147. Talking Dr. J & Dave Cowens w/Bob Ryan

On the cover of the October 25, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated stand two Hall of Famers—Dave Cowens and Julius Erving—as four ABA teams prepare to join the NBA and the Doctor arrives to change the league forever. Cowens, the relentless Celtic center fresh off a championship, shares the spotlight with Dr. J just as the merger brings dazzling new talent into the established league. Inside the magazine, the Big Red Machine rolls over the Yankees, George Foreman steamrolls another challenger, and Seattle Slew announces himself as a future champion.

Julius Erving appeared on that cover in a New York Nets uniform, symbolizing the ABA’s arrival in the NBA, yet the image was already outdated by the time the magazine hit newsstands. Just days earlier the financially strapped Nets had sold their transcendent superstar to the Philadelphia 76ers, a transaction that instantly altered both franchises. The Nets lost the player who defined them and slipped into years of struggle, while the 76ers gained the cornerstone of a new era that would carry them to the 1977 Finals and a championship in 1983.

Bob Ryan joins Past Our Prime for the fifth time and takes us inside the seismic shift of the 1976 ABA-NBA merger, beginning with the immediate impact Julius Erving had on the league. Ryan recalls first seeing a young Erving as a sophomore at UMass, when the future Doctor dropped 26 points and 18 rebounds long before the afro and the nickname. He walks through the wave of talent the merger delivered and how the 76ers, armed with Dr. J, looked ready to claim a title only to run into a Bill Walton-led Portland team at the absolute peak of its powers.

Ryan also explains why Dave Cowens briefly left the Celtics after Red Auerbach made one of the worst decisions of his career by trading Paul Silas, reflects on the “tortured soul” that was Jerry West, and shares that John Havlicek would never have retired when he did had he known how great Larry Bird was going to be. The same intensity that made Cowens great also made the Silas trade especially hard to accept. So much so that Cowens walked away from the game for a bit and famously took a job driving a taxi around Boston before eventually returning. It’s a rich conversation about a pivotal moment in basketball history—and Bob Ryan was there to see it all and now to tell it all… this week on Past Our Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices