“Google Roy Boe into the next millennium and, unfortunately, he’ll be remembered as the guy who sold Julius Erving.”
— Billy Melchionni
OUTSIDERS have no conception how attached those of us on the ABA’s front lines got during its eight-year struggle for recognition, credibility and survival…and remain committed to each other to this day.
DONAGHY ALLEGEDLY BEATEN BY MOBSTER
With few exceptions — NBA league jumpers Rick Barry, Billy Cunningham, Joe Caldwell, Zelmo Beaty — we were all just trying to get a foot in the door to a larger room where we could show what we had in front of the mainstream audience.
On the court there would be no mercy: Confrontations between teammates would result in someone sprinting to his car and coming back with an equalizer for John Brisker; brawls between opponents, including coaches, would spill into the stands and sometimes continue until the visitors’ bloody bus peeled out of the parking lot; and cherry beat writers took wild shots in print.
It was an altogether different story after work. Solidarity was absolute. The windows of our isolated little world were tinted red, white and blue. Long before the NBA contracted “affluenza” and teams began traveling by charter, they remained in town after games to party hearty or play cards alongside allies, antagonists, referees, reporters and cheerleaders.
On special occasions — All-Star weekends and during the playoffs — certain unnamed commissioners and owners would be right there with us doing some serious bonding…with a quick side trip now and then to Las Vegas for anyone up for some mischief.
Roy Boe, who died Sunday at the age of 79, wasn’t a carouser or a gambler, but I liked him just the same. From the time he purchased the Nets in late May of 1969 until the day he sold it in late August of ’78, he did whatever it took to ensure the fan base never had a dull moment and the team was in it to win it.
Often, er, always, Boe took his craving to compete for publicity with the championship Knicks and contend with them (if only in his mind until the two leagues consolidated in ’76) to extremes.
Often, er, always, Boe took his craving to compete for publicity with the championship Knicks and contend with them (if only in his mind until the two leagues consolidated in ’76) to extremes.
Worried his kids would grow up saying, “Ya’ll,” Barry mouthed his way out off the Squires before they shifted from D.C. to Virginia; Lou Carnesecca was induced to leave his St. John’s sanctuary; undergraduate Jim Chones, supposedly the second coming of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), was lured to leave Marquette; Erving was acquired from Squires owner Earl Foreman, on the precipice of losing him to the NBA; Larry Kenon was outright stolen from Charlie Finley, whose Memphis team had drafted him (commish Robert Carlson, a former Nets minority owner, ruled in their favor; anything to make the New York entry stronger); and Knicks’ pinup Dave DeBusschere was hired as team president.
By ’76, NBA marquee players were dwindling while the ABA was endowed with an overabundance of precocious crowd pleasers. The time had come to stop financially fighting for talent and merge resources.
No player was more coveted than Julius Erving.
No owner was more responsible for influencing the NBA to accept the 2-time ABA champion Nets, Pacers, Spurs and Nuggets as equals than Boe. Mission accomplished! But it cost this imposing, prophetic, passionate, perservering man ultimate fame and his good name.
Inopportunely, he was cash poor and could not absorb the economic hit he took by joining the NBA fraternity ($3.2M) and indemnifying the Knicks (4.8M over 10 years for the right to play in their backyard.
So, while Boe may have promised Erving he’d upgrade his contract should a merger occur, he lacked the willingness or reserve to submit when the time came. When Erving refused to report to training camp and there was no sign he’d crack, Boe decided to sell those sacred services to the 76ers for $3 million. So polluted was Long Island’s water, Boe felt forced to move the franchise to Piscataway for the ’77-78 season.
“You can have the most successful business in the world, but if you don’t have proper cash flow, forget it,” says Amanda Boe, who learned that lesson at her father’s knee.
Speaking by phone from her Connecticut home, she said, “It might sound simplistic, but I still truly believe Julius had a [66-page] contract and should’ve lived up to it. However, in hindsight, my father probably should’ve given him more money, because when the first card was pulled, the whole house fell — cable TV, sponsorships, advertisers, season-ticket holders, everything. People perceived him as a traitor. He greatly underestimated the backlash .ñ.ñ. because he was an eternal optimist.”
To Billy Melchionni, Nets GM at the time, that, indeed, was the biggest problem.
“Roy’s partners didn’t understand the magnitude of what was going to happen. He sold them the notion it was going to be business as usual — he’d take the $3 million and go out and get another superstar, and they bought it. Trouble was, NBA owners didn’t sell their superstars, and there was only one Julius Erving anyway.
“People who didn’t know my father thought he was an egotist, thought all he cared about was money,” protested Amanda Boe, wearing her father’s ’76 championship ring around her neck. “That’s so untrue. He didn’t have material possessions and didn’t care about them. He was the least materialist person I’ve ever known. His sweaters were ragged. His closet is near empty. He gave away everything. Our phone number was in the book. He’d get calls from people he didn’t know asking for tickets. He was so happy to make them happy.”
“A mistake is just another way of doing something.”
— Unknown