Dr. J

by Julius Erving

  Charlie Scott fills me in. Joe is six foot three and has the reputation of being the best one-on-one basketball player in the city, which basically means the world. He never played high school ball, was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA and New York Nets of the ABA in 1971, and refused to go pro because that would mean taking a pay cut from his lucrative career as a heroin and marijuana dealer. He claims that when the Lakers made their offer of $50,000 a year, he already had $200,000 in cash stashed in his apartment.

  Before the game, I’m sitting on a bench with Charlie and I can hear people in the crowd sort of getting excited and pointing to a limousine that has pulled up on the other side of Eighth Avenue. The limo door swings open and out comes the Destroyer, and I’m thinking, Okay, so that’s the guy who everyone is talking about, in a full suit.

  “They gonna go crazy,” says Charlie.

  Later, we would hear that he was shooting craps in a social club. He slips out of his suit and dress shoes to reveal a tank top and basketball shorts, and then bows to the four corners of the court, saying, “I’m here, man, THE DESTROYER BE HERE!”

  Charlie stands up. “Yeah? Bring him on in here then!”

  Milbank has plenty of hoops legends on the court—in addition to Joe they have Pee Wee Kirkland and Ric “the Elevator Man” Cobb. Our transition game is killing Milbank, as we’re getting clean breakaways and Ollie Taylor and I are putting down some huge dunks. I head fake the Elevator Man and finish with a two-hand dunk to put us up double digits. “The Doctor is operating,” Plucky shrieks, “and the patient is . . . dying.”

  Charlie is the main guy on our team, the ABA Rookie of the Year, college All-American at North Carolina. And he’s a two-guard, so Joe is his responsibility. It’s still Charlie’s team.

  I’m matched up against Herman “Helicopter” Knowings. Charlie is guarding Joe. The two are calling each other out all afternoon, and Charlie is getting the better of him. We win the game in triple overtime—and with those timekeepers, that means the game could have lasted two hours—but it is never a contest between me and Joe. Still, I do throw down my usual complement of dunks on Milbank and a few over Joe. And he plays well, but no way he scores 55 points against me, the way some people will later go around saying. (The only guy who ever could ever have scored 55 points on me is Bernard King, and he could drop 55 on anybody.)

  Joe didn’t drop 55 on Charlie, either.

  That’s some bullshit.

  20.

  Proving myself at Rucker means never backing down. I’m the new kid, with the big rep and the half-million-dollar pro contract. There are plenty of pros. But you also get guys who are trying to break heads out there, because they’re outside of the pros and trying to get in by making a reputation for themselves. Every player guarding me is thinking if he can shut me down, then maybe he is in line for a $500K deal. I’m just trying to break a sweat, I’m not looking to bust anyone up. However, I do have something to prove. I’m the eager upstart rookie. After a few weekends up at Rucker, I start to develop a rep because I’m scoring pretty much at will. The focus on our team is Charlie, he’s the star, so I’m able to get free and I start to get pretty freaky with my dunks, doing baseline and reverse dunks, rock-the-cradle jams, and I’m out running on the break so much, I’m taking off from the foul line, or just a step or two inside, and Ka-chunk, the ball hits the back of the rim or my hand hits the front and it just goes down. In games against pros, guys like Jo Jo White or Tiny Archibald, I notice are sort of moving at three-quarters speed, getting to their spots, taking their shots, but they are pacing themselves. This is the off-season after all, and they don’t have anything to prove. I eventually realize that. You gotta give them a show, but you don’t have to give them the whole show because nobody is paying to get in here.

  I learn that from Clyde Frazier, with whom I form a friendship that summer. He’s playing some ball up at Rucker, and he’s so talented he can go at three-quarters speed and still control the game. He takes me under his wing a little, bringing me downtown to his tailor where I have a few suits made, slightly less flamboyant versions of some of the extreme styles that Clyde favors. He also introduces me to his agent, Irwin Weiner, who also handles pros Willis Reed and Fatty Taylor. At this point, I’m already frustrated with Bob Woolf, who is never in when I call. (I found out later he was in Europe that summer.) And Steve Arnold, who had acted as my agent, was also working with the Squires, so the way I see it, he’s more like a double agent. I like Irwin, and Clyde has already told him I’m killing guys up at Rucker.

  Irwin is a high school dropout turned garment union negotiator. He’s short, with curly red hair, and he’s always talking around a cigar in the corner of his mouth. He and Clyde share a taste for big diamonds.

  Irwin says we may be able to make a move after this season because of the conflict-of-interest issue around Arnold. But the most important thing is that I go out and have a great rookie season. “Don’t get hurt up there at the Rucker,” Irwin says. “They’re not paying you. It’s not real.”

  But sometimes, it suddenly gets real, like real-real. Tom Hoover is a six-foot-nine backup center who has played for the Knicks and Nets and wouldn’t mind another shot at the pros. He’s got a reputation for cutting down guys when they drive through the lane, throwing a lot of hip and elbow. When I take off in the lane, he just pulls me down by the shoulder and then stands over me. “Don’t be coming in here with that weak stuff.”

  I nod. I get back up. “Okay, so that’s how it is.”

  When we’re running downcourt I tell Charlie, “Get me the ball in the post. I want to go back at him.”

  I’m standing facing the basket between the left elbow and the foul line when Charlie hits me with an easy pass. I palm the ball and hold it back behind me, jab stepping with my left foot, then I dribble once, beat my man, take a step, and lift off from my right foot. Hoover is waiting for me in the lane, looking to knock me over again. He goes up, his right hand up over the front of the rim, his left reaching out to grab me. I rise up over his extended hand and rear back and throw it down through his right hand, the ball smashing his fingers so hard against the rim that there is a wet cracking sound like pulling apart a roast chicken. As the ball goes through the hoop, the crowd doesn’t let out its usual roar, as if they know that something is wrong. Hoover is standing there, holding his hand, this big, sad giant with a pained grimace on his face. He leaves the game. I’m not sure he’ll ever play at Rucker again.

  It’s payback, but I feel terrible about it. I did it intentionally because I was angry, but it doesn’t feel good to hurt a person.

  There are other Rucker dunks that are memorable but for more whimsical reasons. On one dunk, I take the ball at the baseline and elevate. I don’t know how high I am, but I feel like I am within inches of the top of the backboard, and so I throw it down with such force that the ball hits the blacktop and then bounces back up, kisses the backboard, and then goes through the basket again. Everyone is like, “Four-point play! Four-point play!” It’s because there is no net on the basket, and the trajectory somehow is just right. That’s one of those plays that has guys coming onto the court and pretending to faint.

  Carol happens to be there that day, and I can look over and see her smiling, but I can also see that she is taking all this in, that this is a new scene, so different from UMass and the Curry Hicks Cage. I was a big man on campus, sure, but a pretty girl like Carol didn’t have too much to be jealous of on a college campus. Here, she is observing a different breed of girl, the type who hang around arenas like birds of prey—chickenhead basketball hawks, basically.

  Afterward, when we’re driving back to Long Island in the Mark, Carol is asking me what I think of those women who are there.

  “Who are all those girls?”

  I tell her I don’t know.

  But I can see that she realizes something new: now that I have gone pro, and despite the promise we have made to be faithful to each other, we are playin
g in a whole different league.

  21.

  I drive the Mark down to Petersburg, Virginia, for the Virginia Squires rookie training camp and tryouts. This is supposed to be a two-day camp where Al Bianchi and Johnny Kerr can watch the drafted rookies in action—the Squires had taken Willie Sojourner, a center out of Weber State, and Dana Pagett, a point guard out of USC. I’m technically a free agent signing, but the three of us already have contracts, so we know we’re on the team. The rest of the guys invited to the camp, however, are a mix of players who lack the speed to be pros and big, burly, athletic thugs who are probably heading over to a professional wrestling tryout as soon as this camp is over. Willie is a big man, so he doesn’t mind being out there banging, and Dana is a point guard who is probably the twelfth man on the roster. But I’m a high-wire act so when I’m out there, I’m getting swarmed by these six-foot-eight guys who are free agents trying to get a spot and they figure the fastest way to do that is to take out my ankles and knees so that my place on the roster opens up. They’ve got nothing to lose.

  Not that this motley collection can stop me, but I am getting banged around, and Bianchi and Kerr aren’t taking me out. It’s because they’ve never seen me play before. So Bianchi is sitting there on the bench in this dinky Petersburg gym and his jaw is sort of hanging open and he’s squinting, as if trying to figure out if what he’s seeing is real. At one point, Kerr rushes outside somewhere to find a pay phone to call Earl Foreman, he’s so excited. I’m doing everything—running, dunking, blocking shots, grabbing rebounds—and getting knocked down every other trip down the court. Welcome to pro basketball.

  Finally, Bob Travaglini, the team trainer, who we call Chopper, goes over to Al and says, “If you don’t take Julius out, he’s gonna get hurt.”

  Bianchi comes to his senses.

  Chopper comes over to where I’m sitting on the bench. “You know, those guys out there are trying to hurt you, so I’m gonna keep you over here on the side.”

  Chopper and I become real close.

  In fact, after a few days in rookie camp, Chopper says we need to come up with a new nickname for me. Because there’s already one Doctor—Dr. Mason, the team physician. So guys keep saying Doc, and both Dr. Mason and I respond. “This ain’t gonna work,” says Chopper, who frequently needs to address both of us.

  “I’m callin’ him Dr. M,” says Chopper. “And you . . .”

  He looks me over, nods, and smiles. “You’re gonna be Dr. J, so everybody knows who’s who.”

  22.

  The Squires are what’s known as a regional team. NBA franchises have one hometown and home arena—the Philadelphia 76ers, say, playing at the Spectrum or the Boston Celtics at the Garden. However, some ABA owners have the strange idea of giving a franchise a regional base instead of one home city. For example, there is a team in our division known simply as the Floridians. That’s how they appear in the newspapers, not the Miami Floridians or Tampa Floridians but just the Floridians. They play all over Florida: a few games in Jacksonville, Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Miami, where they play in a converted aircraft hangar. I don’t pretend to be an expert at basketball attendance, but even a former undergraduate marketing major such as myself can see that this may not be the best way to build up a loyal fan base.

  The Virginia Squires take this same approach, playing in Roanoke, Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Norfolk. We play most of our games in Norfolk, and that’s where the Squires’ training facility and offices are located. I decide to rent a house on the water in Virginia Beach, just down Route 264 from Norfolk and the Norfolk Scope, the eleven-thousand-seat, brand-new arena we consider our real home court.

  I’m not alone. Freda is having a hard time. She and George have split. She never got her high school degree, and she’s been working in low-wage, go-nowhere jobs. It’s like Mom always told us growing up, if you don’t go to college, all that hard work just earns you another day of hard work. (Freda is trapped in the jewelry store basement of life.) I tell her she and the boys can come down and live with me in Virginia Beach. It’s warm here, Freda, I remind her. We’re sunbirds.

  So Freda and her two sons move down. And a good buddy of mine from UMass, Herman Curtis, rolls shotgun with me, sort of as my driver and personal assistant but really so I have a friend with me in Virginia. My first house, a suburban A-frame house on Honeytree Lane, has a sunken living room with a fireplace, two bedrooms on the first floor, and two bedrooms upstairs including my master suite, which is quiet and secluded at the end of a secluded hall. I’m still a kid, just twenty-one, so as much as I enjoy having my own house, I need to have a woman’s touch, and Freda does the cooking and cleaning, making the chicken and greens like Mom made, and having her young boys, Barry and Keith, around gives the place a real family feeling.

  Our practice facility is at the Norfolk Jewish Community Center. They have a regulation court, so every morning, a half-dozen of the tallest brothers Norfolk has ever seen walk past the old men and ladies playing pinochle and take to the court to play some ball. And we’ve got some serious hair going. My Afro is starting to take on some epic swell. In college I never let it get more than an inch or so from my scalp, but now, after Rucker and coming into the pros, I just let my freak flag fly, growing it out to three inches on top, which makes me seem even taller.

  This is the beginning of my Afro as part of my image, when fans come to see the wind pushing back my do as I’m skying toward the basket. Over the years, Darnell Hillman of the Indiana Pacers and I will vie for the biggest Afro in the ABA, with Darnell actually beating me out. He has this technique, which he shares with me when the Pacers come down to Virginia, where he takes an angel cake cutter, and after he’s washed his hair, while he’s blow-drying it, he uses the tines of this cake cutter—Darnell calls it an Afro pick—to stroke the hair up and back. Darnell shows me and, man, it works. My hair is standing up tall, makes me look six foot nine. I have always disliked long hair. I don’t like the shaggy, unkempt styles of the hippies or what some of the rock stars are sporting. They strike me as disordered, chaotic. But a well-kept Afro, that’s a different thing. It requires constant maintenance and care, fluffing it up with the Afro pick constantly. I have to spend a half-hour some mornings to get it right.

  I already know from playing Rucker League with Charlie that he’s going to be the focus of our offense. And he should be, coming off the Rookie of the Year season he just completed, leading the Squires to the ABA Eastern Conference finals. The Squires had been a rebound by committee team—but what a committee!—with four players averaging over 8 boards a night and six-foot-eleven Jim Eakins leading the team with 9.3. And while Charlie had led the team in scoring, the second leading scorer, George Carter, has been traded to the Pittsburgh Condors, in part to make space and minutes on the floor for me.

  In training camp, it feels a little like the Olympic development program all over again. Here I am, matching up against guys who are pros, supposedly among the best players in the world, and I am still able to get to my spots and impose my will. From the first day of training camp, I’m rebounding as if I’m back at the Cage or on the playground. Al Bianchi likes to run, and he builds his offense so that whoever gets the rebound—usually me, as I would average 15.7 rebounds a game that season—tries to hit the outlet at either the left or the right sideline between the top of the circle and the half-court. Then that player, who is usually Charlie Scott, can either pass the ball into the middle to our point guard Fatty Taylor or keep it himself. If the defenders slide over to guard him, he can throw the ball to the trailer, who would usually be me or my backup, Doug Moe, or the second trailer, who might be the center, Willie Sojourner, or the other forward, Ray Scott. As a result, Charlie gets a lot of shots within the system and will go on to shoot thirty times a game that year. I have to earn my shots on offensive rebounds—I average nearly 6 a game—or out of the half-court offense, especially when Charlie is double-teamed.

  So while my game at this stage is still
built around rebound, dunk, or drive, I’m also refining other elements of my repertoire. From Ray Scott, a ten-year NBA veteran, I relearn my jump shot. Ray tells me not to jump so high on my jump shot. He’s right. I like to rise as high as possible before my release, perhaps a vestige of my days playing as an undersized power forward in high school and early in college. “Don’t jump so high on your shot. Don’t worry about guys blocking it. The main thing is keep control of your body,” he tells me at the Jewish community center gym.

  If I don’t jump quite as high, I will jump straighter and the motion of my release will be more economical and repetitive. My jump at three-quarters maximum height is still plenty high enough to get a clear release, Ray points out. Then I can make my jump shot like a set shot, with the same release point every single time. “It doesn’t matter if you jump six inches over a guy or a half inch, as long as you are over him,” Ray explains.

  By the end of training camp, my mid-range jumper has become an even more formidable weapon.

  I believe the best test of how effective a player is at imposing his will on the game is his shooting percentage. If you are getting to those spots on the floor where you are comfortable with your shot, then you should be making a high percentage. The highest percentage shot, of course, is the slam dunk. If you can dunk the ball and you are getting the ball in a position from which you can throw it down, then you are an effective player, you are dictating the terms of the game. Wilt Chamberlain, and other dominant big men, can shoot a very high percentage because of this simple fact.

  Starting in training camp, I shoot the highest percentage of anyone on the team who averages over twenty minutes: I make half the shots I take. And during the preseason, we play a couple of NBA teams, the Detroit Pistons and Baltimore Bullets, and a few ABA teams. The preseason moment that clued in Bianchi and my teammates that what I was doing in practice was going to translate into the season was a game against the Kentucky Colonels. Kentucky has the best big men in the ABA, a pair of future Hall of Famers. They already had rookie sensation Dan Issel, a local boy they drafted out of Kentucky who averaged nearly 30 a night and 13 boards his rookie season. To Issel, they added first-team All-American Artis Gilmore, who is seven foot two (maybe seven foot eight with his Afro), so tall they move Issel over to power forward for his second season. Gilmore would be Rookie of the Year that season, leading the league in rebounding with 17.8. In addition, they have Wilbert Jones, one of the four Jones boys who would play in the NBA and brother of my future Sixer teammate Caldwell. And Wilbert is a good six foot eight. This is the biggest front line I’ve ever seen.