You don’t hear many stories out there about Julius Erving. So when two stories came out on the same day, one about being sued and another about selling off memorabilia, you HAD to think they were related.
But Dr. J says that’s not the case.
“That irony actually gave me a sleepless night last night,” he said. “I had to laugh at it and cringe at it that these stories would run concurrent with one another.”
The 61-year-old Erving said the auction was part of a long-planned celebration of his career. He said most of his cherished possessions were in storage and that he rarely looked at his collection. He said he occasionally wore his 1983 ring and never his ABA rings. Erving said he will keep his Hall of Fame ring. His induction into the Hall of Fame came in 1993.
“My family is 100 percent behind it,” he said. “We decided to do it a long time ago. To claim it’s a firesale or to clear up some debt, I don’t think so. You don’t do an auction overnight. This has been long planned. We had 4,000 catalogs that have been mailed already to people who buy this kind of stuff.”
Dr. J is being sued for more than $200,000 in connection with his purchase of a golf club that went under in Georgia. He says he’s talking to the bank to try to clear things up. Meanwhile, the auction, he says, was planned for a while with some of the money going to the Salvation Army.
I’m not sure how much money Dr. J makes, but I’m sure he can make plenty if he really wants. He IS Dr. J, after all. He made that Dr. Pepper commercial and, before that, this cool commercial for Converse where he comes off as the godfather of streetball.
I’m sure he can do more of those if he really wants to, and he could probably just suck it up and do one commercial for whatever wants to pay him the money he owes. It’s a little sad that J is in a position like this when guys like Eddy Curry are walking around having made a ton more than than Erving, as one of the best to ever lace ’em up, has over his playing career. But those are the breaks. He’s still got plenty of time to cash in on being who he is if he really wants to.
If you want to maybe sneak a bid in on a piece of Julius Erving memorabilia, you can go to www.scpauctions.com starting tomorrow. The minimum bid on his 1983 championship ring is $25,000, so there’s no bidding $50 on it so you can tell your friends “yeah, I put a bid in on J’s Sixer’s ring, but I just barely got outbid.”
Nice try though.
