Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving Talks ‘Soul Power’ Docuseries, ABA vs. NBA, Evolution Of Basketball, Larry Bird + More

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INTERVIEW: Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving Talks ‘Soul Power’ Docuseries, ABA vs. NBA, Evolution Of Basketball, Larry Bird + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Every day a week ago. Click your ass up the
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: breakfast Club. You don't finish for y'all done morning.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy just hilarious, Charlamagne the God. We
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: are the breakfast Club Law and the roast is here
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: with us as well. We got a special guest in
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: the building.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: We say legend, We say special guests a lot. But boy,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: sometimes the legend of icon walks in the door and
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: in your mind you're like, I never thought I'd be
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: sitting down and having a conversation with this person.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: But boy, I'm glad it's happened.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, right, ladies and gentlemen, Doctor J Julius, Doctor J Over, Welcome.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Brother, Good morning, gentlemen. How you feeling.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling?
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: Brother?
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: I feel great. I feel great, you knows. So it's
• 0:37
  Speaker 5: good to be back in New York. So in the
• 0:40
  Speaker 5: last three days, I'm spending time in Philadelphia and New York.
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: You know, two of my favorite places. Obviously New York
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: where I was born and raised, Philadelphia where I made
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: my name.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: It's so crazy here.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: And you say that because for so many years people
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: would assume doctor J is from Philly, just because of
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the amount of work putting in Philly, but you're originally
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: from New York.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, first twenty six years of my life,
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: you know, I was I was in New Yorker, so
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: that's always going to be my home base. Philadelphia is
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: more of an adopted home and I played my whole
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: NBA career there. I played eleven seasons after five in
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: the a BA, and you know that's where thing Philly
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: began to cook internationally.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I want to, I want to, I want to go back.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I know we had to talk about this documentary Soul Power.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Power, the Legend of American Basketball Association, but.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I want I want to start off with with younger
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: doctor j Right, Yeah, what made you want to play
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: basketball and to take a professional because watching you know,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Soul Power the Legend went where you talk about the ABA,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: it didn't seem like it was fun watching the NBA.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: At first, it was a bunch of white boys playing basketball.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: It looked like it was all over the plays.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: They could barely dribble, barely shoot. And then but so,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: what made you want to get into basketball even take
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: it as a professional career?
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: His legs, Yeah, no, it was you know, my bat
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: and average in baseball was about one sixty, and then
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: I tried a few other sports, but uh, you know,
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: football there was too much time on laying on the ground,
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: you know, especially I mean flag football was one thing.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: Tackle was another, you know, and they always wanted to
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: make me an end.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Run out, catch, pass, get tackled. I was like, nah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: I don't like this.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: So you know, hoops was different, you know, moving, grooving,
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: taking people to the hole and blocking shots and running
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: the fast break and whatever. I mean, it was just
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: like free flying. So I think basketball chose me.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: When did you realize you were good at basketball? Because
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: everybody growing up in the park swear they the best
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: thing in the park. When did you realize really good?
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: That's true?
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: I think you know, watching TV seeing Elginbala. Then eventually,
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: you know a lot of people start calling me a.
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: Little hawk, a little hawk, little hawk. What the heck
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: they calling me that for? Then I saw Connie Hawkins
• 3:07
  Speaker 6: play and he used to do a lot of one
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: hand stuff and tricky stuff, and so I'm playing with
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: the Globe Trotters whatever, you know. For the smile to
• 3:17
  Speaker 6: my face, I said, between those two guys, if I
• 3:20
  Speaker 6: can get a game anything resembling what those two guys
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: could do, then I'll be all right.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: But for me, it was like when I looked at you,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: it was like the swagger right, like you made the afro,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: the dunk, like the whole vible. Like what was going
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: on in the screech at the time mainstream? Did you
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: know you were shifting culture or you just being yourself?
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: I think I was being myself, you know, and as
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: much as I was allowed to be myself. You know,
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: I came from Long Island, so Long Island's a little
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: different than the urban experience, but I spent a lot
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: of time in the city. When when I when I
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: was young, when decided to go to school up in
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: New England.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: So I went to U Mass.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: And when I came back from you Mass, you know,
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: I had grown three inches at gained thirty pounds. So
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: I went from six three to six six and you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: one sixty to one ninety and uh, you know, so
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: I was I was actually developing physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: or you know, all at the same time. And uh,
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: in the rugby league, that was my coming out party.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: M h, Well, what happened to the rugby league?
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: They started trying to give me nicknames other than one
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: I had. They started calling me the Claude and Houdini
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: and you know, Black Jesus, you know all these. Now,
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: I said, if y'all call me anything, just call me
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: the Doctor, because I got the doctor. I had the
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: Doctor since like middle school. And in those five years,
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: I played five seasons. And it was really funny because
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of people say, that's a different guy
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: than I saw in high school or in college, you know.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: And and I didn't think I was different, but the
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: observers from the outside, you know, they they knew that
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: my confidence had risen. And I guess the creativity associated
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: with my game, you know, was was showing as opposed
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: to just kind of being there latent and and and
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: even in college, I mean I remember, I remember my
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: point guard threw me a low pass and I caught
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: it and I kind of finger rolled it in. The
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: coach got upset. He said, no, that's not how we're
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: gonna play. And you know that's how we play. You know,
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: that's how we play streetball, and you know that's how
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: people play now.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: So it was probably a little ahead of its time.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: You said something, you said you were being yourself as
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: much as you were allowed to be.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: What did that mean?
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, just what I said. You know about the coach,
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: he shut it down.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: He's like, no, no, no.
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: We're not gonna stay out there, throw the ball over
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: the defense and have somebody catch it and put it in.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: We're gonna work it around, you know, five or.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: Six passes and then create an open shot or get
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: a layup. And uh so, so that that's where he
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: allowed to be. And then you know, I had a curfew.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I think somebody regarded like your style.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: And yeah, and the coaching is is really significant because
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: I've had multiple coaches over the years and one of
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: the things I I tried to do was celebrate all
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: of them. So, you know, once I made it to
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: the pros, you know, had a nice little party at
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: this hotel in Hempstead, Long Island, where you know I
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: lived for the first through ninth grade and through eighth grade,
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: and I got all the coaches.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: Who I had, you know, my Don Ryan who was my.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: Salvation Army coach, and Ray Wilson who was my Roosevelt
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: Senior high school coach, Earl Moseley, Chuck mcelwaine, and got
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: them all together just to say hey, thanks. You know,
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: there's something happening that's really good for me, and it
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for you.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Guys.
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  Speaker 7: Wow, before you got to your first coach, who helped
• 7:25
  Speaker 7: you guide through these different things, right, who was helping
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: you even navigate to getting to that point where you
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: had these pro coaches or college coaches that were going
• 7:32
  Speaker 7: to move you forward.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: Well, the Salvation Army is the door that opened for me,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: you know when I was probably eleven years old, and
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: you know, it gave me the opportunity not the streetballer
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: and playing outside and especially in the winter time, you know,
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: you had to shove a little snow off the basketball
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: court to get out there play or whatever. But I
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: went played indoors, a nice facility and they just insisted,
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: you know, got to bring your homework, make sure you
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: do your homework, make sure you do your school work.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: So it was about the books and the ball.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: And also Salva Shami was a place of faith because
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: there was a church right there.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: So that got me straight. That got me straight because
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: If you if you didn't do those things, if you
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: didn't go to the Sunday school. You didn't do your
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: homework right then you couldn't travel with the team. You
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: could play the home games, but you couldn't travel. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: that's why I got hooked on traveling. So I've been
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: a traveler all my life. You know, I've been around
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: the world multiple times because I got hooked on it
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: when I was when I was eleven years old, twelve
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: years old, because I said, this is great and I
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: want to know what's happening out there. I don't want
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: to just read about it. I don't want to just
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: you know, see it on TV. I want to go
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: to these places. So I've been able to travel substantially,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: and I hopefully it'll be able to do that till
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: the day I die.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: What did the NBA look like to you as a kid?
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not what it is today.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So what did it look like to you?
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: Well, uh, you know, being here in New York, I
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: mean I saw the next and there were a lot
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: of double headers that were at the Garden, and my
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: Salvation Army coach Don Ryan, he took us in, so, uh,
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: you know, we'd be up there in the those bleed
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: seats and we could see double headers yuh Nixon play
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: Boston or they played Bullets play Chicago or whatever, and
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: we could see that we were just we were just kids.
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: So that was so far off in the distance.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: You know, it did.
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: I wasn't, you know, thinking about being down there on
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: the court and having people look at me the way
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: I'm sitting and looking at at these guys I'm looking at,
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: you know, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell and you know,
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: people who were the icons of the day, Oscar Robinsons
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: in the world.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: And you know, I.
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: Felt some kind of way about it, but not in
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: a way that was predictable in thinking that, because everybody
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: wanted to be a pro, but everybody wasn't going to
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: be a pro. So you know, I didn't want to
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: get my feelings hurt. So I didn't have so much
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: investing in it that it was all or nothing. And then,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: you know, maybe at like age sixteen seventeen, you know,
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: I started to get some notoriety. You know, in Nasall County,
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: I got an award called a sid COVID Award, and
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: that was for the most improved player. And you know
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: when they acknowledged that at the end of the season,
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: I said oh, this is nice, pretty cool. Then the
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: next year, you know, I was like all Long Island
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: and I was the best player in Long Island, one
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: of three, and I said, oh, okay, you know recognition,
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: got a scholarship, go to UMass. My sophomore year, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: got invited to be in the Olympic program and I
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: got invited as an alternate. So I go to Colorado
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: because somebody got hurt and that became my opportunity, that
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: the next man up type thing.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: So I got to the camp.
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: You know, guys over in the locker room and over
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: in the dormitory talking a lot of smack, Yeah, I'm
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: gonna do this, I'm gonna play for this whatever. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: I didn't have those conversations. When I was home, they
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: were having conversations about their futures. And then when I
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: went out on the court, I was better than they were,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: you know, because I went as an alternate, and I
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: make the Olympic development team because they gave me a jacket.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: It was like three sizes too big, so it was
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: meant for somebody else, right, but they gave it to me.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: And then I traveled abroad and we played like thirteen
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: games and I was the leading scorer and rebounder even
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: though we had seven footage on our team.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: So I was on my way to the Olympics.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: And then the ABA came and I turned professional, so
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: I didn't have the Olympic experience, only the Olympic development experience.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: And that's when I knew, you know, I said, you know,
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: this is where I belonged. If I can get ten
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: years out of this and then start my life, you know,
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: that'd be great. And as it turned out, I played
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: sixteen years.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And when the ABA started, the NBA was there as well.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Was there a choice of where you wanted to go
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: or at the time, ABA was the only place you
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: could go.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: It was the only option.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: Was that the only option if I if I had
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: stayed in school another year, because I left after my
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: junior year, So if I stayed in school another year,
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: then I would be eligible for the draft into the NBA.
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: So they had a draft system, and uh, you know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: there the situation was tighter than than the abas. But
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: I signed early because as an underclassman, the NBA wasn't
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: taken underclassmen.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: They didn't didn't have any.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: Avenue for underclassmen to go into the pros now come
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: out of high school, right, so you know, evolution is
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: what it is. So I signed with the A B A.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: I eventually got drafted after the first season by the NBA,
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: and and my agent had worked out a deal with
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: the Atlanta Hawks that after my contract expires with the
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: ABA team that I planned for that I'd become an
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Atlanta up because Atlanta is really where I wanted to live.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: And Atlanta gotten a scuffle with their commissioner because Milwaukee
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: had my draft rights. If I had really been on
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: it as opposed to you know, kind of listening to
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: what the agents and business managers had to say.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Milwaukee might have been a great place to go.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: That's where Koree my dudes bar was, Miscar Robinson went
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: there or whatever. So you know, players who I admired,
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: and you know, I think we could have accumulated some championships,
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: but that didn't happen.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: So, uh So I.
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: Spent two years in Virginia, then three years as a
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: net playing basically in my hometown.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: You know, New York had three seasons.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, New York Nets back then. Uh they were based
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: in Long Island, playing in the Nasal Coliseum.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: That was fun. I'm sure you know.
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: Those three years, I was a two time champion and
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: three time most player in the league.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: So that was the coming out party.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: What was your check back then?
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Do you remember how much you made back then when
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: you first got drafted?
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: One hundred twenty five thousand, Okay a lot of money.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of money.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, my contract. Well that's why I left school because,
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: you know, because mom was doing.
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: You know, she had a hasslon and then my stepfather
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: was a garbage man in the community, so you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: he was with so between the two of them, they
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: were probably making you know, between ten and fifteen.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Thousand or whatever. When I got off of one twenty five,
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: called my mom. You know, something's going on. She said,
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: what I know, you ain't leaving school.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: I was like, well, I haven't leaven in school, but
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: I'm going to finish, you know, because she was she
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: was into the academics because in her early days she
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: had taught school. So I promised her I would finish college.
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: But uh, you know, time student, part time basketball player.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: We're gonna flip that. We're gonna be a full time
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: basketball player and part time student.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: If the ABA never existed, the does the modern NBA
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: even look the way it does today?
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: No, I don't think so.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: Well, it would have evolved because you know, when you
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: when you look at the NBA now, I mean there's
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: a lot of what was going on international circles before
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: it was going on here. And then you look at
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: you know, I mean half of the top ten players,
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: five of them are from some place around the world
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: other than the United States of America. You know, it's Canada, Germany, Italy, Ukraine.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: I mean it's ah. So the game was gone evolve.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: And you know, I have a role now as a
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: vice chairman of the Board of Governors for the Smith
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, So I take it very seriously.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: And the game was invented by a Canadian doctor, James
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Naatesmith and uh and he happened to reside in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: So in my history, you know, Springfield is a part
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: of it because you mass is right down the road
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: from Springfield, even though it's an Amorates mass and and
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: so honoring that is is very important. But that's where
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: the brown ball started, that's where the peach basket, stories
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: about that started, and and so you know, it's gonna
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: come back there some in some regard because I think
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: the footprint of the Hall of Fame is gonna get
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: really huge, and hopefully I'll have a say so in
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: that as a vice chairman, maybe eventually become the chairman.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: And and you know it, the game, the game needs
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: the story needs to be told from its beginning to
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: to present day. And certain things, I mean obviously certain
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: things don't last forever. You throw those out, but you
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: know the new things that come, I mean they're shaking
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: the bacon, the moves they play on the playground, game,
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: the international influence, you know, all those things need to
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: be talked about in the right perspective. So there's a
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: story there. There's there's a book to be written.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the ABA, you know, when you look
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: at the docor felt more black, It felt more expressive,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like, was that intentional?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: That was just I.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: Think I think in terms of uh, let's say the A,
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: B A was the true integration of the.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Workplace, you know.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so so that's where that's where it happened in abundance.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: And you know, come on, man, it was nineteen sixties
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: when it was still a segregated society. So middle sixties,
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: sixty six sixty seven, we had integration in the school system.
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: Before that, Blacks were going over here, whites were going
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: over there, Latinos were going over there or whatever. So
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: you know, they're coming together. Happened in the in the sixties,
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: and you know that's when the ABA started.
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: At that point when when everything is integrated and y'all are,
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: you know, playing together, what were some of the things
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: that you still like as a black man in the ABA, Like,
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: what were some of the things that y'all still were
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: feeling even though integration was like happening is right there.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: So one thing for me.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: I had, I had integration long before it was fashion.
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: So I was I was born at Brook Hospital in
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: Long Island, the east middle of Long Island, and I
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: lived in Hempstead and Hempstead was not a segregated community.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: It was an integrated community. And my coach at the
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: Salvation Army was a white guy named Don Ryan, you know,
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: and he was like my guardian angel when I was
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: eleven years old, because you know, my father had passed
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: and mom was raising three kids, and you know, the
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: integration about the conversations about integration, segregation or whatever, sixty
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: one sixty two. I mean, we didn't really talk about that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: We didn't really talk about that. You know, we made
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: our trips down to South Carolina to see Grandma and grandpa, uncles, aunts,
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: cousins as well.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, South Carolina. Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: So so segregation was big because I go.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: Like, I'm just.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: Going to the store with my cousin and if we
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: ran into somebody white, we would cross the street. You know,
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: there was gonna be no interaction with us and them.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: And I was like, it ain't like that at home.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: You know, it wasn't like that in Long Island, but
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: it was like that in South Kackilaki.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: And so that became like.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: My first taste of it and my first taste of segregation.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: And then I came back and I'm at the Salvation.
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: I mean it's me and my boy Archie, two black
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: guys playing with ten white guys, and we got a
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: twelve man team and we beating everybody.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: And we're enjoying it and were enjoying each other's company.
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: You know, the Conroy brothers, they were there was like
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: twelve of them in their family. Three of them was
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: playing on on my team and the black brothers who
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: were white and they were twins and uh uh Tommy
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: Brethel and you know, the just it was just my
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: my introduction.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: To integration was well.
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: Before sixty six, you know, and before it happened nationally
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: and nationwide. So so when I when I chose my college,
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I went to University of Massachusetts.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I was the only black guy on the team, you know, and.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: I wasn't even recruited by HBCU colleges m you know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: and I mean I don't necessarily know why, but as
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: it turned out, I was either going to Saint John's.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: I was going to UMass and uh Saint John probably
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: had a couple more brothers there.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: That I would have been playing with, but you masked
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: didn't have many. It was just me. So there's a story.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: You know, everybody got their own story, right man.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Speaking of story, this is kind of random.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: But you know when Muhammad Ali held that uh that
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: conference in June fourth of nineteen sixty seven, Yeah, they
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: say that he refused to go to the to the
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Vietnam War draft, and like all of those athletes who
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: were and Bill Russell and Jim Brown, do.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: You remember where you were when you Yeah, I was.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: I was a junior in high school. Okay, you know,
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: so I was a little young for that, but it
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: had an impact on me.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: For sure.
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: Kareem was there, Yep, he was two years ahead of
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: me in school. And yeah, and I met Muhammad Ali
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: and interacted with him many times in my life, you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: afterwards after I became pro, because he had a he
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: had a pretty long career and had a huge impact
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: on all of us, all of us, you know. He
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: this guy wasn't afraid to speak up and speak his mind,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: you know, say say what he felt, tell everybody how
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: good he was.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: The reason I'm a little more modest about that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, IM like, I ain't going that far trying
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: to tell people I'm the greatest.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: But I could have been, well, you could have said
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: it easy.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: The reason I brought that up is like, do you
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: think athletes today understand the responsibility that comes with influence,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Because when you look at that picture, I felt like
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: everybody in that picture understood their influence.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: So when I came to New York to play, and
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: I spent time with Reggie Jackson, one you know who
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: was who was playing here?
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: In New York, spent time with Arthur ash.
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: And so so in terms of, you know, the crew
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: that I was, I was hanging with their guys who
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: had an impact on society. So I almost automatically had
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: an impact on society because you know, we shared knowledge
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: and we you know, we shared being like minded in
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: our thoughts about our community. And so always always having
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: been a community guy, and even to today, you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: community is very important to me, and it's very important
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: to my children and my grandchildren, you know, be a
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: good citizen, try to work for the better.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: And even going back to that slogan.
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: That the Salvation Army has now, which is called doing
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: the most good, And it used to be when I
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: was a kid, not for ourselves but for others. So
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: that was implanted in me a long time ago, and
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: it's never going to go away.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: How important was it for you to carry yourself with
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: a certain level of class and dignity in that era?
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: Mom insisted the first wife and second wife, you know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: have always check me out before I go out the door.
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: But I'm like, for real, we're gonna go through this again.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: You don't want it, to know, the league has changed
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: so much looking back at it. Do you think it
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: changed for the good, the better or the worse?
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: And the reason I ask is, do you ever think
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: like if I had the eual step, could you imagine
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: what I've done? Or if I had to step back,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: could you imagine what I've done?
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: But even the flopping?
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: And then I was watching the doc and I used
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: to see all the fights that would happen every night,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: like y'all used to fight, not get thrown out the game,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: get a tech, and then y'all keep playing. Do y'all
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: think it's it's changed for the worst.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't say for the worst. I would say that
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: I don't particularly like the flopping. I don't like the
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: low management. I don't like the celebratory gestures that are
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: made when you do your job, When you do what
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: you practice doing and you prepare to do and then
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: you do it, why you gotta celebrate? You know, why
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: you got to go down the court putting three fingers
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: on your arm because you made a three point shot?
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: You know, shout out, they've shot a thousand three pointers
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: and you make one, and now you've got to show everybody,
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: show everybody that that was a three pointer or whatever.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: So But it's really funny because.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: It's not really about how I'm influenced by it, it's
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: how the next generation is influenced by it. So so
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: if I if I watch TV, or if I go
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: to a game like a little league game or a
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: what do they called basketball? Now, if I go to that,
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: see the kids, they kids are gonna do what they
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: see the pros do.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: And that's just the way it is. So I just
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: keep my mouth zipped.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Like, if they had the eurostep when you were playing,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: you would have been stepping from half court like that.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: That would have been a travel back then.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, we had something called the Washington crossover.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: So so you you basically establish your pivot foot, then
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: you cross over the pivot foot and you get into
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: that space that you're occupying now with that pivot foot
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: still being in the same place. And then when you
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: come back and cross over this way, you know, I mean,
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: you've gained all this space.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Your wings to make your move, so you can put
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: the leg over there and then you bring it back
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and whatever.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: So that that was that was.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: Kind of like we call that the Washington crossover, and
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: some people had it, some people didn't.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Once you lift lift your pivot foot. It's a travel
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: right now.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: It's not a travel, you know, because you can hop
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: hop hippie hoppy hop or whatever. And they're so good
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: at it now, and it happened so fast. I think
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: the reference reps are just embarrassed to make a call
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: because people have been told refs have been told, Look,
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: people ain't here to watch you. They here to watch
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: the players, you know, So you're blowing that whistle all
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: the time.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Ain't happening?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: That's real? I want to ask, because then he brought
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: up the fighting when y'all jump Larry Bird, right, when
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: y'all jump Bird, what was it? What was the backlash
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: from that?
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: I don't know what you're talking about. Willis from behind? No, no, no, no, no,
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: no no no.
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: I saw the video yesterday, came across, so Larry got
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: in my face and I grabbed his neck right and
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: then I was getting my jab ready, and that's when
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: those guys grabbed him. So I didn't you know, I
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: wasn't like trying to hit him after somebody grabbed him,
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: because you know, it was between me and him with
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: our business.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: We're going to keep it our business, y'all.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: But the backlash after that happened, was there any.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we got fined seventy five dollars.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, and seventy five dollars.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Seventy five dollars. That was big, fine man. That was
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: my seventy five hours.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But you know, at the.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Time, Larry Bird was like, you know they before we
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: were day before we made a commercial together.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: We made a Converse commercial together. I wasn't really mad.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: At him grab his next about.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: The jab holder. Holdly, we grabbed each other's next, okay.
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: Because we had an incident down on one end and
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: he got called for a foul. We go down the
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: other end. I see him coming at me.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Right, so I stopped him and he had me. I
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: had him and the other guys ain't nobody invite them.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: To the Partystone wasn't having it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: We did invite nobody to the party.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Larry always said he never was talking trash to you,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: but everybody else is like, nah, he was talking trash
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: and he called your old man or something like that,
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: and he gave y'all forty.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Two that night.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: What was then exhibition game.
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: But did that fuel the fight?
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: What what actually fueled the fight?
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: When somebody comes and gets in your face or whatever.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: You're either gonna back them off or you're gonna turn
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: around go the other way.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: So in those days, it was back them off. So
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: that's when I grabbed it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: You don't see that anymore.
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: And I saw the part of Doc when it was like, yeah,
• 31:51
  Speaker 7: if you didn't fight in the A, B A you were,
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: I was like, it's so different now.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Is that a quest?
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: No? Okay, accept it. I saw I saw some of that.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: I saw it with my own eyes. Eyes didn't lie.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: When people say things like doctor J changed the game,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: what does that actually mean to you personally?
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: I take it as a compliment. I think the references
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: into maybe elevating, uh, the attention given to the game,
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: make people want to watch, you know, the whole fan
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: experience and uh. And then I think from a contract standpoint,
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: you know, when I went from the Nets to the Sixers,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: you know, it's reported as being one of the biggest
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: contracts ever, six million dollar contract. I got three, and
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: that's got three and then I got, you know, five
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: years of hard labor playing back.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I don't understand I never understand that. Why didn't that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: get three million?
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: Because they lost their best player and they actually.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: The Sixers bought my contract got.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: You, So it wasn't a trade and it wasn't a
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: draft or whatever it was.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: It was an acquisition.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: So I got sold just like they did back in
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: the days of slavery. Wow, you know, but you know
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: I ain't get beat up. The contract was sold.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: I think you were one of the first players I
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: would I think that. I think so many companies took
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: advantage of it. I don't, and I'm asking because when
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I was a kid, you would see the Doctor J.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Kicks jerseys everywhere through the roof. I think as a kid,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: you were the most sold jersey because everybody had a
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Doctor J. Did you ever get paid off of that?
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Did the NBA take care of their players when they
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: sold all those jerseys back then? Or that contract was
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: the contract.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: Both? You know.
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: I think the therments and the endorsement scenario. Your agent,
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: your business manager did that.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: Now I got my nephew doing it or whatever. So
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: it still exists today where we get opportunities to market
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: our brand and we have the Doctor J brand, and
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: we have Rvan Global Opportunity LLC. Whatever, So so we
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: still do deals. I consistently say that the beginning of
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: all that started with, you know, the PSA's.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: I used to do PSA's with public service announcements.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: I did that for the Salvation Army because I love them,
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: and I did it for Mother's March against Cancer, and
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: you know, just different things that let people see me
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: out in the public, know that I could speak, you know,
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: I could articulate the language and and you know, probably
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: some people think I'm a pretty good salesman. So that's
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: what opened that door. And you know, it was the
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: team effort going in that broke down the door and
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: the barriers and gave us, gave us that look. And
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: I get credit where I don't deserve it because there
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: was a retail operation here in New York for a
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: long time called Doctor James and I had nothing to
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: do nothing that I had nothing to do it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: But people always say, oh, yeah, I was in your story.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: I wish you were.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: You know, back then, right, did the players understand their value?
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Are we are?
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: We all underpaid architects of what turned out to be
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: a multi billion dollar culture?
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: A little bit of both.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: You know, my agent was the same guy who represented
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: Clyde Fraser, so so Clyde was you know, a bit
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: of a role model and early pioneer in terms of style, endorsements,
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: and the business out of the game. Uh so I
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: had I had that influence on me because I would
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: spend time around him and ask him questions about things
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: that I didn't know about because he was ahead of me.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: And then Bill Russell, Will Chamberlain, you know, the giants
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: of the game.
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: Uh. You know, when I got the Philadelphia opened the
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: shoe salon there, and I was just trying to get
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: those guys in the store because I knew it would
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: you know, generate some business. And they both came and participated,
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: and then I realized, you know, Bill Russell, he had
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: like a twelve or thirteen because my shoe was like
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: a fifteen or sixteen, and then Chamblain was like a
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: thirteen or fourteen or whatever. So they were two biggest
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: guys in the game, and they didn't really have huge feet.
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: I the heck is that all about? You know? But
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: my shoe salon specialized in larger sizes. Gotcha. That's the
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: only reason I mentioned that.
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: Has there been any business that now, like you have
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: your companies and your nephew that you've had to go
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: back and be like we need to rectify some things
• 37:09
  Speaker 7: from like.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely twenty twenty six.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: We're going back and we're gonna you know, reconnect with Converse,
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: which would be one. Uh, you know, we have a
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: we have a good situation with the with the seventy
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: six ers, and they treat the alumni really well. But
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: there's always one for more.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I know, you got to go. I've got a couple
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: more questions.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: Speaking of the Sixes, Alan, he always says you were
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: his role model, like a father figure, and I feel
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: like you probably understood him more than most because of
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: how people looked at you when you came in the league,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: and that was that the reason you.
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: Not only in the league, but in Philadelphia, because Philadelphia
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: is a unique city.
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: You know, it's one of one.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: And uh, you know, they love you or they hate you,
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: and they love me, and they loved Alan continue to
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: do so. So anytime I see him, I grab him
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: like he's a little brother, and you know we're we're
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: in arm all the time. And understand that, you know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: we've gone through the Philadelphia experience and will continue to
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: enjoy the benefits of it as well as understand the downside.
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: You know, it was really funny. Doug Collins was a
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: teammate of mine, and and he said.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: Once he said one thing I'm glad about people in Philadelphia.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: It never booed me in the crowd went he said,
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: we're gonna take care of this right now. So I said,
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: I ain't gonna say that.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: You don't want, you've got to.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: I guess people were upset when you did your NBA list,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: your NBA list and you admitted Lebron James, and people
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: were like, well, why what's doctor Ja's b for Lebron James?
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Did you have a beef with the money.
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: I don't have a beef with him, but I don't
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: I don't list guys till they retire, you know. So
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, El Tebela and
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: Will Chamberlain. That's my team I made the time I
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: decided on them when I was fifteen and they were
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: still playing. So that was the last time I did
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: active players. So now that's my first team. For my
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: second team, guys retire, they get a chance to make
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: my second team.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: That's just that's just me. That's just the way I
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: feel about it.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Who's your second team now?
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: The retired team. I gotta take magic. Michael Bird might
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: not like this one, but Carl Alone, Tim Duncan, maybe
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: Isaiah All retired.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: That's classic to put Bird in the after y'all jumped
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: them like that. Man, you ain't gonna let her. Who
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: was it tougher's player to play against?
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: Who was the toughness man?
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: The guy who I hate chasing around was but No
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: King and uh, physically the toughest guy Maurice Lucas. You know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: AH got to give him his props. You know, nobody
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: wanted to get elbowed by him. Although I did get
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: hit by Buck Williams once he gave me a good shot.
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: And uh, those those are the only two guys I
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: wasn't able to get back. All the other guys I
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: can get them back. Those two guys, I wasn't messing
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: with them.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: The slam Dunk Contest, right, that's something that every All
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Star did. What do you think about the Slam Dunk
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Contest today and what it means to people, because back
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: then it was everything. Yeah, I've seen guys that they
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: don't want to do it.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: They don't want to.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: It's a little watered down because you know, you don't
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: have the stars doing it, and they're you know, it's
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: it's it should be a launching pad for somebody to
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: get in and you know, elevate their individual standing in
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: basketball society. But they you know, when the G League
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: guy won back to back, I got what his name is,
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: maca mccullor. He went back to back. That just changed everything. Man,
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: It's just like, nah, man, come on, you know, so.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: I think I think the economics associated with the.
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: League, you know, guys making twenty five fifty million dollars
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: a year, They're like, I don't need the name, you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: I don't need this because there's only one winner. So
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: it's not like six guys can win and go forward
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: with either career wise or popularity wise or economics. The
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: economics are non factor a, non factors. So I'm kind
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: of honored to be able to just present the trophy
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: because I was in the original not dumb contest. So
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: you know, you say, change the game, so on and
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: so forth. I've contributed to changes associated with the game.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Well, when it's all said and done, what do you
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: want people to feel when they hear the name Julius
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: doctor j R.
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: I ideally, if it was one of one.
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: You know, the other day, I was asked about, you know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: different players, who do you compare to you know, X
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: Y or Z or whatever. And you know, maybe I
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: kind of slide Drexeler in there and Dominique and whatever.
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: But I you know, I'm looking at basketball. I don't
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: see myself out there. I don't see anybody who looks
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: like me.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. I was talking even just outside
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: of basketball though.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Like when they hear your name, you know, in the future, Yeah, well,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: you just wanted to be basketball.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: Hopefully, hopefully it has.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: We stood the test of time because I've been out
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: since nineteen eighty seven, and you know, I walked in here.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: You guys are like, hey, legend, guys here.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: So that's out of respect and also recollection of that
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: period of time which you know went on you know
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: well before you were that conscious about what was going
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: on in basketball. So you've seen the videos and hear
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: what people have to say, and then I'll impact in
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: terms of our business decisions.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: You know, the.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: Racing team that I had with Joe Washington, Washington Irving Motorsports,
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: you know, the partnership with Philadelphia Cola, and you know,
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: being three states back in the seventies, eighties, nineties, and
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: to early two thousands actually whatever. So those are things
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: that I think our contributions, uh, to society, to community,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: and things that enhanced my legend.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: I think if you grew up in a black household
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: who had a father who liked sports, you heard doctor
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: j you heard Khammad Ali, you heard Mariembly. Even in
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: the early eighties when Michael Jordan came around, and how
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: much we loved Michael.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Your possibly like, oh you like Michael.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: One last question the logo. You know, that was a
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: big conversation about Jerry westbying the logo. What did you
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: think about the logos? People think that some people said
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: it should have been you, some people said it should
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: have been Kobe. You know, what was your thoughts on the.
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Legal I think the logo situation was established, you know,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: well before.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: My legacy became a question, you know. Uh, and.
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure if it's exact history, but uh, you know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: Jerry's probably the right guy. And you know, especially now
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: that he's gone, you know, it's it's almost like an
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: automatic that you know, you don't why why do you
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: have to replace a guy? You know, if it has,
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: if there was a if there was a necessity to
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: get a replacement, then you start the search. So I think,
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: you know, there are a couple of players who talked
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: about it and talked about.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: We need a new new logo. I don't think the
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: n b A feels like they need a new logo.
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: I'm sure when they have board meetings, board their board
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: of Governor's meets, they're not having a logo conversation whatever.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: They're having conversations about what's gonna bring it some money,
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: you know, to the league, and you know what's gonna
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: create a larger endowment.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Gotcha the legend of the American Basketball Association. You can
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: watch it on an Amazon Prime now, Doctor J. We
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: appreciate you for joining us. You a legend and icon.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: And they brought a basketball, so this we're gonna leave
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: a basketball up there that that's that's signed by Doctor J.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: What a fireball.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: And that that was Q Big three, the one that the.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: A b A went.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: You know, we honor you signed already.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna coaching in the.
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: Excuse me, okay, okay, yeah, since the beginning, what you're
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: doing on the weekends watching the.
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: He sought you out or you went to them and
• 46:34
  Speaker 7: said I want to be a part of you.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: Personally called I need a favor. That was.
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: Seven years ago. Wo I coached you six seasons. This
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: would be the seventh dope, probably one more year. See
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: if we can get the chip and the and the
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: championship trophies has my.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Name on it. Okay for the Big three and.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Man, we honor you, doctor J. Honor you, value you
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: and appreciate you. Brothers, Doctor J.
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: It's the Breakfast Club.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Good morning, thank you, hold up every day a week ago,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: click your glass up the Breakfast Club.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: You're finish for y'all done it.