“The Basketball 100” is the definitive ranking of the 100 greatest NBA players of all time from The Athletic’s team of award-winning writers and analysts, including veteran columnists David Aldridge and John Hollinger. This excerpt is reprinted from the book, which also features a foreword by Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.

“The Basketball 100” is available Nov. 26. Read David Aldridge’s introduction and all of the excerpts here.

You can’t blame Michael Cooper for making one of the first recorded business decisions.

On January 5, 1983, Cooper — who would go on to become an eight-time NBA All-Defensive Team selection and the 1986-87 NBA Defensive Player of the Year — and his Los Angeles Lakers were in Philadelphia to meet the 76ers, whom they’d vanquished in the previous season’s NBA Finals. Big game, big implications. The game, as befitting two of the league’s titans, went to overtime.

In the extra session, James Worthy attempted a pass to Jamaal Wilkes, the Lakers’ silky small forward. But Philly’s Maurice Cheeks deflected the pass, and the ball bounced away from Wilkes and to Cooper near midcourt.

Except Julius Erving got to the ball first, cutting in front of Cooper. Two dribbles later, Erving was just inside the free-throw line extended. Cooper, though, was timing his steps to be able to contest a drive-by Erving. Michael Cooper, being Michael Cooper — the man Larry Bird would later say was the best defender he’d ever faced—could still get to this shot. Maybe block it. At the least, he could challenge it.

Except, after that second dribble, Erving inhaled the ball with his massive right hand. And, in one motion, he palmed and cuffed the ball, bringing it past Cooper, down to his waist, and then back up, as he rose — with his outstretched arm, a human embodiment of the Jimi Hendrix lyric from “Purple Haze”: “’Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”

At this point, Cooper knew what was going to happen. He ducked, his head barely missing the backboard, as Erving flew by and flushed the ball, an inexplicable amalgam of grace and violence, as the crowd at the Spectrum detonated.

“Wayyyyy — he rocked the baby to sleep, and slam dunked!” Lakers legendary play-by-play man Chick Hearn exclaimed.

Decades later, no one remembers Wilkes scored 36 that night, that Philly’s Andrew Toney made the game-winning basket in the final seconds of overtime, that it was a regular-season game in January and not an NBA Finals game in June. They only remember Dr. J.

Has there ever been a more perfect nickname?

We want our doctors to be elite at what they do, right? Erving was just that. He worked endlessly on his game while growing up on Long Island, learning how to score with either hand and concentrating as much on rebounding as he did on offense.

We want our doctors to have empathy and humility. Erving was barely noticed at Roosevelt High in Hempstead, New York, with only a handful of college scholarship offers — including the one he chose, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which was hardly a hoops factory. Erving was the telegenic, genial face of two leagues during his 16-year professional career, carrying the ABA for five seasons with the Virginia Squires and New York Nets before going to Philly and the NBA in 1976 as part of the NBA-ABA merger.

Afterward, Dr. J became one of the first Black athletes tapped for national endorsements and seemed to have time for everyone, from fans to media, off the floor.

“I played with some great ones — Bill Walton and David Thompson. But Doc was so special,” said Brian Taylor, the Nets point guard when Erving led the team to two ABA titles in four seasons.

“I don’t remember Doc raising his voice at the guys,” Taylor said. “He was such a diplomat. He just talked to you. Some superstars, they go off on their teammates if they’re not producing or if they’re not having a good night. Doc was always there to lift you — ‘Don’t worry about it, BT, you’ll get the next one,’ stuff like that. Always there to comfort you. ‘Keep your head up — don’t worry about anything, we’re going to get it done.’ Always inspiring confidence that we could get it done.”

Erving’s place in basketball history is clear. He won those two ABA titles along with his lone NBA title in Philly in 1983 after seven straight years of painful postseason losses, including three NBA Finals defeats.

When Erving retired in 1987, he was just one of three players in basketball history who’d scored 30,000 or more points. And his efficiency remains quite underrated — he was a career 51 percent shooter. But it was the flair and the style with which he operated that made him stand out. His ability to soar and play above the rim was — while the latest in a long line of high-flying hoopers, from Elgin Baylor to Jumpin’ Johnny Green to Connie Hawkins — among the most compelling of all.

Perhaps only Michael Jordan has a greater place in our imagination among those elevated. Erving, with his trademark Afro seemingly moving to its syncopation, controlled both his body and the basketball in midair. He was present at the creation of the Slam Dunk Contest during All-Star Weekend, which began in the ABA in 1976. What else is Mark Landsberger, a burly Lakers forward in the late 1970s and early ’80s, remembered for as a player, other than his role in Erving’s gravity-stalling piece of magic during the 1980 NBA Finals?

“With great prejudice, Michael’s the greatest that ever played the game. But, honest to God — a young Doc? Boy, he was something,” said Marty Brennaman, best known as the longtime, decorated baseball broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds, but who also spent three-plus years in the early 1970s as the Squires’ play-by-play man.

Unlike so many all-time players who’ve remained in the public eye as long as the now-74-year-old Erving, Dr. J engenders almost no backlash. Consider that in 2020, ESPN devoted 10 hours of feverishly devoured airtime to Jordan in The Last Dance documentary — half of which seemed to revolve around the notion that the greatest player of the last 50 years was a raging a-hole to his teammates.

Yet, when’s the last time you heard anyone say something bad about Erving—even when he acknowledges his private failings?

“I am a husband, trying and not always succeeding to live up to vows of fidelity amid the seductions of celebrity and fame; I am a father, seeking to impart values and my belief in America to my sons and daughters, pulled too often by the demands of professional sports away from those children; I am a businessman, believing deeply in the system that rewarded me and now seeking to build another legacy,” Erving wrote in his searingly honest 2013 autobiography.

Later, he wrote: “I have hurt too many people. For that, I ask forgiveness.” Publicly, though, Erving seemed, and seems, to transcend … well, everything. Race. Class. Gender. Age. Sports.

“The three classiest athletes that I’ve ever been associated with are Nancy Lopez, Tony Perez, and Julius Erving,” Brennaman said. “He was as classy a guy; from the day that he put on a Squires uniform when he was a young guy that very few people had any clue about out of the University of Massachusetts, he was respectful of people. To me, he had the whole package.

“He was an incredible talent. And on top of that, he was a damn good guy to go along with it. I got to know his mom and got to know his sister when he was playing in Virginia. When you got to know his mom, you understood it. She was a rather forceful lady. And you could tell from the get-go that bringing this young man up in life that she wasn’t going to put up with a whole lot of foolishness. I think it all stemmed from her.”

Erving certainly got a sense of proportion and perspective from his late mother, Callie Mae, and his sisters and younger brother. He started playing regularly for a Salvation Army team on Long Island as a teenager while working a paper route. He didn’t complain to his coaches when he didn’t get the ball as often as his burgeoning skills might warrant. Part of that reticence might have stemmed from the prohibition on dunking in the college game when Erving played. Part of it may have been that Erving didn’t reach his full height until his junior year in college. Slowly, though, his stock began to rise, especially once he hit UMass.

“It wasn’t obvious to me then — it’s obvious to me now — that he was the man about campus,” said Al Skinner, the longtime college head coach, who was on the freshman team at UMass in 1970 when Erving played on the varsity and then played with Erving with the Nets in the ABA.

Erving found himself in Philly after the Nets sold his rights to the Sixers after the NBA-ABA merger. (Bettmann / Getty Images)

Added Skinner: “He sold out the building when the freshmen played, and half the people left when the varsity played. And when we played as freshmen, everybody was there [waiting for Erving, by then on the varsity, to play in the second game]. If you know Amherst, it’s cold. People were lining up at three o’clock to get into a game at six o’clock that evening. I just thought that was the way it was.”

Erving’s rep grew further when he started playing in the summers at the celebrated Rucker Park in New York City. NBA superstars and up-and-coming college talents battled on the blacktop there in front of fans who packed the courts. People would even sit in nearby trees and on rooftops to catch the action. Erving let his game speak for him rather than trash talk.

“He didn’t have to say nothing; he would go out there and bust your ass,” said Tom Hoover, the former Knicks big man who had fierce battles with Erving at Rucker. By then Erving was already known by his evocative nickname.

While there are many versions of how and when Erving got the nickname, the most likely is that it came from Leon Saunders, Erving’s teammate and friend at Roosevelt High, who constantly argued with Erving over calls as they scrimmaged one another. Erving, one day, started calling Saunders “Professor,” because he always had something to say. In response, Saunders said, “‘What do you know? You’re here arguing. What are you, like the doctor?’”

Erving had already held his own in high school during workouts against NBA players like Wayne Embry. Now he was dunking on them in public. One of them was Hoover. One time Erving scored with such force over him, he knocked out Hoover’s front plate of teeth.

“You felt that at least guys who’d made it in the league, and we were all playing in the league, and here you come, they were talking about, ‘Wait till Dr. J comes,’ and I was like, ‘Who the f— is Dr. J? We’re in the NBA,’” Hoover said. “But when you saw him, then you know, you felt that basketball had just gone to another level. He reminded me a lot of Connie. The Hawk used to play like him with those tremendous hands. … But Erving was a kid.”

Erving turned pro after his junior season at UMass, stepping into the talent war between the ABA and NBA. The ABA was trying to survive by poaching the best young players coming out of college with lucrative deals. Erving signed with the Squires, spurning a chance to play with the Milwaukee Bucks, who had his NBA rights after drafting him 12th in the first round in 1972, and a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In Virginia, Erving just missed Rick Barry, who was traded to the New York Nets when he balked at playing in Norfolk and would only play briefly with stars like Charlie Scott and a young George Gervin. It didn’t matter. With his massive hands and ridiculous hops, Erving dominated.

“A lot of times, he’d bring the ball up the floor himself, especially if it was a fast-break situation on a missed shot,” Brennaman said.

“If he got the rebound, he’d make that decision, I’m going to kick it to the guards and maybe get it back. Nobody in the league could run the floor better than he could. … There was nothing he could not do. He could handle the ball in traffic; he could handle the ball when the floor was open and pick his spots.

“I saw him one night in a playoff game down in Miami against the Floridians. I think he scored something like 53 points. … It was stupid. The numbers he put up were truly unbelievable.

“He made a move one night against Roger Brown [of the Pacers] at the Indianapolis Fairgrounds Coliseum, made a move to get open underneath the basket, and scored. After the game, the conversation stemmed from what Roger said to him: He said, ‘God almighty, how in the hell did you do that?’ And Doc’s answer was, ‘I don’t know; I got in the air and did what felt right.’ ”

That wasn’t false modesty, as Erving challenged the limits of physics.

“I often have no idea how a move will end or where it will end,” Erving wrote in his autobiography. “That kind of improvisation on the basketball court is a form of expression, and I come to see it as a response to what is going on in the world around us, where the politics of race, the turmoil of riots, the drug culture and rock music are transforming how everyone looks and dresses and acts.

“Off the court, I’m a conservative kid. I don’t mess with drugs. I’ve seen plenty of guys stoned and I’m not interested in that kind of chaos or disorder.

“But I do feel some need to express myself, to rebel, and the only place I can do it is on the basketball court. I like order in the world, and even inside the gym when I’m playing organized ball, I prefer to play in a system, but out here, on the concrete courts, I decide to get a little freaky with my game.”

During his second season in Virginia, Erving led the league in scoring at 31.9 points per game. The Squires, which were like most ABA teams living month to month financially, desperately needed money to survive. And Erving was looking to move on. After nearly jumping to the NBA, Erving stayed in the ABA when the Squires sold the rights to his contract to the Nets for forward George Carter and cash.

Taylor, the 1973 ABA Rookie of the Year, was worried he’d be part of the package going to the Squires for Erving.

“That whole summer, I was sweating whether I was going to be traded to Virginia,” Taylor said. “I said, ‘I don’t want to go to no daggone Virginia.’ … I was so happy when that trade was made. It was a big deal during the summer. I was one relieved guy. And it dawned on me: ‘I’m going to be playing with this guy.’ It went from worrying to the happiest guy in the world.”

New York was loaded. Taylor could score and pass. Rookie John Williamson, who dubbed himself “Super John,” was a bucket-maker. Larry Kenon and Billy Paultz, who each became vital role players with Gervin later in San Antonio, were young frontcourt talents. And Erving picked up where he left off in Virginia, averaging 27.4 points and 10.7 rebounds for the Nets.

But he also knew when someone else needed a boost.

“Kenon had scored under 10 points two games in a row, and he liked to score like nobody’s business,” said Rod Thorn, the longtime NBA and team executive who was then a Nets assistant coach under Kevin Loughery.

“We were playing Indiana, and they had George McGinnis, and he was averaging 28, 29 a game,” Thorn said. “We’re going out on the floor, and Doc said to Loughery, he kind of hung back, and he said ‘Don’t worry about Kenon; I’ll take care of him tonight.’ So in the first quarter, every time Doc got the ball, he drove it and then he passed to Kenon. Kenon got 12 points in the first quarter, ended up with 20-something. Doc had like 15. McGinnis got his usual 26, 27, but we won the game. We got back in the locker room, and [Erving] just winked at Kevin.”

The Nets lost just two playoff games en route to the franchise’s first ABA championship in 1974. Erving won the first of his three ABA Most Valuable Player awards by making the spectacular seem ordinary.

“One night, we’re in San Antonio,” Thorn said. “James Silas undercut him. Five feet off the floor, he’s parallel to the floor. You or me, we would have broken our f—— necks. He landed on his feet, like, you know, when you drop a cat? He landed on his feet. His knees were bent, but he landed on his feet.”

A second ABA title for Erving and the Nets came in 1976 when he again led the league in scoring.

But the league couldn’t hold on any longer. Without a national TV deal, its great stars such as Erving, Gervin, David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, and others still toiled in relative obscurity. When the leagues finally agreed to merge, only seven ABA teams were remaining, and one of those—the Squires—ceased operations a month before the agreement.

Even the mighty Nets needed money. To enter the New York market in the NBA and play alongside the Knicks, the Nets had to pay the Knicks $4.8 million. Nets owner Roy Boe had to do the unthinkable by selling Erving’s NBA rights to the 76ers for $3 million.

Erving joined a franchise that was just four years removed from setting the league’s all-time single-season worst record at 9-73. But Philly had retooled, quickly. Doug Collins, Darryl Dawkins, Harvey Catchings, and the enigmatic World B. Free came in the draft; McGinnis came from the Pacers; Caldwell Jones arrived via free agency. The best partnership for Erving, though, may have been with Sixers longtime public address announcer Dave Zinkoff, whose “Julllius … Errrrrrrviiing” call after big baskets brought fans out of their seats.

The 76ers went to the 1977 NBA Finals but blew a 2-0 lead, falling to Walton and the Trail Blazers in six games. It began years of postseason struggles for Erving and the franchise despite consistent regular-season winning. The Sixers lost playoff series to the Bullets, Spurs, Celtics, and Lakers — all worthy opponents — but it was no less frustrating.

Erving was as big a superstar in the NBA as he’d been in the ABA, netting deals with Converse, Spalding, and Electronic Arts, along with buying part ownership of a Coca-Cola bottling plant. He was tapped to star in the 1979 basketball comedy The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, which survived uncharitable reviews to become a cult classic over the years.

And while he wasn’t quite the explosive force he’d been before injuries from his ABA days started slowing him down, he could still conjure greatness. Philly broke through in 1983 after getting future Hall of Famer Moses Malone in a sign-and-trade deal with the Rockets. The league’s most relentless rebounder made the 76ers unbeatable, nearly making good on his “Fo’, Fo’, Fo’ ” expectation of a sweep through the postseason. Philly lost just one game in its three playoff series, sweeping the Lakers in the NBA Finals to capture the franchise’s first title in 16 years.

“I think the group that we had, and me being the leader, just encouraged guys to stay with it all the way — 3-0 doesn’t mean anything, 2-0 doesn’t mean anything, 1-0 doesn’t mean anything.

“Four,” Erving told NBC Sports Philadelphia in 2020. “Four wins. And Moses said it best: ‘Fo’, Fo’, Fo.’ ”

Erving played three more seasons, moving to shooting guard late in his career before retiring in 1987. His was one of the first modern “retirement tours,” with fans in every city showering him with applause.

Other than brief stints as a studio analyst with NBC and as an assistant general manager with the Orlando Magic, Erving has limited himself in basketball the last two decades mainly to an ambassador role for the league. Unfortunately, he’s also had wrenching issues in retirement.

He publicly acknowledged in 1999 that he was the biological father of tennis star Alexandra Stevenson; he had a brief affair with Stevenson’s mother, sportswriter Samantha Stevenson, in the late 1970s.

After being told he was Alexandra’s father, Erving made financial arrangements for her. But at the request of then-wife Turquoise, he didn’t make contact with Samantha and Alexandra until Alexandra was an adult. Erving and Alexandra have reconciled.

And tragically in 2000, Julius and Turquoise lost their youngest son, 19-year-old Cory, after he inadvertently drove a car into a retention pond near the family’s home in Sanford, Florida, and drowned. It was another horrific personal blow for Erving, whose older sister Freda had died of cancer at age 37 and whose younger brother Marky had died at 16 from a form of lupus.

After Cory’s death, Julius and Turquoise divorced, and he remarried in 2008. Erving and his wife, Dorys, have three children and live outside Atlanta with his blended family.

And he’s still Dr. J to so many.

“People love him so much,” Taylor said. “I was running a charter school in Phoenix. I invited him to come speak to the business folks in the city and to the students and the staff. They loved this guy so much, grown people were chasing his limo when he was leaving.

“They just wanted to touch him. Any time I get a chance to be with him, just watching how people react to him, and how he’s so reciprocal, his appreciation of how people view him. He’s something else.”

Career ABA/NBA stats: G: 1,243, Pts.: 24.2, Reb.: 8.5, Ast.: 4.2, Win Shares: 181.1, PER: 23.6
Achievements: ABA MVP (’74, ’75, ’76), NBA MVP (’81), Seven-time All-NBA, Five-time All-ABA, 11-time NBA All-Star, Five-time ABA All-Star, ABA champ (’74, ’76), NBA champ (’83), Hall of Fame (’93)

Excerpted from “The Basketball 100” published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2024 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photo: James Drake / NBAE via Getty Images)