Dr. J

by Julius Erving

  Would I play basketball if I weren’t getting paid?

  Of course.

  Would I play several hundred games a season, practice every day, and undergo surgeries and therapies and rehabs? No.

  I think I’m different from many athletes, in that as much as I enjoy the game, it does not define me. And as a father, I realize that there is one me, call him Dr. J, who is the basketball player and who lives out there on the court and in the public imagination. But there is also Julius, and he’s a father and businessman trying to do what’s right by his family.

  Julius wants to be home with his kids, wishes he could go to every teacher-parent conference and every school play and basketball practice. I want to drive my kids to their private school in Locust Valley every day, but I can’t because I’m on a plane somewhere over Ohio or sitting in a hotel room in Denver. That life, of being on the road with the guys, which can be intoxicating the first few seasons, becomes what it is, a six-month-long business trip.

  It’s the hardest part of being a pro baller—the weeks away from my family, the milestones, the birthdays, the first steps, the first words that I’m missing. I’m pulled toward home, and find myself resenting the time I spend on the road.

  Turquoise does a sensational job at home. Our parenting roles diverge, in part because of our schedules. She is the disciplinarian, the hawk who watches their academic performance, regulates their routines, and has to oversee the everyday rigors of running a family: bandaging scrapes, cleaning up spills, enforcing bedtimes. That will change as we age and our kids grow up.

  Bill Cosby once told me that his greatest challenge as a father was growing up poor but having rich children. We are always struggling to balance our own ingrained sense of scarcity with our children’s reality of virtually unlimited resources. We want to give our children everything, the latest toys, the best clothes, the finest schools. And why not? Our children should be able to enjoy the fruits of my success, yet it still seems to both Turq and me that there is something wrong with all this abundance.

  I think the mistakes we make are in part by trying to solve their every problem. If Cheo or J is having an issue in school, or perhaps not getting along with a teacher, instead of telling the kid to stick it out, to see it through, we are too quick to bring in specialists and counselors, to see about transferring kids from one private school to another. This seems to be what our wealthy neighbors are doing, yet ultimately, what are we teaching our kids?

  So we begin the years of hushed conversations after the kids have gone to bed: The boys coming into my office hangdog because of trouble at school or a bad report card. The children playing one of us against the other. The tumult and joys of being parents and discovering all the ways we are going wrong but also the daily miracle of our children growing and becoming smarter. Because of us? In spite of us? I never know.

  I am learning fatherhood as I go, as do we all, and it is more challenging than anything I do on the court. And perhaps more gratifying.

  19.

  If the ABA is in the process of collapsing, I’m more determined than ever to go out with the final ABA Championship to go along with my third straight MVP award. We finish with the second-best record in the league at 55–29, 5 games behind Denver and David Thompson, who comes in second to me in scoring as he wins the Rookie of the Year award. Even though I score over 29 a game, with 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2.5 blocks, we are a surprisingly balanced scoring team, with six players averaging double figures. Brian Taylor, Al Skinner, and of course Super John constitute an explosive backcourt, and rookie Kim Hughes from Wisconsin gives us a major boost on the boards.

  Still, I have to be honest: the only way this team is going to win the championship is if I’m playing plenty of minutes and getting lots of touches. Kevin, though, figures out he needs to rest me toward the end of the season.

  “Look, you were exhausted last year,” he’s telling me. “You’re not going to be tired this year in the playoffs. I want you to either take a vacation or I want to play you for a quarter or so most nights. Are you okay with that?”

  I’m not. I want to play. But I have to respect Kevin’s basketball wisdom. It doesn’t matter if we’re winning or losing, I’m sitting down for the fourth quarter. It kills me, but this is something I have to do for the team. I’m still practicing hard, and as the playoffs get closer, I’m starting to think the games against the Spurs are going to be easier.

  The Wednesday before the series, we’re at Cathedral College in a pre-practice dunk line. I take the ball, go up and slam, and the rim comes down in my hand. It rips right off the backboard. I’m standing there with this piece of iron, sort of studying it.

  “That’s it!” Kevin is shouting, waving his arms. “That’s it! You guys are ready. Go home.”

  20.

  The Spurs are a dynamic team, and this turns out to be a grueling series. Kenon and Paultz and Mike Gale, all part of our 1974 Championship, are looking for revenge, and some of the players we got in that trade, especially Rich Jones, are looking to prove how wrong the Spurs were in dealing them. In game 4, after we go up 2 games to 1, Rich hard-fouls Kenon and then both benches clear and a full-blown brawl breaks out. Guys are grabbing each other and taking swings. Rich punches a half-dozen guys—he bloodies Billy Paultz’s nose—and at one point he’s looking to knock out Gervin, who at six foot seven weighs about 170 pounds, and Gervin just starts backpedaling and then he looks over at me like, “I ain’t stupid.”

  Amazingly, no one is ejected and the Spurs go on to win that game. We win a tough game 7 at home, and then get a week off before we start the finals against Denver: David Thompson, Dan Issel (who they picked up in a trade from Kentucky), and the guy who is going to be guarding me, Bobby Jones, the devoutly Christian, six-foot-nine second-year forward out of North Carolina and already known as one of the toughest defenders in basketball.

  Denver has had our number the last two seasons, winning 15 of 22 games we played. This is a deep, talented team.

  We come out strong, however, as I score 45 in game 1 and 48 in game 2. We gain a split at McNichols Sports Arena and hold a 3–2 lead going into game 6 at home. We start the game flat, and Denver is hot. Thompson scores 42, Issel adds 30 points and 20 rebounds, and Bobby Jones is slowing me down enough to keep our team out of its offensive rhythm. By late in the third quarter, we’re down by 22 and it’s looking like we’re heading to Denver for game 7. Kevin calls a time-out, and when I come over he says, “Thompson is killing us. Go get him.” Kevin also has us play a zone press—I think of Don Ryan holding his hands up to his neck to call out our press—which is demanding of a team that has played nearly 100 games to that point. But because of the rest Kevin gave me down the stretch, I have the legs for it. No one is going to stop David Thompson in his prime, but I do keep him from imposing his will so that when our offense starts to catch fire—Super John scores 16 points in the fourth quarter and Brian Taylor and Jim Eakins both get hot and I finish with 31 points and 19 rebounds—we manage to claw back into the game and then put them away 112–106 to win the last ABA Championship.

  I later heard that the Coliseum wasn’t even sold out that night, but our fans were going crazy, fueling our furious comeback, and after we win, they come charging on the court. I love those Long Island fans who dig the ABA and understand what we are about. Some of the sports columnists have been writing that the NBA can’t be called the best basketball league because they don’t have Dr. J in it. Well, I’m in a basketball league and it’s called the ABA.

  Still, that epic game 6 rally? It wasn’t nationally televised. And that tells the story of the ABA right there.

  21.

  It’s not a merger, it’s a capitulation. Only four teams will join the NBA—Indiana, San Antonio, Denver, and the Nets. Each team has to pay the NBA $3.2 million. The ABA teams that join get no TV money for the first three seasons in the league, and Roy is going to have to pay the Knicks an additional $4.8 million territorial fee for playing
in the same market. Nonetheless, Roy has gone and signed Nate Archibald for $400,000 a year. I’ve still got four years left on an seven-year contract for $2 million. Roy has promised to take care of me.

  “Irwin,” I tell my business manager, “we need to get this done.”

  He’s telling me I have to hold out. There’s no other way we’re going to get our money.

  I’m at my estate in Upper Brookville. My boys come into the paneled room upstairs that I have converted into my office. Every house I live in, I have my own office, where I can keep my papers neat and organized, my books all lined up, and my pens and pencils nice and straight. Families mess things up—they do—so I need to have my little sanctuary where order prevails.

  “What you doing, Daddy?” Cheo asks.

  “I’m working.”

  “What you working on?”

  “Business.”

  “You’re a basketball player,” Cheo says. “Why do you need to do business?”

  “Because everything is a business, even basketball.”

  “Basketball? Nah.” Cheo starts making a move, a sort of wiggle. I’ve already played a little ball with Cheo. He’s got some swagger. “Basketball is . . . um, you shoot the ball!”

  “You’re right.” I take Cheo up on my lap, and J follows after him. “You shoot the ball. And they pay me to play ball. What I need to do now is make sure I get paid . . . enough.”

  “What’s enough?”

  I smile. “Now, that’s a good question.”

  I’m one of the lucky ones, I know that, in life, in the opportunities America has given me, but also among my ABA compadres, so many of whom are finding their careers cut short now that the league has folded. Besides these four teams and superstars like Artis Gilmore, Moses Malone, Bad News Barnes, and a few others who are taken in the dispersal draft, most players will be scrambling for spots on the bench or looking for work in Europe. And the only difference between these guys and the ninth or tenth or eleventh guy riding an NBA bench is that the GM in, say, Phoenix or Chicago doesn’t know his name or hasn’t been watching him play for the last five seasons. I’m thinking of guys like Billy Schaeffer, my teammate on the Nets and up at the Rucker, who will never play in the NBA.

  But, as I tell my boys, it’s business. And I can only take care of my own business.

  I don’t bring my work home with me. But I do discuss with Turquoise what our options are. I have to hold out, which is the sort of move I’ve become used to after years of contract disputes with Earl Foreman and Roy Boe where we seem to always be playing brinksmanship. But this year, it seems different. This is hard for me because we are the ABA champs and we have the chance to show the NBA that we can win in any league. Instead, while the guys are practicing, getting ready for their first NBA season, I’m driving Turquoise to our obstetrician appointments as she heads into her eighth month with our next child. As always, I’m an excited, expectant daddy, but my heart breaks a little when the guys send me a sneaker on which they’ve all written notes: “Come on, Doc, we need you,” from Super John; “You know you’re our guy,” from Tim Bassett.

  I tell Turq I’m feeling like shit.

  “Then go to practice,” she says.

  I can’t. I explain what this holdout means, that Irwin has told me the problem is that Roy doesn’t have the money to pay the Knicks, to sign Tiny, and to renegotiate my deal. Which means, my career with the Nets may be over. And my holdout is making me look like a bad guy in all the papers.

  “Never lose sight of the fact that this is a business,” Irwin is telling me, “and if people weren’t going to make money off you, then you wouldn’t have any leverage and this wouldn’t be an issue. You’d just be this forgotten black guy in the corner.”

  I would consider playing for the Knicks. I ask Irwin about that. There is the possibility Roy could sell my contract to the Knicks instead of paying the territorial rights fee. How can the Knicks resist putting me together with Clyde? That’s a winning nucleus right there. But apparently, according to Irwin, the Knicks are ultimately more interested in the money than I am. “But how much does Roy really care about you, Julius, if he is offering you in lieu of payment?”

  Irwin has a point.

  “We’ve just got to hold on. We’ll get our deal,” he says.

  I agree.

  “Where else would you go?” he asks.

  I think about which NBA teams are close enough so that I can still live here on Long Island. I’m home. I don’t want to move. There’s basically Boston and Philly. But Philly is right down the turnpike, a straight shot, an hour and fifteen minutes by train, a much easier commute than Boston.

  “Philadelphia,” I tell Irwin.

  Irwin also handles the Kangaroo Kid, Billy Cunningham, who was back playing for the 76ers where he had won a championship with Wilt in 1967, so he has good relations with GM Pat Williams and owner Fitz Dixon. Irwin also represents George McGinnis. George got a $2.5 million deal from the Sixers last year, so we know they are serious.

  The Sixers are an intriguing team at that point. They won 46 games last season, led by McGinnis and Doug Collins. They have some exciting young players in Lloyd Free, Joe Bryant (who would later have a son named Kobe), and a monstrous young center named Darryl Dawkins. And from the ABA they have already signed Caldwell Jones. This is a potentially loaded lineup. Particularly attractive is the possibility of playing with McGinnis, who at six foot eight and 240 pounds is built like, well, like Dwight Howard. As Pat Williams says, “George has muscles in places where other guys don’t even have places.” But George is the superstar on this team, his lousy playoff performance last season notwithstanding. Don’t forget, he won back-to-back ABA titles with the Pacers. If George doesn’t want me, then I’m not going. George is a great player, but I’m more flamboyant, and I don’t want to get into a situation where I’m resented if the fans and media are giving me more attention.

  I hear from Irwin that George has told Pat Williams, “If you can get Julius, you have to.”

  Pat Williams comes up to New York to meet with Irwin, and eventually Irwin gets the Sixers to offer a $500,000 signing bonus, $450,000 a year for six years, plus the Sixers will pay Roy Boe $3 million to help him pay off the New York Knicks. It breaks my heart to be leaving the Nets. I won titles with these guys—Bill Melchionni, Brian Taylor, Al Skinner, John Williamson, Kim Hughes, Tim Bassett, Jim Eakins, George Bucci, Billy Schaeffer, Rich Jones, Ted McClain. It hurts but, as I told my boys, this is a business.

  As always, I read and reread every word of the contract, going over it with Irwin and making sure I understand the meaning of every clause. This is something I do to this day in my business dealings. At three a.m., I sign.

  22.

  In October 1976, I have a new baby daughter, Jazmin Antiqua Erving, and a new team, the Philadelphia 76ers in a new league. Here I am, coming in the side door again, sliding into the NBA from the ABA, joining a new team a day before the season opener. We have a press conference at the Spectrum, I practice that afternoon with the team and then the next night we start the season against my old ABA nemesis the San Antonio Spurs. As I’m dressing, pulling on my new number 6 jersey, George McGinnis looks at me and shakes his head. “You sure look funny in that uniform, Doc.”

  When we come on the court, the message board hanging down from the rafters says, “Is there a Doctor in the house?” The Spectrum is bulging with over seventeen thousand and when they introduce me, the crowd gets up and cheers for two minutes. (Do you know what that feels like? To have an arena full of fans screaming for you? I never get used to it.) Then super-fan Steve Sohms runs on the court and puts a black medical bag on the Sixers logo. The place is as loud as the Nassau Coliseum when we were coming back to beat the Nuggets. And I haven’t played a minute yet.

  I’m rusty from five months away and finish with 17 points off the bench, in particular because of a terrible night at the foul line where I go 5 for 13.

  I’m playing against plenty of my
old teammates: George Gervin, Larry Kenon, Mike Gale, and the Whopper. During the game, we’re all talking about how we don’t like this new ball. We miss the red, white, and blue, the way you can judge the spin as soon as the ball is in the air. Caldwell agrees: this new ball sucks.

  But after a year in the NBA, George assures me I’ll get used to it. He scores 29 and Doug Collins scores 30. But we lose our first 2 games of the season, traveling up to Buffalo two days later and losing to the Braves, who have sitting over there on the bench a guy I remember from the ABA, Moses Malone, who they got in a trade after Portland had taken him in the dispersal draft. (Portland has another good young center, named Bill Walton.) They beat us without Moses, and two days later they trade him to Houston for a couple of future first-round draft choices.

  Now “The Best Team Money Can Buy,” as the papers are calling us, is 0-2.

  We break through and win our first against the Jazz and Pete Maravich in New Orleans where George scores 37 and Doug adds another 25. I’m getting back into game shape and picking up the playbook—and my new coach Gene Shue has a playbook thicker than a Manhattan phone book—and the next game against Houston, I score 27 in our second win. We go on a run where we win 10 out of 13, and I am adjusting to Gene’s vision for our team. His dogma is balanced scoring. His idea of a perfect team is to have 11 guys scoring 10.8 points each every night. It’s clear he’s not going to adjust his philosophy for me.

  I get along with every coach. I listen. I follow instructions. Perhaps to a fault. It’s very different with today’s players, and that may be for the better. In my era, I try to conform my game to whatever system the coach has installed. My first year with the 76ers, I go from winning scoring titles and averaging 22 shots a night to scoring 21.6 points a night and shooting about 16 times a game. My field goal percentage actually goes down in Gene’s offense, but that’s because with George, Caldwell, and Dawkins up front, he has me playing farther from the basket. For the first time in my career, I don’t average double figures in rebounds.