Julius Erving

Basketball Player

• Born: February 22, 1950
• Birthplace: Hempstead, New York

Basketball player

One of the biggest basketball stars of the 1970’s and 1980’s, Erving helped one professional basketball league survive and another regain popularity. His soaring dunks and graceful leaps to the basket delighted fans and set a high standard for other players.

Area of achievement: Sports: basketball

Early Life

Julius Winfield Erving II was born to Julius Winfield and Callie Mae Erving on February 22, 1950. He was the middle of three children, with an older sister and a younger brother. When Erving was three, his father left the family. His mother struggled to earn a living cleaning houses.

Erving started playing basketball at an early age and honed his abilities with a Salvation Army team. By ninth grade, he could dunk. At the same time, Erving worked on all aspects of his game. He developed a strong midrange jump shot and became an exceptional passer. It helped that he had very large hands that, joined with his leaping ability, made his dunks spectacular. Erving also developed a reputation for his character and, in high school, gained the nickname “Dr. J.”

At the University of Massachusetts, Erving enjoyed a strong freshman season. During the following summer, he grew four inches. On the varsity team the next two seasons, he began to dominate games. Both of those years, he was named to the All-American team.

A new professional basketball league, the American Basketball Association (ABA) was trying to attract players. ABA owners were paying large sums to recruit talent. After talking it over with his mother, Erving decided to leave school and turn professional.

Life’s Work

In April of 1971, Erving signed with the Virginia Squires of the ABA. The ABA game was more fast-paced than the style of play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Games were high scoring, and dunks were welcomed. The style perfectly fit Erving’s abilities. In his rookie year, he averaged 27.3 points a game and helped lead Virginia into the third round of play-offs. For his efforts, Erving finished second in the rookie of the year voting and was named to the All-ABA second team.

Over the next four seasons, Erving took control of the ABA. He won the league scoring title three of four years, garnered two most valuable player awards, and won two league championships with the New York Nets, to whom he was traded after the 1972-1973 season.

Erving’s skill led to new opportunities. In 1975, he endorsed a new shoe line produced by Converse. Lucrative product endorsements later became a regular feature of the careers of the most successful athletes.

The ABA was on the edge of collapse, though, and some teams folded. After the 1975-1976 season, the NBA agreed to accept four of the remaining six ABA teams, including the Nets. The merger agreement placed harsh terms on the new teams, however. The financial penalties were so stiff that the Nets were forced to sell Erving’s contract to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Welcomed with enthusiasm to Philadelphia, Erving averaged 21.6 points and 8.5 rebounds a game to help lead the 76ers into the play-offs. In the NBA Finals, however, the 76ers lost four straight games to the Portland Trail Blazers. Erving and the 76ers did not reach the finals again until 1980.

The next five seasons saw a remarkable convergence of talent as Erving’s 76ers, Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers, and Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics vied each year for the championship. Erving won the league most valuable player award in the 1980-1981 season, but Bird’s Celtics defeated his 76ers in the conference finals on their way to the league championship. The next year, the 76ers bested the Celtics in seven games but then lost to Johnson’s Lakers in a six-game finals series.

Before the 1982-1983 season began, the 76ers traded for center Moses Malone. A powerful rebounder, he complemented Erving’s slashing moves to the basket, Andrew Toney’s shooting touch, and guard Maurice Cheeks’s passing. The 76ers marched easily through the play-offs, winning twelve of thirteen games. They swept the Lakers in the finals to take the championship.

By the middle 1980’s, Erving had became the elder statesman of the league. His scoring average dipped to the low twenties, and he became more of a complementary player than the main attraction. Before the 1986-1987 season began, he announced that it would be his last.

That year became a celebration of his career as each team honored Erving on his last appearance in its arena. The most emotional tribute came from the New York Nets, his former team. Before his final home game in Philadelphia, a billboard near the arena carried a message of thanks signed by more than thirty thousand fans. That night, Erving scored 38 points, passing the 30,000-point mark for his professional career.

After retiring, Erving pursued several business opportunities. He worked for several years as a television analyst for NBA play-off games and returned to the game in a more direct function in 1997, when he joined the Orlando Magic’s front office. He also received several honors. Erving was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. Three years later, he was named as one of the fifty best players in NBA history.

Erving’s later years also were marked by personal upheaval. In 1999, it was revealed that tennis player Alexandra Stevenson was Erving’s daughter, the result of his affair with her mother. The following year, one of Erving’s sons died after a long struggle with drug abuse. Three years later, Erving fathered another child outside his marriage; soon after, Turquoise Erving, his wife since 1972, divorced him. He later married the mother of his other child.

Significance

Erving was one of professional basketball’s greatest talents. He had the ability to dominate a game, a series, and even a season. His combined record in the ABA and NBA contains impressive feats: three championships, three most valuable player awards, sixteen All-Star Game appearances in sixteen years, and some thirty thousand points scored.

Erving’s basketball legacy goes beyond those achievements, however: His play changed the way professional basketball was played. Erving’s high-flying approach made basketball a more vertical game, one played above the court as well as on it. He was not the first or the only player to play this way; he was simply the player whom everyone—seasoned basketball observer and new fan alike—noticed. He was the player whom children grew up wanting to emulate.

Erving’s personal bearing was as impressive as his athletic feats. From elementary school through his professional career, coaches, teammates, and rivals all paid tribute to Erving’s respect for the game—his hard work and concentration on fundamentally sound basketball—and his good sportsmanship. To many, he was a rare superstar with very little ego.

Bibliography

Halberstam, David. Breaks of the Game. New York: Knopf, 1981. Halberstam’s chronicle of the Portland Trail Blazers’ 1979 season provides an inside view of the pressures, egos, routine, and emotional peaks and valleys of an NBA season during the time Erving played.

Huber, Robert. “Julius Erving Doesn’t Want to Be a Hero Anymore.” In The Philadelphia Reader, edited by Robert Huber. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. Huber’s 2003 magazine profile of Erving explores the former star’s post-retirement years and his personal tragedies.

Mallozzi, Vincent. Doc: The Rise and Rise of Julius Erving. New York: Wiley, 2009. Sportswriter Mallozzi’s biography covers Erving’s early life, career, and life after retiring from the court. It explores the subject as star athlete, respected teammate and mentor, and troubled family man.

Pluto, Terry. Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. In an often diverting book, Pluto chronicles the strange stories and on-court exploits of the old ABA, the first league in which Erving starred.