ERVING PASSES TORCH TO JORDAN, NBA’S NEW KING

By GLENN NELSON

February 5, 1987

Publication: THE SEATTLE TIMES

Page: C3

Word Count: 1379

CHICAGO, Jan. 17 _ Early in Michael Jordan’s first career backcourt matchup with Philadelphia’s Julius Erving, Chicago’s John Paxson is motoring downcourt on a fast breakaway. The standing-room-only Chicago Stadium crowd of 18,222 lets loose a collective gasp as Erving comes soaring at Paxson from the right side. Paxson’s looping layup barely clears Erving’s outstretched hand, but bounces off the iron as Paxson hits the deck.

As Erving prepares to touch down, Jordan comes flying out of a pack of Bulls and Sixers from the left side. Jordan catches Paxson’s errant shot as it caroms off the rim and flushes it down in one motion.

Erving already having them abuzz with anticipation, the Chicago Stadium crowd explodes.

And during that brief fly-by, it seemed one generation began to dissolve into the next.

Professional basketball is not a democracy. Its symbols are selected, not elected. Its ambassadors are anointed, not appointed. And so it was with Julius Erving _ Doctor J, to the masses.

“It was certainly the media’s creation,” Erving says. “But I don’t want to blame others for the position I’m in. I volunteered for it.

“Now I see the press creating the same thing with other young players. They are quick to label, using the standards of Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar of the Lakers) and myself. That’s very unfair. Guys need to mature into any position before they are judged and evaluated. It is a timely process,” he said.

But time is becoming a scarce commodity for the National Basketball Association. Doctor J, the game’s ambassador, its symbol on and off the court, is making his last rounds. He will retire at the end of this season, and many already wonder how the NBA will survive his loss.

“He is one of the sport’s unique treasures,” former 76er General Manager Pat Williams says of Erving. “Julius, I always felt, was too good to be true. If you’d sit and design the perfect athlete and personality _ all the ingredients Julius has. This is a sad year in many ways. The man, Julius Erving, is something the league will never again see.”

Utah Coach Frank Layden disagrees. “Hey, Babe Ruth had to go,” he said. `Always, another guy comes along. Losing Doctor J will be a big loss for us. But, all of a sudden, another guy comes along _ Michael Jordan.”

Doctor J, Michael J. Erving and Jordan will start in the same Eastern Conference backcourt in Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game. Impatient to replace our loss, we will trumpet a changing of the guard. Perhaps unfairly, we will force the scepter from Erving to Jordan.

“I think Michael is today the No. 1 attraction in professional basketball,” says Jordan’s agent, David Falk of ProServ. “Doctor J no longer enjoys that status, but his accomplishments over a period of time have acquired a permanence. . . . The question for Michael is, will he stand the test of time? He is mature beyond his years, but cannot be a statesman of the game at the tender age of 23.”

“Michael Jordan is the closest thing to Julius I’ve seen,” Williams says. “He could maybe stand in the gap, but nobody will fill the void.”

The day after a loss, and after a heavy workout with the Bulls, Michael Jordan still is hard at work. In the middle of a tennis court at a Dearborn Heights, Ill., athletic complex, he is being filmed by Quaker Oats for an in-house motivational tool. At one point, a technician turns and comments, “God, this guy is good.” After Jordan smoothly ad-libs his lines, the producer thrusts a fist into the air, and exclaims, “Right on!”

“When I was young,” Erving says, “people always seemed to be surprised by me. That put me at a tremendous advantage over people because they always expected less than what they got. They stereotype us all as dumb jocks. When you don’t give them that, they ask, `How did you get that way?’ I’ve played that record, over and over again.”

Erving’s relative anonymity throughout his early development as a basketball player prevented him from “being overexposed, burned, or overly conscious” of the media. It also guaranteed him an element of surprise, and allowed him to spring into our consciousness like a slam dunk in traffic.

From middle-class Roosevelt, N.Y., to the low-profile University of Massachusetts, Erving made a quiet ascent. It was in the American Basketball Association where the responsibilities of carrying a fledgling league on his shoulders thrust Erving into the role of statesman.

“In those days, it was one for all and all for one,” Erving says. “Any publicity I got I assumed would help us all.”

It immediately is apparent that working for “all” _ ABA, NBA, wherever Erving’s presence has graced _ has benefited the “one.”

“If one wears the hat of leader, role model _ ambassador, if you will _ it commands respect,” Erving says. “Popularity is empty without respect. Popularity means people know who you are, want to be around, want a piece of you. Whereas, if you command respect, your company is desired for other reasons. It means something deeper.”

It means being able to say no without conveying a notion of rejection. This will be Michael Jordan’s challenge if he follows the path forged by Julius Erving, if he casts himself among the “givers,” as Doctor J calls it.

Unlike Erving, Jordan almost never has enjoyed the luxury of anonymity. He is a video child, sprung from the loins of the television age. From star at high-profile North Carolina to Olympian to the NBA’s Air Jordan to national spokesman for Nike, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, Jordan’s mug has graced the screen longer, it seems, than Lucile Ball’s ever did.

From Day One, Jordan’s tongue-wagging NBA exploits have been performed on a national stage. He has been stalked by nearly every national weekly magazine, reporters from nearly every NBA city and, even, 60 Minutes. All the while displaying the same poise in the spotlight as Erving, Jordan nevertheless has had to ponder the consquences of slipping along the razor edge of overexposure.

“I never want to be projected so highly nobody could talk to me,” Jordan says. “When I’m making an appearance in a low-income neighborhood, I talk to guys like they talk, find myself using the same slang they use. Show them, hey, that’s part of me, too. I don’t want to seem isolated from them.”

Jordan seems already to have mastered the most important lesson in Doctor J 101. It’s the part about protecting yourself from yourself, “building buffers,” Erving calls it.

“I keep myself small because I think universally,” Erving says. “You can ego trip. You can think, `You’re the man.’ But I look at this as God’s universe. I’m blessed with certain tools, but I don’t know everything. And on certain days, I confirm that because I do stupid things.”

It wasn’t until the first Chicago-Philadelphia game his rookie season that “the next Doctor J” met the original version. So Julius Erving still seemed larger than life when Jordan walked up before the game and introduced himself this way: “Hi, I’m Michael Jordan.” Constantly guided by impulse, Jordan then added the first thing that came to mind: “You’re not as big as I thought you were.” Erving smiled, and responded, “Neither are you.”

The day before he was to match aerial exploits with Erving for the first time, Jordan was asked if he would feel a little awkward if he happened to show up the man he called “our founding father.”

Jordan thought it over, flashed a grin and said, “I don’t think people will be upset if he shows me out. But I would be kind of embarrassed, feel something, if I had a 50-point night, or something like that.”

Or something like that. Jordan scored 47 points in a 105-89 Chicago victory over the Sixers.

But is Michael J the next Doctor J?

“I’m not trying to follow in his footsteps,” Jordan says.

“Our games are different. I’m trying to create my own identity on the court. But as far as representing a very position image _ in that sense, I don’t mind following Doctor J.”

Neither does Doctor J.

“I see the same poise at an early age,” Erving says, comparing Jordan with himself. “Coming into the NBA, coming into the limelight, how he’s handled interviews, people, endorsements. The public side of Michael _ there seems to be an ease and eloquence there that I can relate to.’