March 3, 2026 • 56 mins
Colin’s joined by NBA legend Julius Irving to discuss his new documentary Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association.
Finally, Colin reacts to the shocking retirement from Chicago Bears Center Drew Dalman. How will this impact Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears going forward?
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates!
#Volume
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor,
American Beverage. If you think about some of the most
iconic drinks in the country, the ones you grab a barbecue,
the ones you raised to celebrate your team, that have
been part of your story for decades, Coke, Doctor, Pepper, Pepsi,
there's something people don't always think about. The companies behind
those brands are still making their drinks right here in
the US. While there's a lot of talk about bringing
(00:25):
manufacturing back, America's beverage companies never left their American companies,
making American products with American workers in America's hometown. So
two hundred and seventy five thousand men and women across
all fifty states, real jobs, good paying jobs, the kind
of jobs you can raise a family on. So more
than one hundred years, those brands have been part of
everyday lives and they're still here, still investing, still operating
in communities around the country. So if you care about
(00:47):
strong old economies and companies that walk the walk, check
out the good work and what they're doing it. We
deliver for America dot Org. Well, like the rest of you,
I love a good sports documentary, and when I heard
(01:08):
there was a doc on Amazon Prime about the ABA,
for many reasons, I was fascinated. It's called soul Power,
the Legends of the ABA. So I've said many times
on my show The Herd ten times, fifteen times. The
first basketball player I fell in love with was Julius Irving.
But I was born in nineteen sixty four, as Julius
(01:30):
now joins us, and I didn't watch sports until nineteen
seventy two. I remember it clearly. On a black and
white TV, Julius, I watched the Miami Dolphins at the
time Washington Redskins Super Bowl. Dolphins won fourteen to seven.
It was about that time. You know, I'm six years old,
seven years old, I'm getting into sports. So my mom
(01:53):
bought me a subscription to Sports Illustrated so I could
watch baseball as the national pastime on TV. College football.
College basketball was big, But like anything else in life,
the one thing I couldn't get was the ABA. So
I had to rely on the Sporting News, which actually
did ABA guides, and Sports Illustrated twice put you on
(02:18):
the cover. I remember this. So I'm in my formative
years and I'm like, Who's doctor J. Nobody's called doctor J.
So because I didn't get you didn't have a TV contract,
because I didn't get ABA games. As a Seattle kid,
my parents bought me an ABA ball, So it's fascinating
(02:43):
to me. So let's go back. And I've always felt
that the NBA should include ABA numbers and stats. And
the reason I do is something I think you'll believe
in that I didn't know this about the ABA, Julius.
I knew about the Nuggets and the Spurs. I knew
about you, I knew about how many good players there were.
(03:05):
I did not know much about the exhibition games with
the NBA, in which the ABA teams clabbered them regularly.
So let so let's let's talk. Let's let's start with that.
The NBA in the seventies was considered a little white
(03:26):
and overcoached, and the ABA was more stylistic. It was
more fun, it was more fashionable, it was a little
rowdy when you matched up against those NBA teams. Was
there a chip on you on your league's shoulder, facing
like the adult the parent league that you knew in
(03:48):
many instances you were superior to.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, I played in two of those games.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And ABA versus NBA, and the excitement surrounding it was
unbelievable because it was just the exhibition season and you know,
we had training camp, play exhibition games, and then play
the regular season, so everyone always look forward to the
regular season in the playoffs, and that was the big
deal with these exhibition games against the NBA. You know,
(04:17):
became a big deal more so for the ABA than
the NBA because the ABA was the league that was
trying to establish itself, also trying to prove it itself
worthy and you know, wanted to have some bragging rights.
So you beat an NBA team, Uh, they're going to
make excuses. They're going to say, well, our guys aren't
in shape and it's only it's only a practice game
(04:41):
or whatever. But you know, the ABA guys who were
probably younger and more excitable, kind of like the young
NBA players are now, you know, looking forward to having
the chip on their shoulder and all of that good stuff.
So so so winning those games, especially if you're playing
on your on your home court, because the city that
you're in, you know, would always stick a chest out
(05:03):
a little bit and say, hey, yeah, you know, you know,
we knock those guys off, and you know, the league's
been around longer, and you know, those names are known.
People know Oscar Robinson's name, Clyde Frasier, Wilt Chamberlain, you
know west Unsel, They know those guys' names, and you
know we took them down. Those are the same guys.
You know what, guys, if they cut, they bleed just
(05:24):
like we do. Elbow they've been over, they act like
they're hurt, just like.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
We do or whatever. So you know, we're all human beings.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
And because you wear a title and you're you're you
wear a moniker or whatever, that's not gonna make you different.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That's gonna necessarily make you greater.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Uh So, so it was a good confidence boosted for us,
and you know a lot of people who went to
those games alive became believers. And also you know that
served to feed the cause. And the cause was you know,
we had seen the AFL and the NFL, you know,
Merchant some one league, so we had witnessed that, and
(06:08):
globally the same type of thing was happening. It was
happening in soccer, and it was happening in other sports
that have played universally, not necessarily in the United States.
So that became a mission for the ownership the players.
You know, my opinion was, I came out of school
(06:29):
after my junior year. I had played two varsity seasons
and our team had been invited to the n I
t Even though our record was good enough to be
invited to the NCAA tournament, we weren't.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And it felt like we were snubbed.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And after that, after my junior year, I got approached
by an agent, and the numbers that they started talking about,
you know, were comparable to the best player in the NBA,
and they said, this is going to go away.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I mean, if the lead folds, it's going to go away.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And if the NBA continues to you know, maybe put
you out of business or you know, maintains a superiority.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Complex, then those numbers are going to go away.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
And you know, one hundred thousand is going to turn
into twenty five, thirty thousand or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So you know, I took the deal. I took the deal.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
It cost me a lot because I was I had
to forego being an Olympian and I had played in
the Olympic Development program and you know, at my size
and with my game, I was the leading scorer and
rebounder in the Olympic Development program. We went over to Russia,
Poland and Finland and played and you know, I was
(07:53):
a shoe to make the team. But that that era
of the representing your country and playing for the United
States of America in nineteen seventy seventy one seventy two
was not the most popular thing to do.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It's not like we were just dying to do it.
So I chose. I chose the pro pro route.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And at that time, you know, this is twenty years
before pros were allowed to play in the Olympics, so
you had to be an amateur to play. And you know,
sorry about you know, getting off the subject, but I'm
just kind of this sale space is very very important
in terms of the ABA story, in the ABA Hockey series,
because there's so much to it beyond just basketball.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, there's the culture you know that we have.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
There's the racial tension you know that was evident, and
and then there's you know, just the global situation where
you know, we're still learning things and there are a
lot of things that have gone on for hundreds of
years that haven't been fixed yet. So who's going to
(09:04):
fix this. Who's going to fix this? So basketball couldn't
be the most important thing for me in my life,
but it was.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
It was. It was the path that I needed to take. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, what's interesting because I grew up in the seventies.
You know, the NBA was not a rich league in
the seventies. In fact, I can remember the NBA Finals
being on tape delay after the eleven o'clock news and
young fans now that can watch every game every night,
(09:38):
So I remember NBA teams at that time. Julius traveled
on commercial first flight out of town, out of sea, traveled,
so what right, that's right? So what was travel like? Hotels?
Travel in the ABA, which was financially in a tougher
spot than even the NBA in the early seventh.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, so so you know, we didn't have the uh,
top notch hotels.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
We had what was available to us. We had roommates.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
You know, everybody had to pick a roommate, so those
single rooms. I didn't experience a single room until I
got in the NBA and I was in Philadelphia and
I didn't want a single room. Actually, Steve Mixed was
my roommate for five seasons and that was my boy,
and I learned a lot from him and he learned
a lot from me. So yeah, the accommodation piece, I
(10:35):
don't know, you know, if you if your college team,
you know, was in the Big ten or maybe you
know out there in the Pac twelve or whatever, you know,
maybe the travel was a little better, maybe the hotel
accommodations were a little better, you know. But you know,
I played in with the Minute Menu formally the UMass
red Men, and we were in the Yankee Conference, right,
(10:57):
So our travel, our travel with was a lot bout bus.
I mean we bussed over to Buffalo, and we bussed
down to Penn Pennsylvania to play Penn and then all
throughout New England we played Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, you know,
all of those schools.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you were built for it, and we took buses.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
So the move to the ABA was actually a step
up in terms of traveling and in terms of hotel accommodation.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
So I'm from Seattle. So another player who was groundbreaking
was Spencer Haywood. So I yeah, so you know, I
grew up not only with the downtown Freddie Brown, DJ,
Gus Williams, Jack Sikmasonics. I grew up with Spencer Haywood,
John Brisker, the young teams. And I tell people this
because for young fans the ABA. This is why I
(11:45):
supported the live tour to the PGA. My takeaway is, folks,
watch what Lyft and Uber did the taxis you need
disruptors in society, and the ABA was really the one
of the first disruptors in sports in this country. And
when I mean, you were a nine time All Star,
five in the NBA. Four in the ABA, you were
(12:07):
a three time, you were a four.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Times, sixteen time All Star, so you were six.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I was an All Star every season, but in terms
of all pro that was that was five in the
NBA and four first team in Yeah, I already played
there five years, so I was second team the other year.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
So in the history of American basketball, professional basketball, there's
a real argument that the most unrewarded overlooked player is you.
That you were. You spent probably forty percent of your
best days. You know, you're in your athletic prime in
the ABA. Have you ever thought about I mean, do
(12:50):
you regret that decision? Have you ever thought? Man? Because
the Olympics back in seventy two wasn't what they are now.
We watched for gymnastics, we watched for a lot of things.
The Dream Team kind of made the Olympic basketball. It's
a showcase. But when I look at you, I think
of all the great players, you probably have been overlooked
(13:16):
more than any great player, because I remember in the
seventies turning on the TV I grew up the Pacific
Northwest and watching you against the Blazers and thinking what
am I watching? Have you ever thought about that? Have
you ever had regrets about your journey?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's an excellent question, and I can'd of stand on
the ground that the journey that I took, the path
that I took, made who I am today. You know,
never wan to ego trip and feel like I deserve
(13:53):
more than I've received. I'm more sensitive to the guys
who didn't know recognition. I at least get some recognition.
I was on eight covers of Sports Illustrated and multiple
colors of Sports Magazine, and uh, you know, participated in
a lot of charitable endeavors which led to endorsements.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, shooting Converse.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Yeah my shoe deal with Converse, and it's balding and
you know, my invitation to become a Coca Cola butler
with Bruce Llewellen, and so so there were things that happened.
I've had a good life. I've had had a very
very good life. And could it be better.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I don't know. It could be different, It could be different.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But my my my empathy goes, you know, to the
guys who were passed on, don't have the recognition their families,
they don't have the financial support, you know of pensions
and and gifting and uh so that the sort of
things that are more important than my ego. And I
(15:06):
think that my statistics can be matched with anybody's. I mean,
you know, the guys who came after me and played
better in the NBA than they played in the ABA,
And my stats in the ABA were probably a little
better than the NBA. But I was playing with a
different team. I came my whole career with the Philadelphia
seventy six ers. The first day I got there, the
(15:29):
general manager came in and said, look, we got George
McGinnis here, we got Doug Collins or whatever, so we
don't need you to score thirty points a game. And
I've never experienced that where I've gone, and the coaches
told me to tone it down, or general manager I
said tone it down. And so they were bursts in which,
(15:52):
you know, the doctor j of the ABA came out.
But most of the time it was as you said
about the NBA, you know, slow down, structure, structure, playing,
playing a certain type of game. So I was encouraged
to play that type of game, although inside of me,
(16:13):
you know, there was always that ability to do more.
And who who asked an athlete to do less?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Nobody? It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, it's interesting because there's so much Your journey is
fascinating and and uh, the aforementioned Philadelphia seventy six ers
is one of the first teams I loved. And they
had Steve mix a b A A B A, George
McGinnis a B A, Bobby Jones a B A. It
was an ABA All Star Jones, Calill Jones. So essentially
(16:47):
that seventy six ers team was an ABA team. Winning
the NBA Finals, was it not?
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Absolutely going and losing to Portland and winning ultimately in
eighty three against the Lakers. We had met much ABA
representation there, and plus you know, the guys who didn't
get the ABA experience. I always, you know, taught them
things that I brought over from the ABA, you know,
(17:15):
And I used to tell Andrew Tony. I'd say, you know,
George Gervin came in my second year in Virginia and
the practice was over and he wanted to go home,
and I was like, gee, we got work to do.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
You're over here over time.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
So we would stay in the gym and it was
at this Jewish community center. We would stay in the
gym and we played one on one and uh, you know,
maybe put in the extra hour, extra hour and a
half and go home exhausted. And when Andrew Toni came in,
it was the same thing with him. I said, look,
you know you're gonna be my new iceman, Gervon, because
because you're really good, and I could use the work myself,
(18:00):
so you know, I would keep him afterwards. And that
was something that Ray Scott showed me in the ABA about,
you know, stand after putting in the extra time and
you know, really the other things about taking care of
yourself and then the other things about just some fundamental
things that you need to do during the course of
the game. You don't have to always jump as high
(18:21):
as you possibly can. And you see it in today's
game where guys they step back and shoot set shots.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Whatever, So the jump shot, you know, is a little
bit overstated because you know, the true jump shot where
you go to your pinnacle and your peak and then
you let it go, you don't have to do it,
actually takes more energy and it's actually a risk reward
shot because you probably, if you probably would shoot less
(18:53):
of a percentage from shooting that way as opposed to
stepping back and shooting set shot.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Today's show brought to you by our presenting sponsor, hard
Rock Bet Florida sportsbook March is here. You know what
that means, College basketball going to take center stage. The
stakes are rising, the shots are falling. Hey, now's the
time to use hard Rock Bets app with basketball on
every night every night, a shot to build the same game,
parlay and score a major bucket. If you ever miss,
like tip off, don't worry about it. Hard Rock Bet
(19:23):
lets you bet live all game long. First basket to
the buzzer, so you're never too late to find a
winner or grab that player prop you had circled. But
if you're more in a baseball hard Rock bet has
you covered there too. You can bet you know America
or whatever country you think will win the World Baseball Classic,
which is a great watch. Join me by stepping up
to the plate. Sign up today. Double your winnings first
(19:43):
ten bets maximum fifty bucks.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
If you would have won one hundred bucks on your
same game parlay, that would make it two hundred bucks plus.
Hard Rock Bet offers new promos daily, so whenever you're listening,
just open the app hard Rock Bet app. Check out
what you've got any day of the week. Download that
app hard Rock Bed app, and make your first deposit
today payable and bonus betts not a cash offer offered
by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. In Florida, offered by
(20:08):
Seminole hard Rock Digital LLC. In alder States. Must be
twenty one plus and physically president in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eighty
and eight admit it in Indiana. If you are somebody
you know as a problem wants help, call one eight
hundred and nine with it gambling problem called one eight
hundred gambler Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. Yeah,
(20:36):
I mean, I could certainly make the argument that you
came into the NBA at the perfect time that they
needed a face. It was not a three ball league
you were. There was no dominant team, so the league
was wide open for Julius Irving. And you know this,
it's the duality of life. You could look at it
(20:57):
and go, man, I wish I was in the NBA.
But the true is it was overcoached, it didn't have
a great TV contract, and there was so much mystery
around you. By the time you entered the NBA. You
were a star of the first day in the NBA.
I remember it. I mean I remember the news stories
about the merger. Did you know the merger was coming
or did you get a phone call?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, when I was negotiating my contract three years earlier,
two years earlier, the agent kept saying that, you know,
there would be a merger between the two leagues. So
that was that was in nineteen seventy one when I
signed with the Potatus question, it was five years before
(21:41):
the mergered. They said in two or three years it
would happen. To two years came, three years came, and
it didn't happen. Right, it didn't happen. It happened in
year five. And I was a part of the conversation,
you know, the players Association.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I was involved.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
And then we had an only owners group and those
conversations went back and forth and they were very intense,
and it didn't look like there was going to be
a merger. And then the ownership of the Nets, which
was Ron Bow, and the ownership of the Denver Nuggets,
which was called Sheer Believe, they applied for membership into
(22:20):
the NBA. So this comes out in our document series,
comes out in the story, and they were just like,
screw everybody else, We're gonna get our franchises then, because
the NBA is into expansion and they're much better at
expanding one or two teams in a year rather than
(22:41):
the whole kitten kboodle and all health brocluse because we said, well,
what about the other teams and what about the jobs,
and what about the pensions and so on of s
what what's going to happen?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I mean, it was it was really a scary time.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And uh when back to the drawing board, and as
it turned out, h two teams did not make it.
The five teams did.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yep, and so the other way around, and and the
teams that made it, Denver, San Antonio were very good, immedia.
Denver won their division.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
If I recalled yea, they did, Yeah, they did, they did,
Nets were good.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Denver was good. San Antonio, yeah was good. And Indiana, Yes,
Indiana was George McGinnis.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, Well, he had gone to Denver by then because
he was with the sixtions.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
He started in Indiana and he was part of the
championship teams that they had in Indiana and the ABA,
and he he came to the sixth year before me.
And then two years after he got to Philadelphia, he
got traded to Denver for Bobby Jones. That's how I
became teammates with Bobby Jones. George, George went to Denver.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
The the when you got to the NBA and Portland
was good. You were good. The Warriors were good. The Sonics,
the Sonics with you know, they were very good. The
Washington Bullets at the time were very good teams. And
Lake was always good, right, Lakers role is good?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Was there.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeap who was the first NBA player when you merged
that you had not played against and you immediately thought, okay,
because you you were the best ABA player. There was
a couple of exhibitions, but you watch on TV or
you read about who was the first NBA guy you
played against, and went, I.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Think with the Knicks since I was a New Yorker
and they had Willis Reed and Clyde Frazier and you know,
I mean those two would have been Clyde and I
had the same agent. You know, my agency was Walt Frager.
Sports Enterprise is.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Run by Irwin Wingdam.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
So I had seen Clyde off the court that I'd
been in his rolls Royce and we had gone shopping together.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
But we had not played on the court against and
you know, so he was he was one of the guys.
He was.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
He played real defense.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah, yeah, the ultimate, the Ultimate and the next you know,
they also had David Busher and we played them in
exhibition games and the expression games were all are very good.
I think we beat them, but you know they always
had the excuse, our guys aren't in shape yet, because
you know, we really take the off season, off training camps,
(25:44):
when we get in shape and get ready for the season,
and that's when you see us our best. And I'm like,
every time you step on the court, I'm supposed to
see you at your best.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
You know, don't make don't make excuses?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Man, how much of your artistry was practiced and how
much was instinctive? The dunks, the swooping. I mean, you
know a lot of times you can go to Rutger Park,
or you can go to the park, but some of
the stuff I watch feels like it was I mean,
the dunkover Cooper, I'm sure you'd practiced it, but that
(26:19):
the ball was loose on the left side, right outside
of the coaching box. How much of your game was
instinctive and how much was practiced?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
The My answer to that.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Is the greatest compliment that I've ever received. We're from
teammates Alice and Henry Bibby, Steve Makes and they took
the time to say, Doug, I got to tell you something,
(26:54):
And I said, what's that? It says you just play
differently from everybody else. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Dribble?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
The dribble left hand, right hand, but the fundamentals are
the fundamentals. You know, you you pass, you rebound, you score,
you defend. The fundamentals are fundamental.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
And they said, no, not the way you do it.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
These are my teammates. Yeah, these are my teammates. So
I tried to get a big head out of it,
but I had no way to prove it. You know,
we could look at film and we couldn't look at
the you know, you have you have you have these
guys now who are the analysts analytical right people? And
(27:44):
you know each franchise has ten to fifteen of these guys,
right who go through that and then they give reports
and they could see things that a player couldn't see
and they and obviously that's why they have job that
they have.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
But my job was to like Iceman always said, my
job was to perform. I like to put on a show,
you know. So when I get out there on the courting,
and I want to put on the show.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
And when I did something special, I did to run
down the court and get ready to play defense, you know,
not celebrating and banging and chests and jumping on the
from the stands or you know, falling into the fans
and so when I watched the game. Now, I'm not
all that enthralled with the celebratory part, right, And I
(28:36):
was with I'm in Vegas now, I was with George
yesterday and I said, you know how many times you
could have looked at one of your opponents after you
scored on him and put your hand down like he
was just too small to guard you.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You know how many times you would have done that? Bro?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
He said, He said a million million times. But that
wasn't my style. That wasn't al style. You know. Our
style was not to degrade people. I mean, we wanted
to win and we wanted to beat them. And at
the end of the day, I mean lots of times
in the ABA we went out to dinner with the
opponents and uh, you know, we spent time together and
(29:19):
we made friends. And because one thing about the ABA,
it was one for all and all of one's right.
So if anybody got any produce fighting up hill people, Yeah,
we're fighting up hill every day. And if people got publicity,
we would salute it. We wouldn't be haters. And uh,
and that was a good thing about that time in
(29:39):
my life. I mean that was between age twenty one
and twenty six and if I just could chop that
out and create a dash between that time, I would
have to say it's probably the most enjoyable part in
my basketball Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Is there an ABA player one was certainly introduce use
to me uh in the documentary that I wasn't aware of.
But is there an ABA player that you wish would
have transitioned to the NBA and fans could have given
been given a glimpse of, like a player that didn't
do the transition that you look back and go.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
So so, Jimmy Jones comes to mind, who played with
Dallas and uh lives here in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Uh, Jimmy Jones was a great player.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I mean I never hear anybody talk about him, and
I speak to him, you know, once every other month
or what have you.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
He's uh, you know, by being on the board of
governors at the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I tried to get him mentioned in the conversation about
former ABA players who were not recognized and Hall of
Fame worthy. Jimmy Jones, Willie Wise, Matt Calvin, you know
those three. Then there's another guard who played for Utah.
(31:05):
I can't think of his name right now, and I
apologize for that. But yeah, so this this guy, I mean,
he's probably a dozen if we go through the rosters,
who I could pick out who, you know, I just
have a certain feeling about because I know planned against him.
(31:25):
When I had my career high in against the San
Diego Conquistadors, they had a player on their team named
Warren Jebbali and his name when he came out of
college was Warren Armstrong and he was kind of a
militant type guy changed his.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Name to Jabali and he's teaching in the documentary.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yes, whatever, But.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I scored sixty three points. It was a four overtime game.
Ryan Taylor scored fifty. Yeah, but Jabali had like fifty
four and and.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
He was a militant. He was militant. He is described,
I think accurately as kind of anti white.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
He had felt oppressed in his life, as many black
basketball players in the country watching the NBA, and he
just didn't he didn't hide it. For the record. In
the documentary, they don't spend a ton of time on him,
but his physique, he looks like an NFL defensive area.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
He's six foot four, as strong as a bull and
and love to play inside. He loved to get into
paint and couldn't nobody do anything with him. He would
he would get into paint and and he would do
warn h. So so he was special and he was
he was a tough matchup. I got along with him.
(32:48):
I mean I kind of get along with everybody, so
I didn't I didn't have any real issues.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And you know, I had one fight and I got
hit by Maurice lu because well, he had a few
guys and we became we became friends after that.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Was an enforcer.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I'm like, I can get you on my sign because
Window Latin was gone.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
But that's what happened with Wendell Latin and that's how
we got him because Kevin Lockry he always said, man,
this guy he was playing for Kentucky and he says.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
He's so reckless he's gonna hurt Doc. And I can't
have that.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
So we traded Mike Dale for window Lander and Mike
was a really good player. Uh, but then we had
Wendel and you know, we won. We won the championship
with Windland seventy four.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
One of the things about the ABA that I didn't know,
and they had a lot of footage of it. Yeah,
because you guys were fighting for your basketball lives and
your economy. The fights in the ABA and the footage
in the documentary, I don't know where they got all
the footage, but there are fistfights and at one point
(33:58):
in the documentary they're like, it was a nightly occurrence
to fights. Yeah, that is Julius.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I had no idea it was not.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
I caught the second half of that because I wasn't
there in the first three years. And when I got there,
I just heard story after story and warning after warning,
don't mess with this guy, don't mess with this guy
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
And what do you mean?
Speaker 3 (34:26):
You know I'm going I'm Duncan you know I'm free?
I couldn't dunk in college though. If he's under the basket,
he's gonna catch it and he might not like it.
But you know, you always got to have an enforcer.
And uh, you know, we had a guy who I
was with the nets. We had Rich Jones and Tim Bassett,
(34:47):
and those two guys they were my enforcements.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
They would let anybody touch me, somebody.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Hit me the wrong like hockey.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
One of those two if Rich didn't get him the
tim guy.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
So so that was just the way up the world,
you know, and uh enforces.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
They probably don't have as many enforcements out there now
because you know, nobody wants.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
To get hurt.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
That's right. Everybody's rich.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Everybody's rich. Rich guys don't want to get.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Hurt, you know, that's right. The face is the money maker.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Exactly when you're poor guy and you know you didn't
get an average money, didn't.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You know, you just swing for the fence.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
But yeah, there there's you know, I grew up in
the West Coast. I when I went to New York,
I visited Rutger Park, which is a legendary place. So
I you know, it was one of those things where
I had an afternoon after doon my radio show. And
so would you say, well, you know there was a
people I didn't see some great game. It's it's a
(35:48):
regular like a Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Thursday there on a Sunday in the summer.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
No, no, no, but I want to go see it
for history sake. I want to go see it.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
So for the uninitiated here, people in New York get it.
Old heads get it. But Rutger Park was a place
you made your name, like, so you there are playground
let Lloyd Daniels when I used to work in Vegas
and cover dark you know Lloyd Daniels. There was old
footage of him talk a little bit about Rutger Park
(36:19):
and your introduction to it and have him no cable
TV maybe a the truth is doc that you know,
people didn't know who you were. You go, you go,
and you're putting on a show there.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, well all right. So I grew up in Long Island. Yeah,
you know, Rock Park's Manhattan and it's Hotown. It's in Harlem.
So I've been to and through Halem many times. You know.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Actually had a had a job while I was in
college delivering books and that you live around Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx,
Queen's Long and uh, you know, I had a car
and have books in the back of the car.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
We go to these people's houses and sometimes the blinds
would be open, and.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Then when they started knocking the door and they had
to pay for the book that they ordered, the blinds
would go down.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
It's like nobody's home. So so collected was collected was
pretty tough. That was a tough job.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
But I had never played in Rucker Park until I
signed a pro contract because it was a pro summer league.
So I signed a pro contract with the Virginia Squires
Charlie Scott Is to start a team. Yep, they called
him Charlie the Great Scott. And that's where I got
my nickname Julius Doctor j Irving because my friends they
(37:48):
would call me doc or they would just call me
the doctor. But doctor j was a better fit with
Charlie the Great Scott, Julius doctor j Irving. So the
Squire started marketing. So Charlie says, man, I gotta take
you to where I play in the summer. And I
was like, okay, so you know we're in Virginia. We
(38:10):
give him the car, we drive up.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
To New York.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
It takes me this playground. People are all over the place,
and it was it was very special. I mean, my
art started palpitating. I mean, I'm like, whoa.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
This is? This is great?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And uh, Peter Vessie, do you know he was coaching
the team he's trying now. Team is called the West Siders.
And so we had some guys from Saint John's, Billy
Schaeffer and Billy Paul's and Georgie Brown's and.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Me and Charlie, Alie Taylor.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
A few other guys who I can't think of all
their names at the time, but you know, I mean
they were good and some of them played Little ABA,
someone played the NBA, and some of them didn't play
at all.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
They just for street ball players. Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
So, so my first experience was to come there on
a Sunday with Charlie and I was just gonna follow
him whatever his routine was, That's what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I knew he was gonna shoot.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
So so so that was part of the that was
Charlie Scott's game.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Put some shots, right.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
So. Uh So, Charlie, at first he would park his
car and then he had tipped the young man who
was out there. He said, you watch my car. You
watch it.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
That's all you gotta do. Maybecame like ten bucks whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So so you got to take care of the guy
watching your car because otherwise, after you play, you go
back out there, your car ain't gonna be there, or
tires are gonna be missing, or something's gonna happen. Right,
so take care of the guy. Come on on the
court and and Charlie and I like, we clipped right away.
We could, we could. I mean, he took me in,
(40:05):
took me on his wing, and you know, I mean
I knew he was the man on the team, but
I was gonna be the man next to the man.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Uh And I knew that a couple of weeks in.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I mean I didn't know it right in the beginning,
but a couple of weeks in with alb Yankee, who
was great coach, very level player players coach, and you know,
he gave me pretty good responsibility early.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
And and our team, we didn't have a great team.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
We had Fatty Taylor, Bernie Williams, Doug Moow, Neil Johnson,
and Ray Scott. You know, Ray Scott was the veteran
player on our team. So I knew Charlie was gonna shoot,
and I had a little more of an all around game.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So okay, well he's a shooter, so I'm not the
gunner per se.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
But there was an opening for a rebounding because I
had averaged twenty rebounds the game in college, so you know,
this is the pros. Maybe I can't average twenty, but
I'm gonna try, you know, And I got fifteen sixteen
most nights and that that experience once again, you know,
(41:20):
it wasn't the quote unquote NBA experience, but I was
now a pro and I was I was officially a pro,
and because I was getting paid to play, and I'd
never been paid to play before.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
And that was the beginning of the journey with the
Virginia Squires.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
And it was also beginning of learning something because our trainer,
we had a trainer there and he we were having
a scrimmage and he told the coach to take me
out of the game. And this nineteen seventy one, right,
(41:59):
it takes me out the game and I come over
and I'd only been playing a couple of minutes. And uh,
he told the coach in front of me, he says,
the guys we're playing against out there, they're going to
try to hurt him.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
And he said, I don't want that to happen. Wow,
he said they're going to try to hurt him. So
that was that was an awakening too.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
You know, somebody's saying somebody's going to intentionally try to
hurt you because you're better than they are.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
And you know, that was an eye opener. Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
The the ABA experience, the fashion was a big deal.
They note the afros and the fashion was a big deal. Yea, yeah,
and a lot of it. I wondered if.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Some of that was.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Listen, you know a lot of young guys, you're all
young guys. Young guys like fashion much more than an
old guy like me. But was some of it away
to say, hey, man, this league were stylish, there's a
there's a there's art to the ABA. The NBA was overcoached,
but you guys had a style. By the way, the
(43:21):
media liked the style. That's why they paid attention to you.
A lot of startup leagues, Julius don't get any attention
by you know, mainstream legacy media. The legacy media paid
attention to you, And I wonder if the style and
the fashion played into that.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah, now you're talking about you know, nineteen seventy to
nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Okay, for me that those those were my five years,
seventy one seventy.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Six, and during that time, you know, and bell bottoms,
wearing afros and were dashikis and stuff like that was
very much in fashion. And you know, people strove to
have an individuality about, you know, their personal lifestyle and
(44:11):
even the spouses, you know, the way they dressed. And
you know, when I got married, which was seventy four,
my wife used saying where you going She'd see what
I had, or where you're going, Like I'm going out.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
She said, well, maybe you want to tweak this a
little bit, do.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
This or whatever, you know, and so so I think
a lot of the guys had assistants from either their
wives or their sisters in terms of creating their style.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Especially with the hair. Yeah, the hair. The hair was.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I think a matter of addressing your heritage. You know,
we really are an African American. Then you're a descendant
of an African tribe of some kind. And when you
see tribes, you've seen FROs, you see you know, like
(45:11):
now it's the braids and yeah, and the twists and
the turns whatever. I never had my hair braided, and
it was long enough to probably braid, but I always
thought that was like a sissy look. But now now
it's very masculine and it's prevalent.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Before we let you go, your game was so unique
and inventive and creative. When you did get to the
NBA and it was a more structured league, there was
that push and pull where to be Julius. You got
to let the best guy be Julius. But was there
that first year in the NBA did you feel a
(45:56):
little push pull stylistically with your game and the NBA rigidity?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Absolutely, you did, absolutely, And and it was really more
with myself and my teammates. And we had Darryl Dawkins,
we had World B Free at Duncan World B Free,
and we had you know, Dougie Collins and George mcginnit's Cornwell.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
And and it was and we got to.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Mid season with that team and I would I wouldn't
say it was easy. The team had its struggles, but
you know, we had won maybe eighty percent of our games.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
By the time we get to mid season. And then
we wanted Billy.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
That was the second thing was Billy Cunningham his first
year where we wanted to bring somebody in uh and
and change the dynamic of the team. And the first
year with geenis Show, we didn't have to do that,
but with Billy Cunningham, we didn't. We bought in Clement
Johnson and Reggie Johnson Johnson boys and whatever, and one
(47:15):
was big, strong and a husky and the other was
a finesse player. It was a shooter and with both
of them great guys, and they just made a seamless
transition into into what we had going. And unfortunately some
of the guys who we did their first year, they
were no longer there the second year because we'll be free,
(47:36):
went to Cleveland and when George ended up going to
to Denver.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, so you know, the question once again, was there adjustments.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Hell, yeah, there were plenty of adjustments, and and and
I had gone from the Squires to the nets, so
I had experienced an adjustment, but the adjustment from the
nets to the sixers was a much bigger adjustment. It
(48:12):
was huge, it was it was huge, and you know,
the reward was, Hey, this is the business. You know,
got a good contract, let's go. You're getting paid to play,
so so go and play.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Do you think your ABA stats will ever be included
in NBA history?
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Absolutely, absolutely, Like right now, I would say ninety nine
percent of the times when I when I go somewhere,
make a public appearance or whatever, they always you know,
mentioned that I'm at in the thirty thousand point club
and four time MVP and a two time Playoff MVP,
and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
So the basketball community except so, so it's a given.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
The basketball community accepts it.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
And I think you know, sometimes in television broadcasts they
don't like to go earlier in nineteen ninety two, like
so I noticed that because you know, there was I mean,
there was no ESPN when Trying played, and you know,
so you know, ESPN is kind of like the sports network,
(49:22):
right other than the cable situations, and so they didn't exist,
so they don't have a.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Handle on that. They don't care about it.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
I care about them, of course. Soul Power it's on
Amazon Prime. Legend of the ABA. It's fascinating. The footage,
the archive footage is remarkable. The fights are crazy. Fortunately
you didn't have a ton of them. You had a
Skirmisher two with Larry Bird, but everybody did except maybe Magic,
(49:54):
so that doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
That's funny. I'm gonna start using that. That's okay with.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Everybody, but Magic, right, yep, good, great speaking with you,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
It's been my pleasure, absolutely, and you know, there's so
much more to be told. You know, I'm just telling
my version of it, and the fans will really enjoy
this story.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Oh, it's a great four part series I strung for
all you documentary fans, sports or non sports fashion style.
The merger, the I mean the race.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Behind the scenes is all the behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Oh, it's unbelievable with the.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Recruitment of Kareema abdul Jabar. Enjoyed mic and and all
that stuff. It's good stuff.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Thanks Julius, Thank you brother, appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
So a little non Julius Irving News. Drew Dollman, the
twenty seven year old center who I believe played every
snap for the Bears last year, suddenly retired. Smart guy Stanford.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Guy.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
You know, had made his money and just decided it
is a listen man. Playing center in the NFL is
a daunting physical experience. You're you're dealing usually with somebody
about thirty pounds heavier, you know, nose tackles. The Jalen
(51:20):
carters are an experience like none other on a football field,
going Mono Imano. Now Joe Toney and Jonah Jackson at
the guard positions, and the Bears are above average on
the old line as a unit. And it's not a
it's not a bad center draft in the NFL. It's
a good o line year in the NFL, and the
(51:41):
Bears have a first, a second, a third, a fourth,
a fifth, and a couple of seventh rounders, so they'll
they'll obviously furnish this draft is going to be all
defensive players and probably a center. Now I'd mentioned before
they could go all defense during their draft. They obviously
somewhere in one of those picks. There's not a first
(52:03):
round center, but they'll be. It's a good center draft,
not a great wide receiver, tight end or running back draft.
Good tackle, good center draft, good edge rusher draft. But
Dolman's one of those guys. Listen, players make more money.
We've had a couple of Stanford guys retire early, you
(52:25):
know players. I mean, Andrew Luck retired early Stanford, Drew
Dolman retiring early Stanford years ago. The San Francisco forty
nine ers had an interior offensive lineman retire early. Chris
Borland Wisconsin Badger forty nine ers retired early. You know,
offensive lineman, quarterbacks, you know, offensive linemen are in the trenches.
(52:52):
Think about it. No unit in the NFL is more
physically taxing yet gets less credit the offensive line. You know,
pass rushers, dan lineman, that's all anybody talks about during
the broadcast. They get the big money. Left tackles get money,
but interior alignment rarely do. And you know, Drew Dolman,
(53:15):
he still has you know, physically, he's still in a
good space. So it happens. Caleb Williams went to Twitter
and had a sad emoji hulk dot dot dot. It
is a loss. It's the first thing Ben Johnson addressed
was the interior oh line. It comes as a shock,
(53:37):
but I'm always going to defend guys who retire early,
especially guys in the trenches. I remember having a conversation
years ago with Ed Cunningham, who played at the University
of Washington for that national championship team and played for
the Arizona Cardinals. His career was about ten years and
he retired and he was still, you know, in physically
(53:57):
good shape, and he just talked about what playing center,
because he was an undersized center, kind of a cerebral
academic center, but undersized what it did to your shoulders
and your hands, and that it's a really tough position
to play. I mean, you you age fast in the
interior offensive line, and so you know, I grew up
(54:19):
there was a center named Jim Otto who played forever
for the Raiders and pretty sad Mike Webster for the
Pittsburgh Steelers. And in the history of the NFL, those
two guys had some post football trauma they dealt with,
which has been well chronicled. And I understand in this
(54:42):
great game players retiring earlier, especially those who are playing
in the most daunting, punitive positions. And so I wish
Drew Dollman the best. You know, between Atlanta and the Bears,
it's a career to be proud of. But you know
the Bears are going to have to address. The good
news is the offense is stacked. Ben Johnson has a
(55:06):
great sense of offensive personnel, especially, and I think they'll
figure it out. But it comes as a shock, and
you know you're seeing not every football player lives and
breathes for the sport. You know a lot of them
love it. It's a journey. They ascend and they reach
(55:28):
a point physically where they don't want to be wobbling
with their kids. You know, they don't want to have
a bad back, and you know by the seventh shoulder surgery.
I've told the story before. I read a story a
couple of years ago in Travis Kelcey and he's already
had ten surgeries. I was aware of like one. So
always going to defend an athlete, a professional football player
(55:48):
who retires early tip of the Captain Drew Dolman and
now the Bears need to go to work.
Speaker 5 (55:57):
The shot get paid double only on hard Rock Bet.
Hard Rock Bet is Florida's only legal way to bet
the NBA teams, players.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Points and more. He's gone and.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
When you sign up for hard Rock Bet, your bets
paid double winnings.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Don't just count the basket, count it twice. He's on
fire now.
Speaker 5 (56:16):
Yes, new customers get paid double on your first ten bets.
Try hard Rock Bet today. Max bet of fifty dollars
per bet offered by the Seminal Tribe of Florida. Must
be twenty one plus and physically present in Florida to
the wager. Terms and conditions apply. If you are someone
you know has a gambling problem, please call one eight
threy three Playwise
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor,
American Beverage. If you think about some of the most
iconic drinks in the country, the ones you grab a barbecue,
the ones you raised to celebrate your team, that have
been part of your story for decades, Coke, Doctor, Pepper, Pepsi,
there's something people don't always think about. The companies behind
those brands are still making their drinks right here in
the US. While there's a lot of talk about bringing
(00:25):
manufacturing back, America's beverage companies never left their American companies,
making American products with American workers in America's hometown. So
two hundred and seventy five thousand men and women across
all fifty states, real jobs, good paying jobs, the kind
of jobs you can raise a family on. So more
than one hundred years, those brands have been part of
everyday lives and they're still here, still investing, still operating
in communities around the country. So if you care about
(00:47):
strong old economies and companies that walk the walk, check
out the good work and what they're doing it. We
deliver for America dot Org. Well, like the rest of you,
I love a good sports documentary, and when I heard
(01:08):
there was a doc on Amazon Prime about the ABA,
for many reasons, I was fascinated. It's called soul Power,
the Legends of the ABA. So I've said many times
on my show The Herd ten times, fifteen times. The
first basketball player I fell in love with was Julius Irving.
But I was born in nineteen sixty four, as Julius
(01:30):
now joins us, and I didn't watch sports until nineteen
seventy two. I remember it clearly. On a black and
white TV, Julius, I watched the Miami Dolphins at the
time Washington Redskins Super Bowl. Dolphins won fourteen to seven.
It was about that time. You know, I'm six years old,
seven years old, I'm getting into sports. So my mom
(01:53):
bought me a subscription to Sports Illustrated so I could
watch baseball as the national pastime on TV. College football.
College basketball was big, But like anything else in life,
the one thing I couldn't get was the ABA. So
I had to rely on the Sporting News, which actually
did ABA guides, and Sports Illustrated twice put you on
(02:18):
the cover. I remember this. So I'm in my formative
years and I'm like, Who's doctor J. Nobody's called doctor J.
So because I didn't get you didn't have a TV contract,
because I didn't get ABA games. As a Seattle kid,
my parents bought me an ABA ball, So it's fascinating
(02:43):
to me. So let's go back. And I've always felt
that the NBA should include ABA numbers and stats. And
the reason I do is something I think you'll believe
in that I didn't know this about the ABA, Julius.
I knew about the Nuggets and the Spurs. I knew
about you, I knew about how many good players there were.
(03:05):
I did not know much about the exhibition games with
the NBA, in which the ABA teams clabbered them regularly.
So let so let's let's talk. Let's let's start with that.
The NBA in the seventies was considered a little white
(03:26):
and overcoached, and the ABA was more stylistic. It was
more fun, it was more fashionable, it was a little
rowdy when you matched up against those NBA teams. Was
there a chip on you on your league's shoulder, facing
like the adult the parent league that you knew in
(03:48):
many instances you were superior to.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, I played in two of those games.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And ABA versus NBA, and the excitement surrounding it was
unbelievable because it was just the exhibition season and you know,
we had training camp, play exhibition games, and then play
the regular season, so everyone always look forward to the
regular season in the playoffs, and that was the big
deal with these exhibition games against the NBA. You know,
(04:17):
became a big deal more so for the ABA than
the NBA because the ABA was the league that was
trying to establish itself, also trying to prove it itself
worthy and you know, wanted to have some bragging rights.
So you beat an NBA team, Uh, they're going to
make excuses. They're going to say, well, our guys aren't
in shape and it's only it's only a practice game
(04:41):
or whatever. But you know, the ABA guys who were
probably younger and more excitable, kind of like the young
NBA players are now, you know, looking forward to having
the chip on their shoulder and all of that good stuff.
So so so winning those games, especially if you're playing
on your on your home court, because the city that
you're in, you know, would always stick a chest out
(05:03):
a little bit and say, hey, yeah, you know, you know,
we knock those guys off, and you know, the league's
been around longer, and you know, those names are known.
People know Oscar Robinson's name, Clyde Frasier, Wilt Chamberlain, you
know west Unsel, They know those guys' names, and you
know we took them down. Those are the same guys.
You know what, guys, if they cut, they bleed just
(05:24):
like we do. Elbow they've been over, they act like
they're hurt, just like.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
We do or whatever. So you know, we're all human beings.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
And because you wear a title and you're you're you
wear a moniker or whatever, that's not gonna make you different.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That's gonna necessarily make you greater.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Uh So, so it was a good confidence boosted for us,
and you know a lot of people who went to
those games alive became believers. And also you know that
served to feed the cause. And the cause was you know,
we had seen the AFL and the NFL, you know,
Merchant some one league, so we had witnessed that, and
(06:08):
globally the same type of thing was happening. It was
happening in soccer, and it was happening in other sports
that have played universally, not necessarily in the United States.
So that became a mission for the ownership the players.
You know, my opinion was, I came out of school
(06:29):
after my junior year. I had played two varsity seasons
and our team had been invited to the n I
t Even though our record was good enough to be
invited to the NCAA tournament, we weren't.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And it felt like we were snubbed.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And after that, after my junior year, I got approached
by an agent, and the numbers that they started talking about,
you know, were comparable to the best player in the NBA,
and they said, this is going to go away.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I mean, if the lead folds, it's going to go away.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And if the NBA continues to you know, maybe put
you out of business or you know, maintains a superiority.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Complex, then those numbers are going to go away.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
And you know, one hundred thousand is going to turn
into twenty five, thirty thousand or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So you know, I took the deal. I took the deal.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
It cost me a lot because I was I had
to forego being an Olympian and I had played in
the Olympic Development program and you know, at my size
and with my game, I was the leading scorer and
rebounder in the Olympic Development program. We went over to Russia,
Poland and Finland and played and you know, I was
(07:53):
a shoe to make the team. But that that era
of the representing your country and playing for the United
States of America in nineteen seventy seventy one seventy two
was not the most popular thing to do.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It's not like we were just dying to do it.
So I chose. I chose the pro pro route.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And at that time, you know, this is twenty years
before pros were allowed to play in the Olympics, so
you had to be an amateur to play. And you know,
sorry about you know, getting off the subject, but I'm
just kind of this sale space is very very important
in terms of the ABA story, in the ABA Hockey series,
because there's so much to it beyond just basketball.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, there's the culture you know that we have.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
There's the racial tension you know that was evident, and
and then there's you know, just the global situation where
you know, we're still learning things and there are a
lot of things that have gone on for hundreds of
years that haven't been fixed yet. So who's going to
(09:04):
fix this. Who's going to fix this? So basketball couldn't
be the most important thing for me in my life,
but it was.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
It was. It was the path that I needed to take. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, what's interesting because I grew up in the seventies.
You know, the NBA was not a rich league in
the seventies. In fact, I can remember the NBA Finals
being on tape delay after the eleven o'clock news and
young fans now that can watch every game every night,
(09:38):
So I remember NBA teams at that time. Julius traveled
on commercial first flight out of town, out of sea, traveled,
so what right, that's right? So what was travel like? Hotels?
Travel in the ABA, which was financially in a tougher
spot than even the NBA in the early seventh.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah, so so you know, we didn't have the uh,
top notch hotels.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
We had what was available to us. We had roommates.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
You know, everybody had to pick a roommate, so those
single rooms. I didn't experience a single room until I
got in the NBA and I was in Philadelphia and
I didn't want a single room. Actually, Steve Mixed was
my roommate for five seasons and that was my boy,
and I learned a lot from him and he learned
a lot from me. So yeah, the accommodation piece, I
(10:35):
don't know, you know, if you if your college team,
you know, was in the Big ten or maybe you
know out there in the Pac twelve or whatever, you know,
maybe the travel was a little better, maybe the hotel
accommodations were a little better, you know. But you know,
I played in with the Minute Menu formally the UMass
red Men, and we were in the Yankee Conference, right,
(10:57):
So our travel, our travel with was a lot bout bus.
I mean we bussed over to Buffalo, and we bussed
down to Penn Pennsylvania to play Penn and then all
throughout New England we played Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, you know,
all of those schools.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you were built for it, and we took buses.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
So the move to the ABA was actually a step
up in terms of traveling and in terms of hotel accommodation.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
So I'm from Seattle. So another player who was groundbreaking
was Spencer Haywood. So I yeah, so you know, I
grew up not only with the downtown Freddie Brown, DJ,
Gus Williams, Jack Sikmasonics. I grew up with Spencer Haywood,
John Brisker, the young teams. And I tell people this
because for young fans the ABA. This is why I
(11:45):
supported the live tour to the PGA. My takeaway is, folks,
watch what Lyft and Uber did the taxis you need
disruptors in society, and the ABA was really the one
of the first disruptors in sports in this country. And
when I mean, you were a nine time All Star,
five in the NBA. Four in the ABA, you were
(12:07):
a three time, you were a four.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Times, sixteen time All Star, so you were six.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I was an All Star every season, but in terms
of all pro that was that was five in the
NBA and four first team in Yeah, I already played
there five years, so I was second team the other year.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
So in the history of American basketball, professional basketball, there's
a real argument that the most unrewarded overlooked player is you.
That you were. You spent probably forty percent of your
best days. You know, you're in your athletic prime in
the ABA. Have you ever thought about I mean, do
(12:50):
you regret that decision? Have you ever thought? Man? Because
the Olympics back in seventy two wasn't what they are now.
We watched for gymnastics, we watched for a lot of things.
The Dream Team kind of made the Olympic basketball. It's
a showcase. But when I look at you, I think
of all the great players, you probably have been overlooked
(13:16):
more than any great player, because I remember in the
seventies turning on the TV I grew up the Pacific
Northwest and watching you against the Blazers and thinking what
am I watching? Have you ever thought about that? Have
you ever had regrets about your journey?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's an excellent question, and I can'd of stand on
the ground that the journey that I took, the path
that I took, made who I am today. You know,
never wan to ego trip and feel like I deserve
(13:53):
more than I've received. I'm more sensitive to the guys
who didn't know recognition. I at least get some recognition.
I was on eight covers of Sports Illustrated and multiple
colors of Sports Magazine, and uh, you know, participated in
a lot of charitable endeavors which led to endorsements.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, shooting Converse.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Yeah my shoe deal with Converse, and it's balding and
you know, my invitation to become a Coca Cola butler
with Bruce Llewellen, and so so there were things that happened.
I've had a good life. I've had had a very
very good life. And could it be better.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I don't know. It could be different, It could be different.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But my my my empathy goes, you know, to the
guys who were passed on, don't have the recognition their families,
they don't have the financial support, you know of pensions
and and gifting and uh so that the sort of
things that are more important than my ego. And I
(15:06):
think that my statistics can be matched with anybody's. I mean,
you know, the guys who came after me and played
better in the NBA than they played in the ABA,
And my stats in the ABA were probably a little
better than the NBA. But I was playing with a
different team. I came my whole career with the Philadelphia
seventy six ers. The first day I got there, the
(15:29):
general manager came in and said, look, we got George
McGinnis here, we got Doug Collins or whatever, so we
don't need you to score thirty points a game. And
I've never experienced that where I've gone, and the coaches
told me to tone it down, or general manager I
said tone it down. And so they were bursts in which,
(15:52):
you know, the doctor j of the ABA came out.
But most of the time it was as you said
about the NBA, you know, slow down, structure, structure, playing,
playing a certain type of game. So I was encouraged
to play that type of game, although inside of me,
(16:13):
you know, there was always that ability to do more.
And who who asked an athlete to do less?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Nobody? It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, it's interesting because there's so much Your journey is
fascinating and and uh, the aforementioned Philadelphia seventy six ers
is one of the first teams I loved. And they
had Steve mix a b A A B A, George
McGinnis a B A, Bobby Jones a B A. It
was an ABA All Star Jones, Calill Jones. So essentially
(16:47):
that seventy six ers team was an ABA team. Winning
the NBA Finals, was it not?
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Absolutely going and losing to Portland and winning ultimately in
eighty three against the Lakers. We had met much ABA
representation there, and plus you know, the guys who didn't
get the ABA experience. I always, you know, taught them
things that I brought over from the ABA, you know,
(17:15):
And I used to tell Andrew Tony. I'd say, you know,
George Gervin came in my second year in Virginia and
the practice was over and he wanted to go home,
and I was like, gee, we got work to do.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
You're over here over time.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
So we would stay in the gym and it was
at this Jewish community center. We would stay in the
gym and we played one on one and uh, you know,
maybe put in the extra hour, extra hour and a
half and go home exhausted. And when Andrew Toni came in,
it was the same thing with him. I said, look,
you know you're gonna be my new iceman, Gervon, because
because you're really good, and I could use the work myself,
(18:00):
so you know, I would keep him afterwards. And that
was something that Ray Scott showed me in the ABA about,
you know, stand after putting in the extra time and
you know, really the other things about taking care of
yourself and then the other things about just some fundamental
things that you need to do during the course of
the game. You don't have to always jump as high
(18:21):
as you possibly can. And you see it in today's
game where guys they step back and shoot set shots.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Whatever, So the jump shot, you know, is a little
bit overstated because you know, the true jump shot where
you go to your pinnacle and your peak and then
you let it go, you don't have to do it,
actually takes more energy and it's actually a risk reward
shot because you probably, if you probably would shoot less
(18:53):
of a percentage from shooting that way as opposed to
stepping back and shooting set shot.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Today's show brought to you by our presenting sponsor, hard
Rock Bet Florida sportsbook March is here. You know what
that means, College basketball going to take center stage. The
stakes are rising, the shots are falling. Hey, now's the
time to use hard Rock Bets app with basketball on
every night every night, a shot to build the same game,
parlay and score a major bucket. If you ever miss,
like tip off, don't worry about it. Hard Rock Bet
(19:23):
lets you bet live all game long. First basket to
the buzzer, so you're never too late to find a
winner or grab that player prop you had circled. But
if you're more in a baseball hard Rock bet has
you covered there too. You can bet you know America
or whatever country you think will win the World Baseball Classic,
which is a great watch. Join me by stepping up
to the plate. Sign up today. Double your winnings first
(19:43):
ten bets maximum fifty bucks.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
If you would have won one hundred bucks on your
same game parlay, that would make it two hundred bucks plus.
Hard Rock Bet offers new promos daily, so whenever you're listening,
just open the app hard Rock Bet app. Check out
what you've got any day of the week. Download that
app hard Rock Bed app, and make your first deposit
today payable and bonus betts not a cash offer offered
by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. In Florida, offered by
(20:08):
Seminole hard Rock Digital LLC. In alder States. Must be
twenty one plus and physically president in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eighty
and eight admit it in Indiana. If you are somebody
you know as a problem wants help, call one eight
hundred and nine with it gambling problem called one eight
hundred gambler Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. Yeah,
(20:36):
I mean, I could certainly make the argument that you
came into the NBA at the perfect time that they
needed a face. It was not a three ball league
you were. There was no dominant team, so the league
was wide open for Julius Irving. And you know this,
it's the duality of life. You could look at it
(20:57):
and go, man, I wish I was in the NBA.
But the true is it was overcoached, it didn't have
a great TV contract, and there was so much mystery
around you. By the time you entered the NBA. You
were a star of the first day in the NBA.
I remember it. I mean I remember the news stories
about the merger. Did you know the merger was coming
or did you get a phone call?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, when I was negotiating my contract three years earlier,
two years earlier, the agent kept saying that, you know,
there would be a merger between the two leagues. So
that was that was in nineteen seventy one when I
signed with the Potatus question, it was five years before
(21:41):
the mergered. They said in two or three years it
would happen. To two years came, three years came, and
it didn't happen. Right, it didn't happen. It happened in
year five. And I was a part of the conversation,
you know, the players Association.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I was involved.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
And then we had an only owners group and those
conversations went back and forth and they were very intense,
and it didn't look like there was going to be
a merger. And then the ownership of the Nets, which
was Ron Bow, and the ownership of the Denver Nuggets,
which was called Sheer Believe, they applied for membership into
(22:20):
the NBA. So this comes out in our document series,
comes out in the story, and they were just like,
screw everybody else, We're gonna get our franchises then, because
the NBA is into expansion and they're much better at
expanding one or two teams in a year rather than
(22:41):
the whole kitten kboodle and all health brocluse because we said, well,
what about the other teams and what about the jobs,
and what about the pensions and so on of s
what what's going to happen?
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I mean, it was it was really a scary time.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And uh when back to the drawing board, and as
it turned out, h two teams did not make it.
The five teams did.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yep, and so the other way around, and and the
teams that made it, Denver, San Antonio were very good, immedia.
Denver won their division.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
If I recalled yea, they did, Yeah, they did, they did,
Nets were good.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
Denver was good. San Antonio, yeah was good. And Indiana, Yes,
Indiana was George McGinnis.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, Well, he had gone to Denver by then because
he was with the sixtions.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
He started in Indiana and he was part of the
championship teams that they had in Indiana and the ABA,
and he he came to the sixth year before me.
And then two years after he got to Philadelphia, he
got traded to Denver for Bobby Jones. That's how I
became teammates with Bobby Jones. George, George went to Denver.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
The the when you got to the NBA and Portland
was good. You were good. The Warriors were good. The Sonics,
the Sonics with you know, they were very good. The
Washington Bullets at the time were very good teams. And
Lake was always good, right, Lakers role is good?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Was there.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeap who was the first NBA player when you merged
that you had not played against and you immediately thought, okay,
because you you were the best ABA player. There was
a couple of exhibitions, but you watch on TV or
you read about who was the first NBA guy you
played against, and went, I.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Think with the Knicks since I was a New Yorker
and they had Willis Reed and Clyde Frazier and you know,
I mean those two would have been Clyde and I
had the same agent. You know, my agency was Walt Frager.
Sports Enterprise is.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Run by Irwin Wingdam.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
So I had seen Clyde off the court that I'd
been in his rolls Royce and we had gone shopping together.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
But we had not played on the court against and
you know, so he was he was one of the guys.
He was.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
He played real defense.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah, yeah, the ultimate, the Ultimate and the next you know,
they also had David Busher and we played them in
exhibition games and the expression games were all are very good.
I think we beat them, but you know they always
had the excuse, our guys aren't in shape yet, because
you know, we really take the off season, off training camps,
(25:44):
when we get in shape and get ready for the season,
and that's when you see us our best. And I'm like,
every time you step on the court, I'm supposed to
see you at your best.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
You know, don't make don't make excuses?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Man, how much of your artistry was practiced and how
much was instinctive? The dunks, the swooping. I mean, you
know a lot of times you can go to Rutger Park,
or you can go to the park, but some of
the stuff I watch feels like it was I mean,
the dunkover Cooper, I'm sure you'd practiced it, but that
(26:19):
the ball was loose on the left side, right outside
of the coaching box. How much of your game was
instinctive and how much was practiced?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
The My answer to that.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Is the greatest compliment that I've ever received. We're from
teammates Alice and Henry Bibby, Steve Makes and they took
the time to say, Doug, I got to tell you something,
(26:54):
And I said, what's that? It says you just play
differently from everybody else. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Dribble?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
The dribble left hand, right hand, but the fundamentals are
the fundamentals. You know, you you pass, you rebound, you score,
you defend. The fundamentals are fundamental.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
And they said, no, not the way you do it.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
These are my teammates. Yeah, these are my teammates. So
I tried to get a big head out of it,
but I had no way to prove it. You know,
we could look at film and we couldn't look at
the you know, you have you have you have these
guys now who are the analysts analytical right people? And
(27:44):
you know each franchise has ten to fifteen of these guys,
right who go through that and then they give reports
and they could see things that a player couldn't see
and they and obviously that's why they have job that
they have.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
But my job was to like Iceman always said, my
job was to perform. I like to put on a show,
you know. So when I get out there on the courting,
and I want to put on the show.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
And when I did something special, I did to run
down the court and get ready to play defense, you know,
not celebrating and banging and chests and jumping on the
from the stands or you know, falling into the fans
and so when I watched the game. Now, I'm not
all that enthralled with the celebratory part, right, And I
(28:36):
was with I'm in Vegas now, I was with George
yesterday and I said, you know how many times you
could have looked at one of your opponents after you
scored on him and put your hand down like he
was just too small to guard you.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You know how many times you would have done that? Bro?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
He said, He said a million million times. But that
wasn't my style. That wasn't al style. You know. Our
style was not to degrade people. I mean, we wanted
to win and we wanted to beat them. And at
the end of the day, I mean lots of times
in the ABA we went out to dinner with the
opponents and uh, you know, we spent time together and
(29:19):
we made friends. And because one thing about the ABA,
it was one for all and all of one's right.
So if anybody got any produce fighting up hill people, Yeah,
we're fighting up hill every day. And if people got publicity,
we would salute it. We wouldn't be haters. And uh,
and that was a good thing about that time in
(29:39):
my life. I mean that was between age twenty one
and twenty six and if I just could chop that
out and create a dash between that time, I would
have to say it's probably the most enjoyable part in
my basketball Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Is there an ABA player one was certainly introduce use
to me uh in the documentary that I wasn't aware of.
But is there an ABA player that you wish would
have transitioned to the NBA and fans could have given
been given a glimpse of, like a player that didn't
do the transition that you look back and go.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
So so, Jimmy Jones comes to mind, who played with
Dallas and uh lives here in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Uh, Jimmy Jones was a great player.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I mean I never hear anybody talk about him, and
I speak to him, you know, once every other month
or what have you.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
He's uh, you know, by being on the board of
governors at the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I tried to get him mentioned in the conversation about
former ABA players who were not recognized and Hall of
Fame worthy. Jimmy Jones, Willie Wise, Matt Calvin, you know
those three. Then there's another guard who played for Utah.
(31:05):
I can't think of his name right now, and I
apologize for that. But yeah, so this this guy, I mean,
he's probably a dozen if we go through the rosters,
who I could pick out who, you know, I just
have a certain feeling about because I know planned against him.
(31:25):
When I had my career high in against the San
Diego Conquistadors, they had a player on their team named
Warren Jebbali and his name when he came out of
college was Warren Armstrong and he was kind of a
militant type guy changed his.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Name to Jabali and he's teaching in the documentary.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yes, whatever, But.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I scored sixty three points. It was a four overtime game.
Ryan Taylor scored fifty. Yeah, but Jabali had like fifty
four and and.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
He was a militant. He was militant. He is described,
I think accurately as kind of anti white.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
He had felt oppressed in his life, as many black
basketball players in the country watching the NBA, and he
just didn't he didn't hide it. For the record. In
the documentary, they don't spend a ton of time on him,
but his physique, he looks like an NFL defensive area.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
He's six foot four, as strong as a bull and
and love to play inside. He loved to get into
paint and couldn't nobody do anything with him. He would
he would get into paint and and he would do
warn h. So so he was special and he was
he was a tough matchup. I got along with him.
(32:48):
I mean I kind of get along with everybody, so
I didn't I didn't have any real issues.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
And you know, I had one fight and I got
hit by Maurice lu because well, he had a few
guys and we became we became friends after that.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Was an enforcer.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I'm like, I can get you on my sign because
Window Latin was gone.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
But that's what happened with Wendell Latin and that's how
we got him because Kevin Lockry he always said, man,
this guy he was playing for Kentucky and he says.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
He's so reckless he's gonna hurt Doc. And I can't
have that.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
So we traded Mike Dale for window Lander and Mike
was a really good player. Uh, but then we had
Wendel and you know, we won. We won the championship
with Windland seventy four.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
One of the things about the ABA that I didn't know,
and they had a lot of footage of it. Yeah,
because you guys were fighting for your basketball lives and
your economy. The fights in the ABA and the footage
in the documentary, I don't know where they got all
the footage, but there are fistfights and at one point
(33:58):
in the documentary they're like, it was a nightly occurrence
to fights. Yeah, that is Julius.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I had no idea it was not.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
I caught the second half of that because I wasn't
there in the first three years. And when I got there,
I just heard story after story and warning after warning,
don't mess with this guy, don't mess with this guy
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
And what do you mean?
Speaker 3 (34:26):
You know I'm going I'm Duncan you know I'm free?
I couldn't dunk in college though. If he's under the basket,
he's gonna catch it and he might not like it.
But you know, you always got to have an enforcer.
And uh, you know, we had a guy who I
was with the nets. We had Rich Jones and Tim Bassett,
(34:47):
and those two guys they were my enforcements.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
They would let anybody touch me, somebody.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Hit me the wrong like hockey.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
One of those two if Rich didn't get him the
tim guy.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
So so that was just the way up the world,
you know, and uh enforces.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
They probably don't have as many enforcements out there now
because you know, nobody wants.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
To get hurt.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
That's right. Everybody's rich.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Everybody's rich. Rich guys don't want to get.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Hurt, you know, that's right. The face is the money maker.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Exactly when you're poor guy and you know you didn't
get an average money, didn't.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You know, you just swing for the fence.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
But yeah, there there's you know, I grew up in
the West Coast. I when I went to New York,
I visited Rutger Park, which is a legendary place. So
I you know, it was one of those things where
I had an afternoon after doon my radio show. And
so would you say, well, you know there was a
people I didn't see some great game. It's it's a
(35:48):
regular like a Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Thursday there on a Sunday in the summer.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
No, no, no, but I want to go see it
for history sake. I want to go see it.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
So for the uninitiated here, people in New York get it.
Old heads get it. But Rutger Park was a place
you made your name, like, so you there are playground
let Lloyd Daniels when I used to work in Vegas
and cover dark you know Lloyd Daniels. There was old
footage of him talk a little bit about Rutger Park
(36:19):
and your introduction to it and have him no cable
TV maybe a the truth is doc that you know,
people didn't know who you were. You go, you go,
and you're putting on a show there.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, well all right. So I grew up in Long Island. Yeah,
you know, Rock Park's Manhattan and it's Hotown. It's in Harlem.
So I've been to and through Halem many times. You know.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Actually had a had a job while I was in
college delivering books and that you live around Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx,
Queen's Long and uh, you know, I had a car
and have books in the back of the car.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
We go to these people's houses and sometimes the blinds
would be open, and.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Then when they started knocking the door and they had
to pay for the book that they ordered, the blinds
would go down.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
It's like nobody's home. So so collected was collected was
pretty tough. That was a tough job.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
But I had never played in Rucker Park until I
signed a pro contract because it was a pro summer league.
So I signed a pro contract with the Virginia Squires
Charlie Scott Is to start a team. Yep, they called
him Charlie the Great Scott. And that's where I got
my nickname Julius Doctor j Irving because my friends they
(37:48):
would call me doc or they would just call me
the doctor. But doctor j was a better fit with
Charlie the Great Scott, Julius doctor j Irving. So the
Squire started marketing. So Charlie says, man, I gotta take
you to where I play in the summer. And I
was like, okay, so you know we're in Virginia. We
(38:10):
give him the car, we drive up.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
To New York.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
It takes me this playground. People are all over the place,
and it was it was very special. I mean, my
art started palpitating. I mean, I'm like, whoa.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
This is? This is great?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And uh, Peter Vessie, do you know he was coaching
the team he's trying now. Team is called the West Siders.
And so we had some guys from Saint John's, Billy
Schaeffer and Billy Paul's and Georgie Brown's and.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Me and Charlie, Alie Taylor.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
A few other guys who I can't think of all
their names at the time, but you know, I mean
they were good and some of them played Little ABA,
someone played the NBA, and some of them didn't play
at all.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
They just for street ball players. Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
So, so my first experience was to come there on
a Sunday with Charlie and I was just gonna follow
him whatever his routine was, That's what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I knew he was gonna shoot.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
So so so that was part of the that was
Charlie Scott's game.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Put some shots, right.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
So. Uh So, Charlie, at first he would park his
car and then he had tipped the young man who
was out there. He said, you watch my car. You
watch it.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
That's all you gotta do. Maybecame like ten bucks whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So so you got to take care of the guy
watching your car because otherwise, after you play, you go
back out there, your car ain't gonna be there, or
tires are gonna be missing, or something's gonna happen. Right,
so take care of the guy. Come on on the
court and and Charlie and I like, we clipped right away.
We could, we could. I mean, he took me in,
(40:05):
took me on his wing, and you know, I mean
I knew he was the man on the team, but
I was gonna be the man next to the man.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Uh And I knew that a couple of weeks in.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I mean I didn't know it right in the beginning,
but a couple of weeks in with alb Yankee, who
was great coach, very level player players coach, and you know,
he gave me pretty good responsibility early.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
And and our team, we didn't have a great team.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
We had Fatty Taylor, Bernie Williams, Doug Moow, Neil Johnson,
and Ray Scott. You know, Ray Scott was the veteran
player on our team. So I knew Charlie was gonna shoot,
and I had a little more of an all around game.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
So okay, well he's a shooter, so I'm not the
gunner per se.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
But there was an opening for a rebounding because I
had averaged twenty rebounds the game in college, so you know,
this is the pros. Maybe I can't average twenty, but
I'm gonna try, you know, And I got fifteen sixteen
most nights and that that experience once again, you know,
(41:20):
it wasn't the quote unquote NBA experience, but I was
now a pro and I was I was officially a pro,
and because I was getting paid to play, and I'd
never been paid to play before.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
And that was the beginning of the journey with the
Virginia Squires.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
And it was also beginning of learning something because our trainer,
we had a trainer there and he we were having
a scrimmage and he told the coach to take me
out of the game. And this nineteen seventy one, right,
(41:59):
it takes me out the game and I come over
and I'd only been playing a couple of minutes. And uh,
he told the coach in front of me, he says,
the guys we're playing against out there, they're going to
try to hurt him.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
And he said, I don't want that to happen. Wow,
he said they're going to try to hurt him. So
that was that was an awakening too.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
You know, somebody's saying somebody's going to intentionally try to
hurt you because you're better than they are.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
And you know, that was an eye opener. Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
The the ABA experience, the fashion was a big deal.
They note the afros and the fashion was a big deal. Yea, yeah,
and a lot of it. I wondered if.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Some of that was.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Listen, you know a lot of young guys, you're all
young guys. Young guys like fashion much more than an
old guy like me. But was some of it away
to say, hey, man, this league were stylish, there's a
there's a there's art to the ABA. The NBA was overcoached,
but you guys had a style. By the way, the
(43:21):
media liked the style. That's why they paid attention to you.
A lot of startup leagues, Julius don't get any attention
by you know, mainstream legacy media. The legacy media paid
attention to you, And I wonder if the style and
the fashion played into that.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah, now you're talking about you know, nineteen seventy to
nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Okay, for me that those those were my five years,
seventy one seventy.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Six, and during that time, you know, and bell bottoms,
wearing afros and were dashikis and stuff like that was
very much in fashion. And you know, people strove to
have an individuality about, you know, their personal lifestyle and
(44:11):
even the spouses, you know, the way they dressed. And
you know, when I got married, which was seventy four,
my wife used saying where you going She'd see what
I had, or where you're going, Like I'm going out.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
She said, well, maybe you want to tweak this a
little bit, do.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
This or whatever, you know, and so so I think
a lot of the guys had assistants from either their
wives or their sisters in terms of creating their style.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Especially with the hair. Yeah, the hair. The hair was.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I think a matter of addressing your heritage. You know,
we really are an African American. Then you're a descendant
of an African tribe of some kind. And when you
see tribes, you've seen FROs, you see you know, like
(45:11):
now it's the braids and yeah, and the twists and
the turns whatever. I never had my hair braided, and
it was long enough to probably braid, but I always
thought that was like a sissy look. But now now
it's very masculine and it's prevalent.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Before we let you go, your game was so unique
and inventive and creative. When you did get to the
NBA and it was a more structured league, there was
that push and pull where to be Julius. You got
to let the best guy be Julius. But was there
that first year in the NBA did you feel a
(45:56):
little push pull stylistically with your game and the NBA rigidity?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Absolutely, you did, absolutely, And and it was really more
with myself and my teammates. And we had Darryl Dawkins,
we had World B Free at Duncan World B Free,
and we had you know, Dougie Collins and George mcginnit's Cornwell.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
And and it was and we got to.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Mid season with that team and I would I wouldn't
say it was easy. The team had its struggles, but
you know, we had won maybe eighty percent of our games.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
By the time we get to mid season. And then
we wanted Billy.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
That was the second thing was Billy Cunningham his first
year where we wanted to bring somebody in uh and
and change the dynamic of the team. And the first
year with geenis Show, we didn't have to do that,
but with Billy Cunningham, we didn't. We bought in Clement
Johnson and Reggie Johnson Johnson boys and whatever, and one
(47:15):
was big, strong and a husky and the other was
a finesse player. It was a shooter and with both
of them great guys, and they just made a seamless
transition into into what we had going. And unfortunately some
of the guys who we did their first year, they
were no longer there the second year because we'll be free,
(47:36):
went to Cleveland and when George ended up going to
to Denver.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, so you know, the question once again, was there adjustments.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Hell, yeah, there were plenty of adjustments, and and and
I had gone from the Squires to the nets, so
I had experienced an adjustment, but the adjustment from the
nets to the sixers was a much bigger adjustment. It
(48:12):
was huge, it was it was huge, and you know,
the reward was, Hey, this is the business. You know,
got a good contract, let's go. You're getting paid to play,
so so go and play.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Do you think your ABA stats will ever be included
in NBA history?
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Absolutely, absolutely, Like right now, I would say ninety nine
percent of the times when I when I go somewhere,
make a public appearance or whatever, they always you know,
mentioned that I'm at in the thirty thousand point club
and four time MVP and a two time Playoff MVP,
and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
So the basketball community except so, so it's a given.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
The basketball community accepts it.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
And I think you know, sometimes in television broadcasts they
don't like to go earlier in nineteen ninety two, like
so I noticed that because you know, there was I mean,
there was no ESPN when Trying played, and you know,
so you know, ESPN is kind of like the sports network,
(49:22):
right other than the cable situations, and so they didn't exist,
so they don't have a.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Handle on that. They don't care about it.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
I care about them, of course. Soul Power it's on
Amazon Prime. Legend of the ABA. It's fascinating. The footage,
the archive footage is remarkable. The fights are crazy. Fortunately
you didn't have a ton of them. You had a
Skirmisher two with Larry Bird, but everybody did except maybe Magic,
(49:54):
so that doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
That's funny. I'm gonna start using that. That's okay with.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Everybody, but Magic, right, yep, good, great speaking with you,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
It's been my pleasure, absolutely, and you know, there's so
much more to be told. You know, I'm just telling
my version of it, and the fans will really enjoy
this story.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Oh, it's a great four part series I strung for
all you documentary fans, sports or non sports fashion style.
The merger, the I mean the race.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Behind the scenes is all the behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Oh, it's unbelievable with the.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Recruitment of Kareema abdul Jabar. Enjoyed mic and and all
that stuff. It's good stuff.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Thanks Julius, Thank you brother, appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
So a little non Julius Irving News. Drew Dollman, the
twenty seven year old center who I believe played every
snap for the Bears last year, suddenly retired. Smart guy Stanford.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Guy.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
You know, had made his money and just decided it
is a listen man. Playing center in the NFL is
a daunting physical experience. You're you're dealing usually with somebody
about thirty pounds heavier, you know, nose tackles. The Jalen
(51:20):
carters are an experience like none other on a football field,
going Mono Imano. Now Joe Toney and Jonah Jackson at
the guard positions, and the Bears are above average on
the old line as a unit. And it's not a
it's not a bad center draft in the NFL. It's
a good o line year in the NFL, and the
(51:41):
Bears have a first, a second, a third, a fourth,
a fifth, and a couple of seventh rounders, so they'll
they'll obviously furnish this draft is going to be all
defensive players and probably a center. Now I'd mentioned before
they could go all defense during their draft. They obviously
somewhere in one of those picks. There's not a first
(52:03):
round center, but they'll be. It's a good center draft,
not a great wide receiver, tight end or running back draft.
Good tackle, good center draft, good edge rusher draft. But
Dolman's one of those guys. Listen, players make more money.
We've had a couple of Stanford guys retire early, you
(52:25):
know players. I mean, Andrew Luck retired early Stanford, Drew
Dolman retiring early Stanford years ago. The San Francisco forty
nine ers had an interior offensive lineman retire early. Chris
Borland Wisconsin Badger forty nine ers retired early. You know,
offensive lineman, quarterbacks, you know, offensive linemen are in the trenches.
(52:52):
Think about it. No unit in the NFL is more
physically taxing yet gets less credit the offensive line. You know,
pass rushers, dan lineman, that's all anybody talks about during
the broadcast. They get the big money. Left tackles get money,
but interior alignment rarely do. And you know, Drew Dolman,
(53:15):
he still has you know, physically, he's still in a
good space. So it happens. Caleb Williams went to Twitter
and had a sad emoji hulk dot dot dot. It
is a loss. It's the first thing Ben Johnson addressed
was the interior oh line. It comes as a shock,
(53:37):
but I'm always going to defend guys who retire early,
especially guys in the trenches. I remember having a conversation
years ago with Ed Cunningham, who played at the University
of Washington for that national championship team and played for
the Arizona Cardinals. His career was about ten years and
he retired and he was still, you know, in physically
(53:57):
good shape, and he just talked about what playing center,
because he was an undersized center, kind of a cerebral
academic center, but undersized what it did to your shoulders
and your hands, and that it's a really tough position
to play. I mean, you you age fast in the
interior offensive line, and so you know, I grew up
(54:19):
there was a center named Jim Otto who played forever
for the Raiders and pretty sad Mike Webster for the
Pittsburgh Steelers. And in the history of the NFL, those
two guys had some post football trauma they dealt with,
which has been well chronicled. And I understand in this
(54:42):
great game players retiring earlier, especially those who are playing
in the most daunting, punitive positions. And so I wish
Drew Dollman the best. You know, between Atlanta and the Bears,
it's a career to be proud of. But you know
the Bears are going to have to address. The good
news is the offense is stacked. Ben Johnson has a
(55:06):
great sense of offensive personnel, especially, and I think they'll
figure it out. But it comes as a shock, and
you know you're seeing not every football player lives and
breathes for the sport. You know a lot of them
love it. It's a journey. They ascend and they reach
(55:28):
a point physically where they don't want to be wobbling
with their kids. You know, they don't want to have
a bad back, and you know by the seventh shoulder surgery.
I've told the story before. I read a story a
couple of years ago in Travis Kelcey and he's already
had ten surgeries. I was aware of like one. So
always going to defend an athlete, a professional football player
(55:48):
who retires early tip of the Captain Drew Dolman and
now the Bears need to go to work.
Speaker 5 (55:57):
The shot get paid double only on hard Rock Bet.
Hard Rock Bet is Florida's only legal way to bet
the NBA teams, players.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Points and more. He's gone and.
Speaker 5 (56:10):
When you sign up for hard Rock Bet, your bets
paid double winnings.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Don't just count the basket, count it twice. He's on
fire now.
Speaker 5 (56:16):
Yes, new customers get paid double on your first ten bets.
Try hard Rock Bet today. Max bet of fifty dollars
per bet offered by the Seminal Tribe of Florida. Must
be twenty one plus and physically present in Florida to
the wager. Terms and conditions apply. If you are someone
you know has a gambling problem, please call one eight
threy three Playwise
Host
Colin Cowherd
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.