"And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it"
About this Quote
The admission that he was a "scrub" when he first picked up a ball at eight captures the core of Julius Erving’s ethos: greatness born from awkward beginnings and sustained by love of the craft. The line pairs difficulty with attraction, suggesting that early struggle and early joy can coexist and even feed each other. Rather than narrating a prodigy’s smooth ascent, he offers a memory of fumbling forward, gripped by something he could not fully do yet could not put down.
Calling himself a "scrub" is playground language, grounding his origin in public courts and neighborhood hierarchies. Erving grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island, later dazzling at Rucker Park, before transforming the professional game with the Nets in the ABA and the 76ers in the NBA. The voice here is not the mythic Dr. J who seemed to fly, but the boy who could barely make the moves. That tension gives weight to his later artistry: the dunks, the improvisational angles, the elegance above the rim are framed as the outcome of a long apprenticeship powered by fascination.
"Things that I liked about it" matters. The plural hints at a layered magnetism: the rhythm of the bounce, the geometry of cuts and arcs, the solitude of repetition, the fellowship and friction of competition. Liking specific textures of the game supplies a durable fuel that survives missed shots and clumsy handles. It is intrinsic motivation, not external praise, that keeps the ball in his hands.
There is also a lesson in how memory is used. By foregrounding difficulty, he refuses the myth of effortless genius and replaces it with curiosity plus time. That stance invites anyone to embrace being a beginner without shame. The game did not greet him with instant mastery; it offered sparks. He followed them. The child’s first awkward dribble becomes the throughline to a career that changed basketball’s language, all because the struggle itself contained pleasures worth returning to.
Calling himself a "scrub" is playground language, grounding his origin in public courts and neighborhood hierarchies. Erving grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island, later dazzling at Rucker Park, before transforming the professional game with the Nets in the ABA and the 76ers in the NBA. The voice here is not the mythic Dr. J who seemed to fly, but the boy who could barely make the moves. That tension gives weight to his later artistry: the dunks, the improvisational angles, the elegance above the rim are framed as the outcome of a long apprenticeship powered by fascination.
"Things that I liked about it" matters. The plural hints at a layered magnetism: the rhythm of the bounce, the geometry of cuts and arcs, the solitude of repetition, the fellowship and friction of competition. Liking specific textures of the game supplies a durable fuel that survives missed shots and clumsy handles. It is intrinsic motivation, not external praise, that keeps the ball in his hands.
There is also a lesson in how memory is used. By foregrounding difficulty, he refuses the myth of effortless genius and replaces it with curiosity plus time. That stance invites anyone to embrace being a beginner without shame. The game did not greet him with instant mastery; it offered sparks. He followed them. The child’s first awkward dribble becomes the throughline to a career that changed basketball’s language, all because the struggle itself contained pleasures worth returning to.
Quote Details
| Topic | Training & Practice |
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