CHILD’S PLAY

Dr. J once proved the Nets could capture imagination of young fans over Knicks

HERE’S the thing: They had me. And they could’ve kept me. I was the perfect age: 7 years old. I was collecting superstar sports heroes as my hobby: Joe Namath, Tom Seaver. It was July 31, 1973, when Julius Erving arrived here, traded by the Virginia Squires to the Nets for George Carter. It made little impact. It was the Nets. It was the ABA. The Knicks’ title two months earlier had barely registered in my universe, but that was Pop’s team, so it was going to be mine, too. Until … Well, until we got our eyes on the Doctor. Until every couple of nights that coming winter, the good folks at Channel 2 or Channel 4 or Channel 7 would show a snippet of video of what was happening at Nassau Coliseum. Some games were available on Channel 9; we started to tune in there, too.

It was halftime of one of those Sunday afternoon games when it happened for the first time. Steve Albert was interviewing Erving. They talked about dunking. And so Erving started to dunk: one leg, two leg. One handed, two-handed. Forward, sideways, and then … Behind his head? Did he just dunk behind his head? And we were gone. The Knicks? The Knicks were the old guys who played in the city. The Nets played at the Coliseum, just a few blocks away. The Nets had those red, white and blue uniforms. The Nets played with that red, white and blue basketball. The Nets had Dr. J. and Larry “Mr. K” Kenon and Super John Williamson and Billy “The Whopper” Paultz.

The Nets won the ABA title in 1974. My room was a shrine to the Nets. I had a red, white and blue light splashing through a real-net twine and rim illuminating my room. I was Nets for life. Two years later, they won again. I was 9. I was Nets for beyond this life. And then, of course, I wasn’t. The problem wasn’t just that they got rid of Dr. J a few weeks before they joined the NBA; I stuck around the Jets after Namath and the Mets after Seaver, which all happened around the same time. I could have stayed. I could have watched Tiny Archibald. I could watch Super John. Even using the dull brown basketball, the Nets were my team. Forever. Except then they went away — to some faraway place called Piscataway for a few years, then East Rutherford, and to a 9-year-old Long Island kid, New Jersey might as well have been Wyoming.

(The Jets moved, too, but by then I was 16, and by then I really did understand that Jersey wasn’t in a different time zone. Also, at 16, there are other things occupying your obsessions beyond local sports geography.)

So that was that. I let the Nets move to Cheyenne. I transferred to the Knicks and signed up for all the baggage that would require. The Nets were dead to me. Too bad, too. Some of the most fun times I ever had in my life were watching Nets games.

I bring this up, of course, because there is a fresh batch of 7-year-olds in our midst now, and 10-year-olds, a fresh supply of kids who aren’t necessarily committed through birthright to carrying on the tradition of rooting by rote for the Knicks. We have come to accept that the Nets will forever be the No. 2 team in town — so many of their fans seem to actually prefer it that way — and so it has become fact.

But Kevin Durant is a pretty good 2021 approximation of what 1974 Dr. J was. Kyrie Irving is a mixture of Mr. K, Super John and Bill Melchionni all rolled into one when he’s on top of his game. DeAndre Jordan is, like, Whopper 5.0, doing all the little things Paultz did back in the day, but doing them all about 3 feet above the rim.

They’re a good team, but more to the point they’re a fun team. Maybe there are too many older basketball fans set in their ways, their loyalties cast in iron (an admirable trait, by the way, not one to be mocked). But there are kids out there, with choices to make. I know those kids. I knew those kids.

I was that kid.