Chapter 3: Flying Dr. J
Julius Irving was a star player in the United States when he was in high school, he not only played the ball well, but what was even more annoying was that he also had a very good academic performance and excellent character and learning, so the friend who didn't know him gave him the nickname "Dr. J", so this nickname has been passed down. (Owen's English name is the letter "J" in the first place)
As early as 1968, the newly adult Irving was recruited by the ABA's Virginia Gentlemen without any draft, Irving was likened to being the first player to play on the hoop, his style of play is stable and also very ornamental, his countless dunks have become NBA classics, Irving brought the team to the ABA finals stage in the first year, and then due to the gentlemen's poor cash turnover, Irving was sold to the New York Nets, and led the Nets to win the championship that year, At the end of the 1975-1976 season, the ABA merged with the NBA, and the Nets joined the NBA family, but after entering the NBA, "Dr. J" never played a game for the Nets.
In May 1976, Fitz 61 Dixson bought the Philadelphia 76ers from Ilf 61 Kauslov and spent a lot of money on the team's rebuilding project. One of the largest investments was to spend $6 million to bring in "Dr. J" Julius 61 Irving before the start of the 1976-77 season - 3 million to the Nets as compensation, 3 million to Dr. J as a salary, and $3 million to Irving!
1976-1977 season, Irving averaged 21.6 points per game, 8.5 blue waves with the ball and 3.7 assists, under his leadership, the team not only won the East with a 50-32 record, but also defeated the Boston Celtics in the playoffs, the Houston Rockets, and stood on the stage of the finals again after a few years, the opponent was the Trail Blazers led by Bill Wharton, the 76ers fell behind 2-3 in the first five games, and in the crucial sixth game, Irving missed a key mid-range shot under Wharton's close defense, and finally gave the victory and championship to the Trail Blazers.
Although he did not win the championship, but this team is already a championship-level team, but he is far from meeting the expectations of the outside world, although Irving has always been able to maintain the level of an All-Star player, but the team's interior has become the weakest link of the team, and this, in the more competitive playoffs has been infinitely amplified, the team's starting center Daryl Dawkins averages basically 15+8 per game, which can only be regarded as conscientious, not excellent, in the 1979-1980 season, the 76ers were in the draft, The 14th pick in the second round drafted Morris Cheeks, a short guard who is only 185 tall, and then he was the team's No. 1 starting point for the 76ers for 11 years. Bobby Jones, a strong forward with excellent defense, joined the 76ers to save the emergency, the interior player who played in the NBA for 12 seasons averaged 12 points and 6 rebounds per game in the 76ers, sharing some of the pressure on Irving and Dawkins, but it was not enough, and in the following four seasons, the 76ers broke into the playoffs, but lost to the Washington Bullets with Evan Hayes and Wes Unseld, the San Antonio Spurs with George Gervin, and the Lakers with Abdul-Jabbar, and the Celtics with Russell, the teams that beat the 76ers are all teams with super interior lines, especially the Celtics in the last year, as if going back to that year, the 76ers were frantically chased by the Celtics with a 3-1 lead, and won three games in a row to knock the 76ers out of the game.
In July 1981, the 76ers changed hands again, and Harold 61 Katz bought the Philadelphia 76ers from Fitz61 Dixon, and in the 1981-82 season, the 76ers finished the regular season with a 58-24 record, finishing second in the Eastern Conference behind the Celtics with 63 wins. In the playoffs, he eliminated the Atlanta Hawks and the Milwaukee Bucks in succession, and met the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals for the third consecutive year. This time, the Philadelphia 76ers were tied 3-3 by the Celtics after leading 3-1, but won the crucial seventh game 120-106 to reach the Finals. But in the finals, he lost to the Lakers with a big score of 4-2 and missed the championship again.
1982-1983 is a year for the 76ers, this year the 76ers in order to make up for the shortcomings of the weak inside, signed former Rockets superstar Moses Malone, he achieved 25+15 data in the first season of the 76ers, in addition to Irving's 21+7, the year before last by the 76ers won the first round of the eighth rookie Andrew Toney performed well, Averaged 19.7 points and 4.5 assists per game, Morris Cheeks averaged 12.5 points and 6.9 assists per game, the team's record was a league-high 65-17, Malone won the regular season MVP, and in the playoffs, the 76ers, who were obviously superior, won the third championship in team history with a proud record of 12-1, recreating the glory of the year!
In 1984, the 76ers won Charles Barkley, known as the "flying pig", with the 5th pick in the first round, Duke Charles served as a big forward or center, although the height was not enough, but the shoulders were wide and the waist was round and the butt was big, and the finishing ability under the basket was extremely powerful, few players in the league could withstand Barkley's big ass, and his biggest killer move was to take the ball on the left rib or right rib and dribble the ball to arch inward, arch, arch, there are players to hit, pass, get an assist, no player to strike, and continue to arch, arch, arch, arch to the basket, With a butt pouting the opponent and scoring easily, the defender can only "look at the hips and sigh", this move is hugely lethal, but the process is too unsightly, the audience does not buy it, and the league president's office is naturally unhappy, so they have to formulate a "five seconds of offense" violation for Barkley. (Offensive 5 Seconds - When an offensive player is in the front court of his own side and is below the free throw line extension line, he may not dribble the ball for more than 5 seconds with his back to or sideways to the basket).
Duke Barkley is a righteous man, good at fighting, in his rookie season he witnessed the fight between Owen and Larry Bird on the field, many years later Barkley also admitted that the conflict was a turning point for the later Barkley character building, so then Barkley standing on the field became tougher, fierce, as soon as he entered the fighting state, Barkley stared like a frog with bulging eyes and shiny bald head only told the opponent one word,! Two words! Defy! Three words, what do you see! Four words, beat you up! Able to play, the strength and strength of the fat and anti-beating attributes make the irascible Barkley clean up all the fierce and evil ghosts in the league to obey, two of which are the most famous, one is to beat Ranbill, Ranbier was the league's hegemon at the time, known as the grandfather of "fighting basketball", playing dirty and small movements, very good at provoking trouble, seemingly inadvertently to give the opponent's star player an elbow, a leg, to create a senseless conflict, so Ranbier made many enemies in the league, when the 76ers vs. Pistons, 76ers player Rick Mahon fast-break dunked with both hands under the opponent's waist hug, and roared loudly after landing, Ranbier picked up the basketball and didn't speak, he reached out and put the basketball on Mahun's chin, Mahon had been teammates with Ranbier for four years before this season, and the relationship was not too bad, Mahon didn't say anything here, Barkley, who was miserable by Ranbill's small movements, rushed up and punched Lambir's head twice, and then lowered his head and raised his fist at Ranbill's head is counting" Meteor Fist", the tall Lancer really had nothing to do in the face of Barkley's condensed meat bullet, and the five people on the Pistons immediately surrounded Barkley, but this could not stop Barkley at all, the latter broke free from the encirclement, and the fierce god killed Lancer, and his fingers were against Lancel's head, which scared Lancer into defeat, and was finally pulled away by the 76ers players, the consequence of this fierce fight was that Barkley's two punches blasted Lance's eyebrow bone, blood flowed, Barkley was fined $20,000 after the game, in this regard, Barkley said, Lao Tzu earns $3 million a year, and he can beat Ranbill 150 times, and in the future, Ranbill will be dishonest and fight once a day, once a day, and he can beat him for two seasons, the Philadelphia owner said, I will pay the fine for Barkley beating Ranbill in the future, and I still have hundreds of millions...... From then on, Ranbir didn't dare to let out a loud fart when he saw Barkley again.
The second famous battle of Duke Ba was on November 10, 1999, when Barkley, who was already at the end of his career, transferred to the Rockets, on this day the Rockets played against the Lakers, Barkley attacked under the basket, Lakers center O'Neal destroyed the offense with a Tarzan top, and at the same time O'Neal's hand and arm hit Barkley in the face, Barkley's hot temper could not bear this bad breath, Barkley, who was already 36 years old at the time, smashed his head with a basketball with big eyes, Although O'Neal was a giant on the court, he was still a rookie in the brawl arena, O'Neal turned around and punched and missed the flaw by Barkley, a cat waist, depressed the center of gravity, held O'Neal with both hands and directly overturned it, and then pressed under him to O'Neal's head is an old punch, a stick Lakers player hula around, and then pulled Barkley up from O'Neal......
In fact, in addition to beating Ranbier and hugging O'Neal, Duke Barkley still has a lot of chapters to show off in the fighting arena, and Dennis Rodman, the famous weirdo nicknamed "Big Bug" in the league, is also a master who is not afraid to pout and disobey anyone, even Carl Malone, who is as strong as a cow, does not pay attention to it, but whenever Rodman meets Barkley, he must play honestly, and he doesn't dare to say a word of trash talk, why? Rodman spent the first seven years of his career with the Pistons, and those dirty tricks on the court were learned from the old villain Bill Lambir, and in April 1990, Rodman witnessed his teacher being beaten by Barkley, and since then he has remembered it in his heart, and he will not dare to breathe against Barkley in the future.
Barkley is quite interesting, I can't help but say a little more, okay, let's put the fight aside for now, and now let's move the topic from the fighting arena to the basketball court.
Although Barkley has a wonderful bone and different talents, he is invincible on the basketball court, but everyone also knows that Duke Charles has no championship in his life, after he came to the 76ers, he was still a championship-level team in front of him, and instantly became a fish belly, the main scoring guard Andrew Toney was reimbursed for the season due to injury, Moses Malone was injured in the ninth game of the regular season, and the season was reimbursed, without the average of 40 points contributed by these two per game, the 76ers played seven games with their opponents in the second round of the playoffs and unfortunately lostCoincidentally, the 76ers' opponent is still the Milwaukee Bucks, although they lost, but Barkley made the Bucks feel uneasy, without Malone, Duke Charles made a big show on the inside, averaging 27.5 points and 14.7 rebounds per game, shooting 62.2%!
Although the 76ers fell on the floor of the Eastern Conference semifinals, everyone knows that the 76ers with Barkley, Malone, and Irving's super interior combination are still the strongest contenders for the championship, but at this time, the management of the 76ers played a silly role again. He averaged 23.8 points and 11.8 rebounds per game, missed the rebounding king for the first time in six years, and was also the first time to lose the best team, it is true that the career that started too early made Malone's body enter a state of attrition in advance, but with his strength at the time, he was still the league's first-class insider, according to the trajectory of later development, after Malone left the 76ers, there were still five years of peak but the management of the 76ers couldn't wait for these, the signs of Malone's decline were like blood seeping into the sea, and the management of the 76ers smelled the fishy smell and immediately made the decision to trade Malone!
Shortly after the 1985-1986 season, the 76ers traded Malone to the Washington Bullets in exchange for Jeff Rowland and Cliff Robinson. Who are Roland and Robinson? Roland was the leading scorer for the Washington Bullets before the Malone trade, The best 1983-1984 season averaged 22.2 points and 12.3 rebounds per game, and this performance also made him an All-Star, but his tragedy began this season, and since then his feet have been in constant condition, and Roland only played 37 and 30 games in the next two seasons respectively, and then the Bullets had no confidence in him and kicked him to the 76ers, and the management of the 76ers also expected him to return to the light and come back to life, who knew that he only played 5 games in the first year of the 76ers! averaged 9.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, and then went home to recuperate, lying in bed and still receiving the salary from 1986 to 1992! Where can I find such a job? The 76ers are here! In the 1991-1992 season, Roland barely made a comeback, averaging 3.9 points and 3.6 rebounds per game in 13 games, and the 76ers couldn't wait to send Roland to the Detroit Pistons. In contrast, Roland has been brilliant at all, but this Chris Robinson is a complete role player, averaging 5.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game in his 11-year career, which is completely an addition.
Obviously, Malone's departure has greatly reduced the team's strength, and Tim McCormick, who has joined the Seattle SuperSonics, has become the team's starting center, but his 12.8 points and 7.5 rebounds per game are still far from Moses Malone.
Moses Malone played four seasons with the 76ers and now ranks seventh in 76ers history with 4,273 rebounds and 10th all-time block with 478.