YouTube Gold: The Impact Of Julius Erving
Dr. J was the North Star to many of the greatest talents of the game.
In this video, famous NBA players explain why their idol when growing up was Julius “Dr. J” Erving.
A native of Long Island, Erving played college ball at Massachusetts, where he emerged as a true star. However, UMass has never been a major school and TV games were rare in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, so he wasn’t widely known.
After a strange contractual dispute involving the ABA’s Virginia Squires and the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks, the Squires prevailed but finances forced a trade to the New York Nets.
Had things ended differently, Erving might have been teammates with either Pete Maravich with Atlanta or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Milwaukee.
The ABA limped on for a few more years after he signed in 1972, and did so largely because of Erving. He was so spectacular that people knew by word of mouth how great he was despite the ABA lacking a TV deal and he was a big part of the reason why the ABA-NBA merger happened. Imagine: a player you can’t see but has such wide acclaim that the NBA is willing to take on four teams to get him.
Unbelievable.
He clearly awed players like Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, Charles Barkley and the late Darryl Dawkins. Even guys like Michael Jordan had a hard time asserting himself against Erving early in his career.
After you watch this, you’ll have a better idea why.