later, Erving was simply contained in the free-throw line prolonged. Cooper, although, was timing his steps to have the ability to contest a drive-by Erving. Michael Cooper, being Michael Cooper — the person Larry Fowl would later say was the most effective defender he’d ever confronted—may nonetheless get to this shot. Perhaps block it. As a minimum, he may problem it.

Besides, after that second dribble, Erving inhaled the ball along with his large proper hand. And, in a single movement, he palmed and cuffed the ball, bringing it previous Cooper, all the way down to his waist, after which again up, as he rose — along with his outstretched arm, a human embodiment of the Jimi Hendrix lyric from “Purple Haze”: “’Scuse me whereas I kiss the sky.”

At this level, Cooper knew what was going to occur. He ducked, his head barely lacking the backboard, as Erving flew by and flushed the ball, an inexplicable amalgam of grace and violence, as the group on the Spectrum detonated.

“Wayyyyy — he rocked the infant to sleep, and slam dunked!” Lakers legendary play-by-play man Chick Hearn exclaimed.

A long time later, nobody remembers Wilkes scored 36 that evening, that Philly’s Andrew Toney made the game-winning basket within the last seconds of additional time, that it was a regular-season recreation in January and never an NBA Finals recreation in June. They solely keep in mind Dr. J.

Has there ever been a extra good nickname?

We wish our medical doctors to be elite at what they do, proper? Erving was simply that. He labored endlessly on his recreation whereas rising up on Lengthy Island, studying the right way to rating with both hand and concentrating as a lot on rebounding as he did on offense.

We wish our medical doctors to have empathy and humility. Erving was barely seen at Roosevelt Excessive in Hempstead, New York, with solely a handful of faculty scholarship provides — together with the one he selected, from the College of Massachusetts Amherst, which was hardly a hoops manufacturing facility. Erving was the telegenic, genial face of two leagues throughout his 16-year skilled profession, carrying the ABA for 5 seasons with the Virginia Squires and New York Nets earlier than going to Philly and the NBA in 1976 as a part of the NBA-ABA merger.

Afterward, Dr. J turned one of many first Black athletes tapped for nationwide endorsements and appeared to have time for everybody, from followers to media, off the ground.

“I performed with some nice ones — Invoice Walton and David Thompson. However Doc was so particular,” mentioned Brian Taylor, the Nets level guard when Erving led the group to 2 ABA titles in 4 seasons.

“I don’t keep in mind Doc elevating his voice on the guys,” Taylor mentioned. “He was such a diplomat. He simply talked to you. Some superstars, they go off on their teammates in the event that they’re not producing or in the event that they’re not having evening. Doc was all the time there to elevate you — ‘Don’t fear about it, BT, you’ll get the subsequent one,’ stuff like that. All the time there to consolation you. ‘Preserve your head up — don’t fear about something, we’re going to get it performed.’ All the time inspiring confidence that we may get it performed.”

Erving’s place in basketball historical past is evident. He received these two ABA titles alongside along with his lone NBA title in Philly in 1983 after seven straight years of painful postseason losses, together with three NBA Finals defeats.

When Erving retired in 1987, he was simply considered one of three gamers in basketball historical past who’d scored 30,000 or extra factors. And his effectivity stays fairly underrated — he was a profession 51 p.c shooter. However it was the aptitude and the model with which he operated that made him stand out. His skill to soar and play above the rim was — whereas the most recent in an extended line of high-flying hoopers, from Elgin Baylor to Jumpin’ Johnny Inexperienced to Connie Hawkins — among the many most compelling of all.

Maybe solely Michael Jordan has a higher place in our creativeness amongst these elevated. Erving, along with his trademark Afro seemingly transferring to its syncopation, managed each his physique and the basketball in midair. He was current on the creation of the Slam Dunk Contest throughout All-Star Weekend, which started within the ABA in 1976. What else is Mark Landsberger, a burly Lakers ahead within the late Nineteen Seventies and early ’80s, remembered for as a participant, apart from his function in Erving’s gravity-stalling piece of magic in the course of the 1980 NBA Finals?

“With nice prejudice, Michael’s the best that ever performed the sport. However, trustworthy to God — a younger Doc? Boy, he was one thing,” mentioned Marty Brennaman, greatest generally known as the longtime, embellished baseball broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds, however who additionally spent three-plus years within the early Nineteen Seventies because the Squires’ play-by-play man.

Not like so many all-time gamers who’ve remained within the public eye so long as the now-74-year-old Erving, Dr. J engenders nearly no backlash. Contemplate that in 2020, ESPN devoted 10 hours of feverishly devoured airtime to Jordan in The Final Dance documentary — half of which appeared to revolve across the notion that the best participant of the final 50 years was a raging a-hole to his teammates.

But, when’s the final time you heard anybody say one thing dangerous about Erving—even when he acknowledges his personal failings?

“I’m a husband, attempting and never all the time succeeding to reside as much as vows of constancy amid the seductions of superstar and fame; I’m a father, in search of to impart values and my perception in America to my little children, pulled too typically by the calls for {of professional} sports activities away from these youngsters; I’m a businessman, believing deeply within the system that rewarded me and now in search of to construct one other legacy,” Erving wrote in his searingly trustworthy 2013 autobiography.

Later, he wrote: “I’ve harm too many individuals. For that, I ask forgiveness.” Publicly, although, Erving appeared, and appears, to transcend … nicely, every little thing. Race. Class. Gender. Age. Sports activities.

“The three classiest athletes that I’ve ever been related to are Nancy Lopez, Tony Perez, and Julius Erving,” Brennaman mentioned. “He was as elegant a man; from the day that he placed on a Squires uniform when he was a younger man that only a few folks had any clue about out of the College of Massachusetts, he was respectful of individuals. To me, he had the entire bundle.

“He was an unimaginable expertise. And on high of that, he was a rattling good man to associate with it. I obtained to know his mother and obtained to know his sister when he was enjoying in Virginia. Once you obtained to know his mother, you understood it. She was a slightly forceful girl. And you may inform from the get-go that bringing this younger man up in life that she wasn’t going to place up with a complete lot of foolishness. I believe all of it stemmed from her.”

Erving definitely obtained a way of proportion and perspective from his late mom, Callie Mae, and his sisters and youthful brother. He began enjoying often for a Salvation Military group on Lengthy Island as a young person whereas working a paper route. He didn’t complain to his coaches when he didn’t get the ball as typically as his burgeoning expertise would possibly warrant. A part of that reticence may need stemmed from the prohibition on dunking within the faculty recreation when Erving performed. A part of it could have been that Erving didn’t attain his full peak till his junior 12 months in faculty. Slowly, although, his inventory started to rise, particularly as soon as he hit UMass.

“It wasn’t apparent to me then — it’s apparent to me now — that he was the person about campus,” mentioned Al Skinner, the longtime faculty head coach, who was on the freshman group at UMass in 1970 when Erving performed on the varsity after which performed with Erving with the Nets within the ABA.

Erving discovered himself in Philly after the Nets bought his rights to the Sixers after the NBA-ABA merger. (Bettmann / Getty Pictures)

Added Skinner: “He bought out the constructing when the freshmen performed, and half the folks left when the varsity performed. And once we performed as freshmen, all people was there [waiting for Erving, by then on the varsity, to play in the second game]. If Amherst, it’s chilly. Individuals had been lining up at three o’clock to get right into a recreation at six o’clock that night. I simply thought that was the best way it was.”

Erving’s rep grew additional when he began enjoying within the summers on the celebrated Rucker Park in New York Metropolis. NBA superstars and up-and-coming faculty abilities battled on the blacktop there in entrance of followers who packed the courts. Individuals would even sit in close by timber and on rooftops to catch the motion. Erving let his recreation communicate for him slightly than trash discuss.

“He didn’t need to say nothing; he would go on the market and bust your ass,” mentioned Tom Hoover, the previous Knicks huge man who had fierce battles with Erving at Rucker. By then Erving was already identified by his evocative nickname.

Whereas there are lots of variations of how and when Erving obtained the nickname, the more than likely is that it got here from Leon Saunders, Erving’s teammate and pal at Roosevelt Excessive, who consistently argued with Erving over calls as they scrimmaged each other. Erving, someday, began calling Saunders “Professor,” as a result of he all the time had one thing to say. In response, Saunders mentioned, “‘What are you aware? You’re right here arguing. What are you, just like the physician?’”

Erving had already held his personal in highschool throughout exercises in opposition to NBA gamers like Wayne Embry. Now he was dunking on them in public. One in all them was Hoover. One time Erving scored with such power over him, he knocked out Hoover’s entrance plate of tooth.

“You felt that a minimum of guys who’d made it within the league, and we had been all enjoying within the league, and right here you come, they had been speaking about, ‘Wait until Dr. J comes,’ and I used to be like, ‘Who the f— is Dr. J? We’re within the NBA,’” Hoover mentioned. “However whenever you noticed him, then , you felt that basketball had simply gone to a different stage. He jogged my memory plenty of Connie. The Hawk used to play like him with these great fingers. … However Erving was a child.”

Erving turned professional after his junior season at UMass, moving into the expertise struggle between the ABA and NBA. The ABA was attempting to outlive by poaching the most effective younger gamers popping out of faculty with profitable offers. Erving signed with the Squires, spurning an opportunity to play with the Milwaukee Bucks, who had his NBA rights after drafting him twelfth within the first spherical in 1972, and a younger Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In Virginia, Erving simply missed Rick Barry, who was traded to the New York Nets when he balked at enjoying in Norfolk and would solely play briefly with stars like Charlie Scott and a younger George Gervin. It didn’t matter. Together with his large fingers and ridiculous hops, Erving dominated.

“Loads of instances, he’d deliver the ball up the ground himself, particularly if it was a fast-break state of affairs on a missed shot,” Brennaman mentioned.

“If he obtained the rebound, he’d make that call, I’m going to kick it to the guards and perhaps get it again. No person within the league may run the ground higher than he may. … There was nothing he couldn’t do. He may deal with the ball in visitors; he may deal with the ball when the ground was open and decide his spots.

“I noticed him one evening in a playoff recreation down in Miami in opposition to the Floridians. I believe he scored one thing like 53 factors. … It was silly. The numbers he put up had been really unbelievable.

“He made a transfer one evening in opposition to Roger Brown [of the Pacers] on the Indianapolis Fairgrounds Coliseum, made a transfer to get open beneath the basket, and scored. After the sport, the dialog stemmed from what Roger mentioned to him: He mentioned, ‘God almighty, how within the hell did you do this?’ And Doc’s reply was, ‘I don’t know; I obtained within the air and did what felt proper.’ ”

That wasn’t false modesty, as Erving challenged the bounds of physics.

“I typically do not know how a transfer will finish or the place it’ll finish,” Erving wrote in his autobiography. “That sort of improvisation on the basketball court docket is a type of expression, and I come to see it as a response to what’s going on on the planet round us, the place the politics of race, the turmoil of riots, the drug tradition and rock music are remodeling how everybody seems and attire and acts.

“Off the court docket, I’m a conservative child. I don’t mess with medication. I’ve seen loads of guys stoned and I’m not fascinated by that sort of chaos or dysfunction.

“However I do really feel some want to precise myself, to insurgent, and the one place I can do it’s on the basketball court docket. I like order on the planet, and even contained in the gymnasium once I’m enjoying organized ball, I favor to play in a system, however out right here, on the concrete courts, I determine to get a bit freaky with my recreation.”

Throughout his second season in Virginia, Erving led the league in scoring at 31.9 factors per recreation. The Squires, which had been like most ABA groups dwelling month to month financially, desperately wanted cash to outlive. And Erving was seeking to transfer on. After practically leaping to the NBA, Erving stayed within the ABA when the Squires bought the rights to his contract to the Nets for ahead George Carter and money.

Taylor, the 1973 ABA Rookie of the 12 months, was fearful he’d be a part of the bundle going to the Squires for Erving.

“That complete summer time, I used to be sweating whether or not I used to be going to be traded to Virginia,” Taylor mentioned. “I mentioned, ‘I don’t wish to go to no daggone Virginia.’ … I used to be so glad when that commerce was made. It was an enormous deal in the course of the summer time. I used to be one relieved man. And it dawned on me: ‘I’m going to be enjoying with this man.’ It went from worrying to the happiest man on the planet.”

New York was loaded. Taylor may rating and cross. Rookie John Williamson, who dubbed himself “Tremendous John,” was a bucket-maker. Larry Kenon and Billy Paultz, who every turned very important function gamers with Gervin later in San Antonio, had been younger frontcourt abilities. And Erving picked up the place he left off in Virginia, averaging 27.4 factors and 10.7 rebounds for the Nets.

However he additionally knew when another person wanted a lift.

“Kenon had scored below 10 factors two video games in a row, and he appreciated to attain like no person’s enterprise,” mentioned Rod Thorn, the longtime NBA and group government who was then a Nets assistant coach below Kevin Loughery.

“We had been enjoying Indiana, they usually had George McGinnis, and he was averaging 28, 29 a recreation,” Thorn mentioned. “We’re going out on the ground, and Doc mentioned to Loughery, he sort of hung again, and he mentioned ‘Don’t fear about Kenon; I’ll care for him tonight.’ So within the first quarter, each time Doc obtained the ball, he drove it after which he handed to Kenon. Kenon obtained 12 factors within the first quarter, ended up with 20-something. Doc had like 15. McGinnis obtained his normal 26, 27, however we received the sport. We obtained again within the locker room, and [Erving] simply winked at Kevin.”

The Nets misplaced simply two playoff video games en path to the franchise’s first ABA championship in 1974. Erving received the primary of his three ABA Most Invaluable Participant awards by making the spectacular appear extraordinary.

“One evening, we’re in San Antonio,” Thorn mentioned. “James Silas undercut him. 5 toes off the ground, he’s parallel to the ground. You or me, we’d have damaged our f—— necks. He landed on his toes, like, , whenever you drop a cat? He landed on his toes. His knees had been bent, however he landed on his toes.”

A second ABA title for Erving and the Nets got here in 1976 when he once more led the league in scoring.

However the league couldn’t maintain on any longer. And not using a nationwide TV deal, its nice stars resembling Erving, Gervin, David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, and others nonetheless toiled in relative obscurity. When the leagues lastly agreed to merge, solely seven ABA groups had been remaining, and a type of—the Squires—ceased operations a month earlier than the settlement.

Even the mighty Nets wanted cash. To enter the New York market within the NBA and play alongside the Knicks, the Nets needed to pay the Knicks $4.8 million. Nets proprietor Roy Boe needed to do the unthinkable by promoting Erving’s NBA rights to the 76ers for $3 million.

Erving joined a franchise that was simply 4 years faraway from setting the league’s all-time single-season worst file at 9-73. However Philly had retooled, rapidly. Doug Collins, Darryl Dawkins, Harvey Catchings, and the enigmatic World B. Free got here within the draft; McGinnis got here from the Pacers; Caldwell Jones arrived through free company. The most effective partnership for Erving, although, could have been with Sixers longtime public tackle announcer Dave Zinkoff, whose “Julllius … Errrrrrrviiing” name after huge baskets introduced followers out of their seats.

The 76ers went to the 1977 NBA Finals however blew a 2-0 lead, falling to Walton and the Path Blazers in six video games. It started years of postseason struggles for Erving and the franchise regardless of constant regular-season profitable. The Sixers misplaced playoff collection to the Bullets, Spurs, Celtics, and Lakers — all worthy opponents — nevertheless it was no much less irritating.

Erving was as huge a famous person within the NBA as he’d been within the ABA, netting offers with Converse, Spalding, and Digital Arts, together with shopping for half possession of a Coca-Cola bottling plant. He was tapped to star within the 1979 basketball comedy The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, which survived uncharitable critiques to change into a cult traditional through the years.

And whereas he wasn’t fairly the explosive power he’d been earlier than accidents from his ABA days began slowing him down, he may nonetheless conjure greatness. Philly broke by way of in 1983 after getting future Corridor of Famer Moses Malone in a sign-and-trade take care of the Rockets. The league’s most relentless rebounder made the 76ers unbeatable, practically making good on his “Fo’, Fo’, Fo’ ” expectation of a sweep by way of the postseason. Philly misplaced only one recreation in its three playoff collection, sweeping the Lakers within the NBA Finals to seize the franchise’s first title in 16 years.

“I believe the group that we had, and me being the chief, simply inspired guys to stick with all of it the best way — 3-0 doesn’t imply something, 2-0 doesn’t imply something, 1-0 doesn’t imply something.

“4,” Erving advised NBC Sports activities Philadelphia in 2020. “4 wins. And Moses mentioned it greatest: ‘Fo’, Fo’, Fo.’ ”

Erving performed three extra seasons, transferring to capturing guard late in his profession earlier than retiring in 1987. His was one of many first fashionable “retirement excursions,” with followers in each metropolis showering him with applause.

Aside from temporary stints as a studio analyst with NBC and as an assistant common supervisor with the Orlando Magic, Erving has restricted himself in basketball the final 20 years primarily to an envoy function for the league. Sadly, he’s additionally had wrenching points in retirement.

He publicly acknowledged in 1999 that he was the organic father of tennis star Alexandra Stevenson; he had a quick affair with Stevenson’s mom, sportswriter Samantha Stevenson, within the late Nineteen Seventies.

After being advised he was Alexandra’s father, Erving made monetary preparations for her. However on the request of then-wife Turquoise, he didn’t make contact with Samantha and Alexandra till Alexandra was an grownup. Erving and Alexandra have reconciled.

And tragically in 2000, Julius and Turquoise misplaced their youngest son, 19-year-old Cory, after he inadvertently drove a automobile right into a retention pond close to the household’s residence in Sanford, Florida, and drowned. It was one other horrific private blow for Erving, whose older sister Freda had died of most cancers at age 37 and whose youthful brother Marky had died at 16 from a type of lupus.

After Cory’s loss of life, Julius and Turquoise divorced, and he remarried in 2008. Erving and his spouse, Dorys, have three youngsters and reside outdoors Atlanta along with his blended household.

And he’s nonetheless Dr. J to so many.

“Individuals love him a lot,” Taylor mentioned. “I used to be operating a constitution faculty in Phoenix. I invited him to return communicate to the enterprise of us within the metropolis and to the scholars and the workers. They cherished this man a lot, grown folks had been chasing his limo when he was leaving.

“They only needed to the touch him. Any time I get an opportunity to be with him, simply watching how folks react to him, and the way he’s so reciprocal, his appreciation of how folks view him. He’s one thing else.”

Profession ABA/NBA stats: G: 1,243, Pts.: 24.2, Reb.: 8.5, Ast.: 4.2, Win Shares: 181.1, PER: 23.6Achievements: ABA MVP (’74, ’75, ’76), NBA MVP (’81), Seven-time All-NBA, 5-time All-ABA, 11-time NBA All-Star, 5-time ABA All-Star, ABA champ (’74, ’76), NBA champ (’83), Corridor of Fame (’93)

Excerpted from “The Basketball 100” revealed by William Morrow. Copyright © 2024 by The Athletic Media Firm. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photograph: James Drake / NBAE through Getty Pictures)