DENVER, CO – JANUARY 30: Philadelphia 76ers forward Julius Erving #6 dribbles the ball during an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets at McNichols Arena on January 30, 1977 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Mark Junge/Getty Images)

February 7, 1987. Seattle. Julius Erving is going through his last season and, at the All Star, a tribute is made. Two of the best bases in history are standing on a stage, microphone in between, and Magic Johnson asks Isiah Thomas a question, with his usual smile.

– What is the most incredible play or moment you have from Doctor J?

Isiah smiles, pauses and prepares to answer. “We were on a youth campus in Lansing (Michigan) when Julius took a ball and went to the other side of the court. He asked everyone, standing up, to applaud and to the beat of the palms he started to run. I swear I’m not lying (he smiles): he jumped from the free line, that’s what it looked like to me (laughs), he held himself in the air and there, stopped, it seemed that he told us ‘come on, clap, I’m going in the air’ and continued until he turned it over…”

In the face of exaggeration, Thomas can’t help the laughter that rumbles in the place and infect Magic while the audience applauds. The story summarizes how captivating Erving’s talent was but, at the same time, what it generated, with his style and charisma. Of those people who, over time, have managed to make their stories grow big until they seem (unlikely) children’s stories. We’re talking about a global superstar, a great player who won in two different leagues (two titles in the ABA and another in the NBA), but above all about a popular myth, a pure entertainer, a legend who moved from the streets to the professional leagues, capable of crowding the most famous playground in the world (Rucker Park) and, at the same time, fill stadiums and bring to another level of popularity to elite competitions, first the ABA and then the NBA. A player who changed the game like few others, the one responsible for taking a play (the dunk) to another dimension, a true basketball showman and owner of one of the best nicknames in history. Someone who left such a mark that ended up being responsible for many other boys, then superstars who followed his legacy, decided on basketball. “If Doctor J hadn’t existed, probably neither did Michael Jordan. And therefore, I would not have been a basketball player,” LeBron James summed up. That is the importance of this 2m01 forward whose legend is incredible, although his true story is even better.

Julius Winfield Erving II was born on February 22, 1950, in New York. In a lower-middle class family with three children. Julius Sr. and Callie Mae divorced when Julius was three years old and the difficult scenario was completed at seven, when dad died in a traffic accident. Hard times when Julius clung to his younger brother (Marvin), his friends and sports, occasionally to basketball. The Ervings lived on Long Island, across from Campbell Park, an open place that had basketball courts that Julius could see from his bedroom window. “It was the courtyard of our homes. We went every day, even if it rained or snowed,” she recalled four years ago, when she returned for her documentary and walked back to the beloved places she used to frequent.

Until one winter day in 1962, he and his best friend, Archie Rogers, couldn’t stand the cold, grabbed the bikes and went out in search of some indoor gym to play. “I remember, all of a sudden, I see two black boys coming in and asking permission to play. They were 12 years old. That’s how they started with us…” said Don Ryan, Doctor J’s first coach in the short film. “The point is that they were all white, except us. But, of course, we were kids, we all loved basketball and we didn’t feel racism at any time. We joined the team and started playing,” recalled Julius, who divided his time between sports, school and helping his mother around the house, especially with Marvin. “He was very smart, he loved to study and devoured books, but he was always sick. He had asthma, permanent rashes and had to be taken care of. I had to take on a role more of a father than an older brother,” he explained.

Si hay una jugada que lo define, ésa es la volcada (Getty Images)Bettmann | Bettmann Archive

At 13, when the family moved to Roosevelt, another neighborhood on Long Island, looking for a safer life, Julius entered Roosevelt High School, where he began to stand out and the nickname was born, which, over time, became better known than his full name. Leon Saunders, a colleague, was responsible. “I remember that in one training session we argued about a play and since he always complained, he said that I grabbed him, made foules, this and the other, I said ‘you always know them all, what are you, the teacher? ‘ , and he answered me. ‘And what about you, who are you the doctor, then? ‘” , Julius recounted. With a smile, Saunders completed the anecdote of that inside joke that sealed both their nicknames on fire: “From that day on every time we saw each other, I called him Professor and he called Doctor”.

For his senior year, Julius was a 1m90 base-guard who stood out at the high school level, but since it was a small school in the area, only one scout went to watch the matches. “I went to see it and rated it a 4, which is not bad for someone who didn’t have any previous grade. But it is clear that no one thought at the time that it would be so good,” said Howard Garfinkel, coach of the Five Star Basketball Camp. But Julius had a distinctive feature: in the playground, in street basketball so typical in NY, he was much better than in organized basketball. Every time he went to the paddocks, he seemed to be unleashed and took out all the tricks he had. In addition, in another rhythm of play and on the open court, he began to show those athletic conditions that would make him different. Little by little he began to transfer that talent with plays that showed how different it would be. “One day I remember that the defense attacked, saw space and jumped the free line. I closed my eyes, because I thought I wasn’t going to make it, but he just slipped into the air and turned it over, above everyone else. Julius acted like it was something normal, not great, and that’s when I talked to a friend I had at the University of Massachusetts to get him a scholarship,” admitted Ray Wilson, his coach at Roosevelt High School.

He arrived at UMass in 1968 and, quickly, in the first year, when Julius was already having a major impact on the NCAA (he averaged 18.2 points and 14.3 rebounds in his debut season), he received a call that dismayed him. “Marvin is not well, you must come home,” the mother told him. The younger brother had been diagnosed with Lupus — a disease that attacks the immune system — a while ago and had worsened in the last few hours. Leon Saunders, his partner, drove as fast as he could and Erving arrived to hear his brother’s last words. “I’m tired…” he said and left… “It was bleak, knowing that I would no longer have him by my side, that we would no longer do the beautiful things we used to do together,” he said. Only one positive thing can be highlighted from that tragedy: the motivation it generated. “From that day on, every time I played basketball again, I tried to carry his spirit with me,” he said.

That spirit took him to gyms and paddocks. Because, in his feeling, in his essence, there was competing but also having fun. To win but also to leave something, to entertain, to amuse, to turn the game into an art. And that’s what he did every time he visited Rucker Park, the most famous playground in NY, located on the corner of 155th and 8th streets, in the Harlem neighborhood. There, the show was as important as the result. Or even more. And, little by little, with Julius he began to forge the legend. “There was a lot of talk about him. ‘You’ll see when Julius comes, ‘they said to me and I asked ‘Who is it?’ If I play in the NBA and I don’t know him,” said Tom Hoover. But this 2m06 pivot wing, who between 1963 and 1968 played in the NBA and ABA, experienced firsthand who was that animal that captivated all of NY. “I was standing under the hoop when he penetrated and flipped the ball on me. So hard that the ball hit my head and a tooth fell out. I remember the roar of people as I bent down to look for the tooth…”, he laughed.

On every play, Erving left his stamp, doing things that no one had ever seen and no one has been able to forget since. We talked about ending alley oops launched from the middle of the court, about penetrations through the final line ending in dunks, about counterattacks ended with sunks that left the board moving… They immediately began to give it nicknames. First they told him the Little Falcon, then the Claw (The Claw), even Houdini and the Black Moses, but one day Erving got tired and went to the announcer to tell him what he wanted. “If you’re going to name me in any way, call me the Doctor,” Irving said. An ideal nickname that was completed when the presenter came up with the ideal phrase to sell any Julius Erving show: “The Doctor will operate tonight”.

Doctor J con la 6 de Philadelphia 76ers (Photo by Mark Junge/Getty Images)Mark Junge | Getty Images

Each presentation of his was, really, a real work of art and popularity grew to generate an expectation never seen again. “Since the place didn’t have enough capacity for such a boom, people would climb onto the roof of the school next door, to the trees or to the bridge in front. Everything to see him. Erving gathered the largest audience in the history of this playground during the Rucker Pro League. There were people who didn’t see well but wanted to be in the same place as him,” said none other than Nate Archibald, a full-fledged New Yorker, used to Rucker and, since 1970, an NBA superstar — champion in 1981. This is how the legend of Doctor J was built, also on the streets…

Those intense summers, in NY, prepared him for organized basketball, since 1968 at the NCAA. He spent three seasons at UMass, where he became a figure, being today one of six players in history who averaged at least 20 points (26 if any) and 20 rebounds in his college career. But, of course, the basketball world still didn’t know what it expected… At that time, the NCAA was still banned from the dunk, the secret weapon that the Doctor would soon dust off… But it would not be in the NBA, which at that time had banned picking players in the draft who had not completed the four college years. As the ABA decided to authorize it, precisely to steal the best young talent from its competitor, Julius made the decision to sign a four-year, $500,000 contract with Virginia Squires. In that team and, above all, in that tournament, the all-terrain forward would find the ideal setting to play his spectacular game.

The ABA was created in 1967 to compete with the NBA and quickly found its identity. The game was very different, faster and “street”. Entertainment was prioritized in every way, with the incorporation of women cheerleaders and even a tricolor ball (red, blue and white) that remained in the collective memory of the fan. That is why we welcome — and sought after — those players who are fearless, capable of creating and making eye-catching plays. The goal was to amuse people and, for a few years — seven the ABA lasted — the goal was achieved, even allowing college or high school players to reach the league. All for the show. And the standard-bearer of that game was Erving, who deployed his entire repertoire. His every move lifted people from the seats and although he already had a nickname, some called him Thomas Edison, after the scientist, because “every night he invents something new on the court”.

Since the first season, when he averaged 27.3 points, 15.7 rebounds and 4 assists, he blew everyone away. They were not times of viralizable videos, like today. But, little by little, the comment “here is a boy who is the most incredible thing I saw in my life” began to gain national fame, reaching the offices of the NBA, whose managers made an attempt (with no luck) to get him out of the ABA. “My brother was in the Navy, in Virginia, and he kept saying that to me,” recalled Darryl Dawkins, a pivot who would later be Erving’s teammate in the NBA.

Doctor J llevó la volcada a otra dimensión, convirtiéndola en un arte, en un recurso hermoso que era aplaudido por todos y levantaba al hincha de su asiento. (Getty Images)Bettmann | Bettmann Archive

If there is one play that defines it, that is the dunk. Of course, Erving wasn’t the first to do it, far from it. We are not talking about the inventor, but we are talking about who, with his plasticity, creativity and power, took this action to another level. And we are talking about the play that symbolizes the American game and, we could say, basketball itself. The most spectacular and iconic one, the one that everyone loves, the one that attracts the public that is not purely of that sport. This ending was born as something of few. Or the pivots, a brute action and often not well seen, reserved for taller men.

But Doctor J took it to another dimension, turning it into an art, a beautiful resource that was applauded by all and lifted the fan from his seat. Erving made it aesthetic. And popular. And, along the way, allowing new terms, such as posterizar (leaving someone on the poster, in the photo), which was invented to define the dunks he did in the face of rivals, even ending up above them. His warm-up prior to the games in Virginia, with income to the basket ending in dunks, became a must see — “you can’t miss it” -, as is now the case with Stephen Curry, his ball handling exercises and kilometre throws. More than once a coach asked him how he had come up with a dunk and Julius replied that he had dreamed it the night before and that was the first time he did it. This is also how the word slam was born, when the press of the time had to use a term to adapt to this forward that marked an era. Something he would ratify in 1976, winning an epic dunk tournament, before the demise of the ABA and his departure to the NBA.

In Virginia he spent only two years because in 1972 he was involved in a legal dispute between several teams, after he was declared eligible by the NBA and Milwaukee Bucks chose him in the draft to form a trio that could have been epic, with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, who had just won the championship. Atlanta Hawks, the other involved, had signed him a pre-draft contract and in fact Erving went to his preseason camp and played three friendlies. The NBA fined the Hawks and gave them the right to incorporate the Bucks, but a ruling by a US federal judge forced him to return to the ABA. Since Virginia couldn’t afford what Erving demanded, he was transferred to the NY Nets in exchange for $750,000 and two players. For him, it was the return home. “I am delighted to pursue my career in my city,” he said at the presentation at Colliseum Nassau, on Long Island, blocks from where he had lived and that, suddenly, it would become the theater where everyone wanted to go to see the great Doctor Erving.

Since his debut, in October 1973, the small forward was the main attraction of the team and became the image of the competition. For its style and aesthetics. In the 70s, Doctor J was the paradigm of cool. Because of his afro hair, his game and even his hands, so big that it looked like he was carrying an orange — instead of a ball — and that added spectacularity to every action… He could do whatever he wanted, he moved it from one side to the other, he ran it when he was going to tip… “Julius became a cult figure, everyone wanted to see him,” recalls Rod Thorn, assistant to the Nets until 1975.

Erving also won. All sorts of awards and titles, since his first campaign in the Nets: top scorer (27.4), MVP —he won it three years in a row- and champion —he would repeat in 1976-. “You watched him play and you were shaking your head, they couldn’t believe what you saw,” says George Gervin, another ABA star, who participated in that memorable dunk tournament that Erving won in 1976, before the disappearance of the competition and the passage of both to the NBA. Larry Kenon, Artis Gilmore and David Thompson, all remaining tippers in history, were in that contest in which Doctor J deployed his entire arsenal, starting with a dunk with two balls and ending with the legendary action that Michael Jordan would later perfect — and popularize globally — in 1988: the dunk jumping from the line of free throws.

With Erving already becoming a popular idol who was on his way to having his own model of sneakers and commercials, there was a union between the ABA and the NBA, generating a new legal dispute around the player. Four teams moved from one competition to another, including the New York Nets, but the Knicks felt it was an invasion of their commercial territory and sued the Nets for 4.8 million. The new franchise also failed to fulfill the promise of salary increase for its star, who declared himself in absentia and warned that he would not play anymore. The Nets, in order not to lose him for anything, offered it to the Knicks. What did a franchise expert in making mistakes do? He committed the worst in his history: he refused the offer and thus let in a generational talent pass, who was a local idol and was still in the prime of his career. The one who took advantage of it was Philadelphia 76ers, who bought the contract and compensated the Nets, an expenditure of six million that absolutely paid off in the following years… Doctor J would play for the next 11 seasons in Philadelphia, becoming an idol of the city and an essential piece of a team that always fought up and ended up achieving glory — and the title, of course — in 1983, after losing three finals.

Doctor J con 72 años en el partido de las estrellas de la NBA USA TODAY Sports

Precisely, in his first definition, in 1977, against Portland, he made a move that he had made so many times before and that summed up the jewel that the NBA had achieved: in a counterattack he went straight to the hoop, regardless that Bill Walton, the 2m11 red giant who specialized in tapas, was measuring it. He jumped and flipped it over him, generating one of the dunks to remember in history. It was in the first game of a final that Philadelphia started winning 2-0 and lost 4-2. That was not the only mythical move he was reminded of. In the 1980 finals, against the Lakers, he made an action that is still described today as “impossible”: the so-called Baseline Move, in which he runs the baseline in the air, with the ball in his right hand and, to avoid the cover of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he gets to put his hand and ball behind the board to last moment, make a move and leave the tray with board. Erving’s photos with much of his body behind the hoop confirm the difficulty of the play. A final that the 76ers would lose again, but that would leave several highlights of Doctor J, like two dunks in the face of Kareem, 2m18.

The rematch would come three years later, again in a duel against the Lakers. Julius was 33 years old but his legs were still prodigious. In that definition, the legendary broadcaster Chick Hearn named Rock the Baby that historic talk about Michael Cooper. The forward stole a ball and ran the court. When he was about to reach the hoop, he pulled the ball from his waist, took it between his hand and forearm, and took off. Cooper jumped to try to cover up but in the air he realized it would be impossible and hid his hands when the buried one exploded in the net to the delirium of a crowded Spectrum stadium. In that season, the Sixers won 67 of 82 games in the regular phase and barely lost one game in the playoffs (12-1), with a still brilliant Erving, being a more comprehensive player (21.4 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals), and receiving more help than ever, from Maurice Cheeks (point guard), Moses Malone (pivot) and Andrew Toney (guard)).

Along the way, in addition to his father and younger brother, he lost his older sister—to cancer at 37, when he was 34-, later his mother and son, Cory, 19, in a car accident, one of four offspring he had with his first wife, Turquoise, to whom he was married for 31 years (1972-2003). In 1999 he admitted to having a daughter, the famous tennis player Alexandra Stevenson, with the sports journalist, Samantha, whom he privately recognized since birth but only publicly 19 years later. In 2003, he had another child out of wedlock with a woman named Dorys Madden, a new conflict that led to the divorce with Turquoise. With Madden, he later had two other descendants and they both married in 2008. He himself admitted to having an addiction for the opposite sex. “I lost my mind to women and I’ve come to bet on how many I could have sex on consecutive nights,” he said in an exercise of brutal sincerity. Already retired, he also fulfilled a promise to his mother, receiving him at the university. He then managed businesses at NASCAR, Orlando Magic and even Coca Cola.

Erving played four more seasons, always in the 76ers, until his retirement, in 1987, at the age of 37, in a final season in which each stadium filled up to see the last performance of the great Doctor J. Thus he closed an epic trajectory that included 11 All Star elections (16 counting the ABA) and averages of 24.2 points (8th highest scorer if we add both competitions), 8.5 recovers and 4.5 goal passes. “I wanted to be like him,” Jordan admitted. “We all wanted to be like him,” Dominique Wilkins, another of the great tippers who came after Doctor J. “I often wondered how he did what he did,” added George Gervin. “We saw him as an alien, as an alien,” admitted Pat Riley. Perhaps because it is another era, without social networks, of course, with little TV and competitions without media reach, such as street basketball, or with very little, like the ABA, Julius Erving does not receive enough credit. Or the one he deserves. But those who saw it, those who paid a ticket, those who went to the playgrounds, teammates and rivals, know what we’re talking about. He was the one who flew before Jordan, the one who made the fans stand up, the one who stood up, the one who left rivals speechless, the one who made notes that nobody thought possible, the guy with wave and charisma. That was all Julius Erving. The unforgettable Doctor J.