Dr. J

by Julius Erving

  Early that season, we see that power unleashed as he goes up for a dunk in Kansas City over Bill Robinzine. Robinzine isn’t about to get hit with full-frontal Chocolate Thunder, so he sort of stands there and watches as Darryl dunks with such force that he pulls off the rim and shatters the backboard, raining shards of glass onto the court. I’m facing what’s left of the basket and thinking, What are we supposed to do now? The game is delayed for ninety minutes while they put up a new hoop.

  That’s when Darryl starts naming his dunks, calling this one “Chocolate Thunder flyin’, Robinzine-cryin’, teeth-shaking, glass-breaking, rump-roastin’, bun-toastin’, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, I am jam!”

  Three weeks later, back home in the Spectrum, he does it again. By then, the league has made it clear that this is frowned upon, but more important, they devise the collapsible rim so that it can’t happen anymore. How many guys actually cause a change in their sport’s equipment?

  It becomes something Darryl can do at will. At one point we’re practicing on a court over at Episcopal High School (our regular facility at Widener College is not available), and Darryl is looking up at the basket.

  “Man, they got these itty-bitty rims up there.” Darryl grins. “Ya’ll want to go home?”

  “Don’t do it, Darryl,” I’m saying.

  He goes up and slams the ball. The rim comes right off the wood backboard.

  Billy is furious. “What the fuck, Darryl? Why did you do that?”

  Bobby Jones glares at him for dropping the F-bomb.

  “Sorry, Bobby.” Billy shakes his head. “Okay, practice is over.”

  We’re having a fine season, on our way to 59 wins. But Boston, and Larry Bird, are doing even better, winning 61. About halfway through the season, Doug Collins tears up his foot, so we lose one of our leading scorers and team leaders. At one point, desperate for a guard, we bring in Pete Maravich, now coming off a knee surgery and riding the Utah Jazz bench. Pat is ready to sign Pistol, but Pete tells us at the last minute that he wants to also talk to Boston. He decides to join the Celtics, figuring they have a better chance to make the finals. That’s when Pat makes the deal for Lionel Hollins.

  I have my best season in the NBA, averaging 26.9 points a game, 7.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and shooting 52 percent from the field. But Kareem wins his sixth MVP award, averaging 24.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 4.5 assists while shooting 60 percent from the field. It’s hard to argue with that, though once again, I can say I have an MVP-type season, even if I don’t get the award.

  In the playoffs, we sweep the Washington Bullets and take some revenge for previous seasons, then knock out Atlanta 4-1, before coming up against Boston and Larry Bird in the Eastern Conference finals. Larry has a big series, scoring 27, 31, 22 (with 21 rebounds), and 19 before slumping to just 12 points in game 5. My numbers are 29, 24, 28, 30, and 14. I average 25 a game; Larry averages about 22. Numbers last forever, and I got mine when it seemed no one was looking. That’s why I can seem so obsessed with statistics.

  We win game 5 by 11 in Boston due in large part to Lionel Hollins torching Gerald Henderson and Tiny Archibald for 24 points. For us, the series is a triumph of Chuck Daly’s matchup scheming, as we hold Boston to under 100 points in every game.

  And we are back in the NBA finals.

  In game 1 at the Forum in Los Angeles, Kareem shows why he’s the MVP, scoring 33, grabbing 14 rebounds, and blocking 6 shots as he effectively neutralizes our big men. But we salvage a split in LA, and I gain some measure of payback against Kareem by starting the game with a monster dunk over him.

  It is easy to forget how great Kareem is. And in the years since he has retired, he has been a little bit maligned, in part because he can be socially awkward. But I have the privilege of watching him work, and often working against him, for over a decade, and each time we match up, I am awed again. As tall as he is, he has amazing leaping ability. That’s what makes him such a formidable shot blocker. The sky hook, of course, is what everyone justly remembers as Kareem’s unstoppable shot. But he has so many moves around the hoop, up-and-unders, fall-away jumpers, and he is strong enough to back down most defenders. In this series, we ask Caldwell Jones to guard Kareem, and Kareem is able to exert his will throughout. He has a great team around him in Magic Johnson, Norm Nixon, Jamaal Wilkes, and Michael Cooper. The addition of Magic makes the Lakers almost impossible to defend, because Magic is so big that when he comes inside, backing his man down, he forces our post defenders to rotate over or we concede easy layups. When Dawk or Caldwell rotates, you can just see Kareem’s eyes growing wider and wider as he knows Magic will get him the ball. The Lakers now have two dominant players at the two positions from which it is easiest to take over a game.

  Game 3 back in the Spectrum is a case in point, as Kareem lays down the law, scoring 33 points with 14 rebounds, and the Lakers win to go up 2-1.

  30.

  I’m thinking about Miles and that evening in New York at Cosby’s brownstone when he takes out his horn and just starts playing. Maybe he doesn’t know what is going to come out of the horn, and it’s only when he’s putting his lips to the mouthpiece that a spirit moves through him and then through the horn and out into the world. That is, I suppose, the improvisational nature of jazz; the mood, vibe, the other players, even the feeling in the room that night, all influence what the musician plays.

  Teddy Pendergrass tells me that’s how it works. He stands there on that stage, looks out at the audience, the ladies who have come to see him, and some nights, he finds a deep, powerful, emotional voice; sometimes, it’s a voice he’s never heard before, with a different quality of bass, with different wind and air, and it just comes out of him and he doesn’t know where it emanates from and if he will ever find it again.

  I can’t presume to compare playing basketball with what Miles or Teddy does, but in game 4, I have a moment where I glimpse how the artist can be surprised by the art he is making. We’re in the fourth quarter and trailing by 5 when I find myself isolated against Mark Landsberger. I’m palming the ball in my right hand, and I have this sense that this is a good situation—since it’s Landsberger and not Kareem who’s blocking my path. I make one dribble, and I’m at full speed. I rise. I am aware that I have gathered a great deal of momentum, that I am soaring toward the basket. I’m looking for a quick dunk, but I’ve actually picked up so much speed that I’ve drifted under the basket and Landsberger has recovered and he’s cutting off the right side of the hoop. So now I’m looking to make an outlet pass, to get it to the corner where a shooter would be spotting up, but there’s no one in position. And here comes Kareem, and he’s got his arms up and he’s bellying me farther under the basket. But I have a sense that if his arms are up, then he’s not in position to jump. As I’m flying behind the backboard, I’m aware that I don’t have much hang time left, I’m now falling, but I see a little crevice to the reverse side of the hoop, so I bring the ball and flip it up with some backspin so that it banks in. I fall to the floor, stand back up, and run down the court.

  Much is made of that move. And I want to stress, more than anything else, that it’s just another move. But it’s also a form of expression, and, like so much art, what makes it beautiful is that I am trying in the moment to transcend the limitations being placed upon me, by the defenders, by gravity, and by the situation, to accomplish the goal. But what also makes it interesting is that at any second the baseline move can spin wildly out of control, yet it doesn’t, and so there is that tension of any number of possibilities—I get fouled, I fall out of bounds, I miss the shot, I land without shooting, I pass, I lose the ball—yet when I make the shot, that seems the only plausible result. I think when Miles plays the right solo, that solo is the only possible solo he could have played, only he has no way of knowing that beforehand.

  And the best thing about that move is that it gets us back into a game that we eventually win to even the series.

  31.

  Game 5 in LA, howeve
r, is a letdown, as we fall behind early, and despite a furious rally and 36 points from me, we are unable to catch the Lakers. Kareem scores 40 points and he and Magic each pull down 15 rebounds. But the most important moment of the game may be late in the third quarter when Kareem steps on Lionel Hollins’s foot and injures his own ankle. They take Kareem to the locker room but then he comes limping back on the floor and scores another 14 points in the fourth quarter, including a huge dunk, bad ankle and all, over me with 33 seconds left, to give the Lakers a 3-point lead.

  We hear, after the game, that Kareem’s ankle is in bad shape and he probably won’t be making the trip back east for game 6.

  We’re all thinking, okay, we take game 6 and then we force it back to LA for game 7, and you know Kareem is going to play game 7.

  Bill Russell makes the point that a team with an injured star can be a dangerous team because you can’t prepare to play them the same way you did when they were intact. And this Laker team, with Magic playing center, is very loose, knowing that if they lose, they go back home where their captain is resting and getting ready for game 7.

  The night before, I actually have dinner with my friends Jamaal Wilkes and his wife, Valerie. When I’m in LA, I chill out at Jamaal’s, and he’ll give me a ride back to my hotel the night before the game. And when we’re back in Philly, I’ll return the favor. People don’t give Jamaal enough credit for what he does. In that game 6, he scores 37 and gives me all I can handle. (It’s sort of like Clyde’s game 7 in 1970 when Willis came out and jumped center with a torn thigh muscle and scored like 4 points. Clyde had 36 points, 7 rebounds, 19 assists, and 5 steals against Jerry West, and all anyone can talk about is, “The Captain was here so we won.”) Magic, of course, has his MVP night, scoring 42, collecting 15 rebounds, dishing out 7 assists, and making 3 steals. The second half of this game, in particular, is like a bad dream, as we fall behind in the third quarter by 10 and I can feel the Spectrum fans getting anxious. It gets quieter and quieter so that I can hear sneaker squeaks and guys breathing. We’re in trouble.

  Late in the fourth, we cut the lead to 2 with about five minutes left, but then Magic just takes over, scoring 9 points to win the championship.

  What can I say but congratulations? I go over and shake Magic’s hand.

  But I feel awful for Philadelphia, and I’m thinking, What are we going to have to do to win one of these?

  32.

  One of the challenges of being a successful professional athlete is learning how to resist temptation. I say this not with arrogance or vanity, but just in an attempt to explain myself after succumbing too many times.

  My adolescent habit of dividing females into two types—the good girl you want at home to provide and care for, and the bad girl from across the way whose only need is for me to unbuckle her skintight jeans—does not make being married to me very easy. I was twenty-three when we married. Turq made it clear that there would be no other women in my life, and for a time I stayed committed. I cut off communication with Carol and blew off some of my old friends from high school. Turq didn’t want my past and tried to control my future. She’d accuse even her own friends, and me, of making flirtatious advances. At one point, when we were living in the condo in Lido Beach, she asked me to pick up a friend of hers at the airport, and by the time I got home, an hour and a half later than she expected, Turquoise was fuming. “Where ya’ll been? What ya’ll been doing?”

  It’s awkward, because this is her friend and she is our houseguest.

  I tell her the truth: nothing happened. Her flight was delayed.

  Doesn’t matter, Turquoise stays mad at both of us the whole four days her friend is in town, which isolates us from each other. She doesn’t want to hear the truth, and I don’t want a fight. Turquoise is a strong woman, that’s what I love about her, and that is both her greatest virtue and perhaps her greatest flaw, as she can fixate on her suspicions for months without ever telling me what it is she is thinking. She doesn’t have to tell me. I know she knows I’m stepping out. But I wonder if she is, as well.

  But I don’t want to tell any lies, to a cop or an attorney, and I’m not certain of anything but her violent hysterics. In the beginning of our marriage, Turquoise’s suspicions weren’t justified. Now I hardly have a leg to stand on in a divorce.

  If men in their late twenties and early thirties become aware of the passage of time—of what has been accomplished and, perhaps more important, what hasn’t—a professional athlete becomes hyper-aware. We are confronted with a shorter productive peak, just a decade or so into our primes, if we are lucky. I sometimes wonder if so many of the basketball players’ diversions are just that, desperate attempts to push away thoughts of the inevitable, the end of the career, the end of this life. Players drink, smoke, seek out inappropriate sex partners—we are outsized in all areas, including our appetites.

  I met Samantha Stevenson in the spring of 1978, in the Philadelphia locker room. She was reporting for Sport magazine and would later help Turquoise write that letter to the New York Times my first year with the Sixers. She is a smart single woman—a pretty white girl, a bit of a hippie giving off a vibe of availability. She is an unusual presence still, one of the first wave of female sportswriters who have crossed the threshold into what had previously been an exclusively male clubhouse. I like her. She’s comfortable playing the flirt in pursuit of an exclusive story. A lot of players like her, and she must like the attention, too. After a while, she becomes someone who helps me unwind if I’m feeling high-strung or stressed. I can drive over and spend a relaxing evening that might even include oral sex. I’m not proud of the arrangement, but, as I said, I had this immature view of women, that there are good girls and bad girls. And she seemed a level above the buffets of easy women at Jack’s place in Detroit, or Warren’s in Houston, which were more or less brothels for star athletes (except you didn’t have to pay).

  So for months Sam is providing me with a kind of therapy, but we don’t have what I consider a serious relationship. I can only remember one time that we actually had intercourse, and that was because she had just gotten this new orthodontia to straighten her teeth. With wire and gleaming metal bristling in her mouth, oral sex was not an option.

  33.

  I am reminded every day of what I have not yet accomplished. I’m thirty years old heading into the 1980–81 season, still in my athletic prime, hoping we can build a team that will finally get us that championship. Pat adds a great younger player in voluble shooting guard Andrew Toney out of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Toney, who Pat calls “cobra-quick,” is a gifted scorer with a quick release and provides the kind of outside shooting touch we lacked. And for a shooting guard, he is so physically strong, he can post up any opponent in the league. Over the years, he acquires the nickname the Boston Strangler. Even Larry Bird will say that Toney is an absolute killer. “Every time he has the ball, we know he’s going to score.” The other notable player taken in that draft is a forward out of Minnesota named Kevin McHale, who goes to the Celtics with the third pick. The Celtics further improve by trading for Robert Parish, the Big Chief, a seven-footer who gives them a huge, talented front line.

  In the conference finals last year, we had been able to wear down Boston with our twin tower attack, Caldwell and Dawk, but Boston has decisively responded to that and loaded up with an even bigger front line.

  I have always believed in working on my game one-on-one. I’ll remain after practice with teammates and try out new moves or refine old ones. With the Sixers, I liked to stay after with Steve Mix, my roommate on the road, and we would practice our shots by making eight in a row from different spots on the floor, and of course playing one-on-one. So much of the NBA game is based on clear-outs, on isolations, especially in this era, before there was such a thing as a technical foul for illegal offense. When four guys go to one side and leave me with the ball on the left side of the key, that’s like leaving me in a little one-on-one game with my defender.r />
  When I was a rookie in Virginia, I worked on my skills with the older guys, Ray Scott or Fatty Taylor. And then the next year, I was the veteran playing with Gervin. And now, with Andrew Toney, I have an opportunity to be a mentor myself. Toney reminds me a little of Super John, in that he never stops talking trash—and he has the game and physical strength to actually back it up. One thing I can see is that in isolation, Toney is almost unstoppable.

  And unlike most players, he is willing to listen to his coach. That doesn’t mean he’ll do what the coaches are telling him. But he will hear them out. When Billy starts howling his name during practice or a game—usually for ignoring whatever play Mo Cheeks has called and freelancing his own shot—Andrew shrugs, comes over to the bench, and takes a seat. “We called a play!” says Billy.

  Andrew will nod. “I hear you, Coach. But just give me the ball.”

  With the addition of Toney, we have a sensational regular season, winning 62 games. Before the preseason, Billy said we would succeed or fail based on whether I could duplicate the previous year’s performance, and I think I exceed it, scoring nearly 25 a game, 8 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 2.1 steals.

  I finally win the NBA MVP award, and while I don’t attach much significance to individual achievements in a team sport, it is noteworthy in that it is the first time in seventeen years a non-center has won the award. After this, ten of the next twelve will be won by forwards or guards. I am contributing to this transformation of the game, in that the most exciting players are now playing facing the basket instead of with their backs to it. I feel like this is some vindication of my style, of the game played on the rise and above the rim.

  34.

  The Celtics also win 62, and the Atlantic Division title comes down to the final game of the season, played in Boston. Despite Toney scoring 35, we are outplayed by Bird and Parish, who score 24 apiece, and we lose by 4.