Julius Erving

He actually did that! I thought, 'What should we do? Should we take the ball out, or should we ask him to do it again?' It's still the greatest move I've ever seen in a basketball game, the all-time greatest." -- Magic Johnson on the Baseline Move. Sports Illustrated has helped launched a number of related publishing ventures, including:. "Here I was, trying to win a championship, and my mouth just dropped open. While the list of "examples" of the jinx is extensive, an individual record 49 cover appearances by Michael Jordan and team record 61 covers by the New York Yankees have not hindered their success. Julius was the first player I ever remember who transcended sports and was known by one name -- Doctor." -- his coach Billy Cunningham. Other notable cover coincidences include:. He understood what his role was and how important it was for him to conduct himself as a representative of the league. "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx" -- was born, as some noted that bad things seemed to happen to people soon after they appeared on the magazine's cover.

"As a basketball player, Julius was the first to truly take the torch and become the spokesman for the NBA. When Major League Baseball player Eddie Mathews, pictured on the cover of Volume 1, Issue 1, suffered a hand injury a week later that forced him to miss seven games, the "Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx" -- a.k.a. This move, along with his free-throw line dunk, has become one of Julius Erving's signature events of his career. Since its inception, Sports Illustrated has annually presented the "Sportsman of the Year" award. But somehow he managed to reach over and score on a right-handed layup despite the fact that his whole body, including his left shoulder, was already behind the hoop. 8-9, 268-273, 354-358, 394-398, 402-405). In mid-air, it was apparent that Erving would land behind the backboard. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp.

Then 7'2" center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar crossed his way, blocking the route to the basket and forcing him outwards. More importantly, perhaps, many feel that 24-hour-a-day cable sports television networks and sports news web sites have forever diminished the role a weekly publication can play in today's world, and that it is unlikely any magazine will ever again achieve the level of prominence that SI once had. He drove past a defender on the right baseline and went up for a layup. The proliferation of "commemorative issues" and crass subscription incentives seemed to some like an exchange of journalistic integrity for commercial opportunism. One of his most memorable plays occured during the 1980 NBA Finals, when he executed a seemingly impossible finger-roll behind the backboard [1]. Critics said that it rarely broke (or even featured) stories on the major controversies in sports (drugs, violence, commercialism) any more, and that it focused on major sports and celebrities to the exclusion of other topics. He is revered for his legacy of amazing acrobatic and powerful offensive moves. Mulvoy's top writer Rick Reilly had also been raised on SI and followed in the footsteps of many of the great writers that he grew up admiring, but many felt that the magazine as a whole came to reflect Mulvoy's complete lack of sophistication.

Erving introduced the dunk jumping off the foul line, which he demonstrated in the 1976 All-Star Dunking Contest. Mark Mulvoy was the first top editor whose background contained nothing but sports; he had grown up as one of the magazine's readers, but he had no interest in fiction, movies, hobbies or history. Erving was ranked #10 on SLAM Magazine's Top 75 NBA Players of All time in 2003. By the 1980s and 1990s, the magazine had become more profitable than ever, but many also believed it had become more predictable. In 1997, he joined the front office of the Orlando Magic. After the death of Henry Luce in 1967, the creative freedom that the staff had enjoyed seemed to diminish. he became a businessman, obtaining ownership of a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Philadelphia and doing work for TV as an analyst. 236-238).

After his basketball career, Erving was equally successful. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. As of 2005, Erving ranks fifth on the list; only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Karl Malone, and Michael Jordan have scored more points in the history of professional basketball. "Bonus pieces" on Pete Rozelle, Bear Bryant, Howard Cosell and others became some of the most quoted sources about these figures, and Deford established a reputation as one of the best writers of the time. On the combined NBA/ABA scoring list, Erving ranked third with 30,026 points. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during Gil Rogin's term as Managing Editor, the feature stories of Frank Deford became the magazine's anchor. When he retired, Erving ranked in the top 10 in scoring (third), most field goals made (third), most field goals attempted (fifth) and most steals (first). 108-111, 139-141, 149-151, 236).

In 1993, Erving was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. In his ABA and NBA careers combined, he scored more than 30000 points. An intense rivalry developed between photographers, particularly Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer, to get a decisive cover shot that would be on newsstands and in mailboxes only a few days later. 6 jersey. By 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of "fast color" a year; in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly. 32 jersey, and the Philadelphia 76ers his No. In 1965, offset printing began to allow the color pages of the magazine to be printed overnight, not only producing crisper and brighter images, but also finally enabling the editors to merge the best color with the latest news.

He is one of the few players in modern basketball to have his number retired by two franchises: the New Jersey Nets (formerly New York Nets) have retired his No. The magazine's photographers also made their mark with innovations like putting cameras in the goal at a hockey game and behind a glass backboard at a basketball game. Erving retired at age 37. 5-8, 160). In 1986, he announced that he would retire after the season, causing every basketball game he played to be sold out and packed with adoring fans. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. Erving continued his all-star caliber play into his twilight years, averaging 22.4, 20.0, 18.1, and 16.8 points per game in his final seasons. The steady creation of landmark stories (e.g., "The Black Athlete - A Shameful Story" by Jack Olsen and "Paper Lion" by George Plimpton) showed that sports fans could be readers, and a generation of sportswriters patterned their own writing after what they read in SI.

Armed with one of the most lethal center-forward combinations of all time, the Sixers easily won the NBA crown in 1983. Many would say that the magazine legitimized sports -- and being a sports fan -- for a huge segment of the American population. But then, the Sixers obtained the missing link to combat their weakness at their center position, Moses Malone. Its writers developed their own characteristic style by daring to tell people what was important. Nevertheless, Erving was named the NBA MVP in 1981. Many of the staff had serious doubts that the English-born Frenchman could possibly know anything about American sports, but Laguerre won them over, and during his term as Managing Editor (1960 - 1974), SI became a model for other middle-class American magazines. 1981 and 1982 were also sour grapes for Erving, as the Sixers stranded twice, once against the Celtics and once again against the Lakers. senior European Correspondent André Laguerre to come to New York and help define the magazine's character.

However, the Lakers won 4-2 with a superb Magic Johnson. In 1956, Luce asked Time, Inc. There, Erving executed the legendary Baseline Move, an incredible behind-the-board reverse layup and one of the most spectacular basketball moves ever. From the start, however, SI did introduce a number of innovations that are generally taken for granted today:. In 1980 the 76ers prevailed over the Celtics, and went to the NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. 6, 27, 42). Dr J matchup became the top personal rivalry in the sport, even inspiring the early video game Julius Erving-Larry Bird One-on-One. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp.

In 1979-1980 Larry Bird had entered the league, reviving the Boston Celtics and the storied Celtics-76ers rivalry; these two teams would face each other in the Eastern Conference Finals for the next four years, and the Bird vs. Much of the subject matter was directed at upper class activities (yachting, polo, and even safaris), but upscale would-be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market. In the following years, Erving had to cope with the fact that he himself was a stellar player, but his team simply needed time to grow; they were eliminated twice in the Eastern Conference Finals. The early issues of the magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience. However, Erving enjoyed success off the court, becoming one of the first ballers to endorse products and became one of the games' first players to have a shoe marketed under his name. The popularity of spectator sports in the United States was about to explode, and that popularity came to be driven largely by three things:. After taking a 2-0 lead, the Blazers defeated the Sixers with four straight victories. The goal of the new magazine was to be "not A sports magazine, but THE sports magazine." Launched on August 16, 1954, it was not profitable and not particularly well run at first, but Luce's timing could not have been better.

Erving quickly became the leading man of his new club and led them into the NBA Finals against the Portland Trailblazers of Bill Walton. After unsuccessfully offering $200,000 to buy the name Sport for the new magazine, they acquired the rights to the name Sports Illustrated instead for just $10,000. After the merger of the Nets and three other surviving teams into the NBA, Erving had a salary dispute with the Nets and eventually was sold to the Philadelphia 76ers (a move that cost the Nets franchise, soon to relocate to New Jersey, dearly in terms of lost credibility). 17-25). In his five ABA seasons Erving had won two championships, three MVP trophies, and three scoring titles. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. In the postseason, Erving averaged 34.7 points and was named Most Valuable Player of the playoffs. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life Magazine's Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, who was not a sports fan, decided the time was right.

The Erving-led Nets defeated the Denver Nuggets in the swansong finals of the ABA. At the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and didn't think sports news could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter. By 1976, the ABA was failing under financial pressure. In fact, there was no large-base, general sports magazine with a national following when TIME patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill the gap. His unusual and highly spectacular play single-handedly gave the league fans and credibility. Two other magazines named Sports Illustrated were actually started in the 1930s and 1940s, but they both quickly failed. More important than that, Erving established himself not only as the most important Nets player, but as the most important ABA player. .

Erving had won his first ABA title. Its "swimsuit issue," which has been published since 1964, is now an annual publishing event that generates its own television shows, videos and calendars. Erving led the Nets to the ABA Finals against the Utah Stars and vanquished them. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. Erving was traded to the New York Nets in 1973. It has over 3 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men, 19% of the adult males in the country. The graceful forward with the trademark Afro was dazzling people with his flashy, exciting style of play, which fit well in the ABA's up-tempo image. Sports Illustrated is a popular weekly American sports magazine owned by media giant Time Warner.

There, his game flourished, and he achieved a career-best 31.9 points per game. Michael MacCambridge, 1997, The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine, Hyperion Press ISBN 0786862165. However, he was unhappy there and tried to move to the Atlanta Hawks, until due to legal injunction, he was obliged to return to the Squires in the ABA. Ceased publication in December 2005 because of a weak advertising climate. This move would have brought him together with two other NBA legends, Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Circulation of one million readers between the ages of 18 and 24. When he became eligible for the NBA draft in 1972, the Milwaukee Bucks picked him in the first round (12th pick overall). Distributed free on 72 college campuses through a network of college newspapers.

He led the Squires into the Eastern Division Finals, where they lost to the Rick Barry-led New York Nets. Dedicated to college athletics and the sports interests of college students. He scored 27.3 points per game as a rookie, was selected to the All-ABA Second Team, made the ABA All-Rookie Team and finished second to Artis Gilmore for the ABA Rookie of the Year Award. Launched on September 4, 2003. Erving quickly established himself as a force, and gaining a reputation for hard and ruthless dunking. Sports Illustrated on Campus magazine