I think Denver’s old Auditorium Arena held about 6,900 fans. It’s there in the late sixties and seventies that we watched Connie Hawkins and Spencer Haywood dominate like the opponents were high schoolers.
But wait, a new kid arrived on the scene and the word dazzling should have been written in all caps. His name…Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving. His hands, like Hawkins’s, were so large they could pick up your cousin’s Volkswagen.
When The Doctor was in the house, we never missed a game. From the second row, it was astonishing how high he’d soar and the magic those huge hands could produce. We would walk away wondering…’how on earth could he make that move?’ Julius would invent nearly a dozen moves each game that no one had ever seen before.
He could have been excused for saying, ‘welcome to Toys R Us fellas!’
It was a show that will unlikely ever come to town again.
How lucky we were to witness Dr. J in the operating room.
* Erving later admitted that Paul Rossi taught him most of his high flying dunks.
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