tavis: good evening, from los angeles, a conversation with legendary hall of fame basketball player julius irving, the man many consider to be the greatest basketball player of all time has written a candid autobiography titled simply enough "dr. j, the autobiography." a conversation with julius irving coming up right now.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [laughter] tavis: julius irving is considered by many to be one of the greatest basketball players of all-time, true innovator of the sport with more honors than i have time to mention tonight to the man something known as dr. jay has written a brand-new book that details his life and all its complexity. it is titled "dr. j, got a biography." -- an autobiography."

i want to start this conversation at what might be an unlikely place. jonathan, put a the cover of the book back up again. you see him here as a philadelphia 76ers wearing his famous number six. you see he has a leg brace on his right knee. what is amazing about this story, which i did not know, is how close it came to never being given the injury you had as a child. this almost didn't happen. tell me about this interview you test this injury you had when you were just a kid. >> ironically, last night, i was with a guy who coached me in minibasketball. we were on a set where i was signing some balls and the same thing came up because, if it wasn't for him, there would probably be no me because he was my first coach. even prior to him, in the

housing projects that i lived in in hempstead long island, there was a chain-link fence and we used to play football. i was ready good at running and catching it and putting moves on people. i was the fastest little kid in the neighborhood. speed toi used to that get free. looking at the ball, i tripped over the chain-link fence and my knee slipped through some broken glass either beer or soda bottles are was the bottles or whatever, just kind of sliced and diced the knee. home and my mom looked at it and she went to clean it up with some alcohol, which certainly made it worse. [laughter] i was feeling some pain than. after that alcohol head, i knew the power of alcohol. [laughter]

she cleaned it up and she took me to the doctor's office where she worked, dr. richard's office, and he said you have to go to the hospital. the third stop was getting to the hospital and they took me right in and they repaired the ligament and set up my knee and put me in a cast from my ample to my leg. so i went from being the fastest kid on the block to hopping along, pig leg, whatever nicknames, cruel nicknames that kids can think of. they laid it on me at that age and i was only eight or nine. so it was tough. after the 12 weeks, i get the cast-off and i am looking at this leg and this leg looks like an arm. this one looks like a leg and this one looks like an arm. [laughter] i don't think i ever got all the speed back that i had. i got a lot of it back, but i never got it all back. tavis: it didn't hurt your leaping ability.

legec>> it helped the other called the leaping leg. it went from being skinny to ed.ng nowed -- being bow it was a lesson am a learning early had to keep humility in check and not taking anything for granted and realizing, i mean, when people talk about a career ending injury, you can get that before the courier even begins. seth dashed when -- before the career even begins. so you always want to protect terms of -- hopefully, you can avoid having that happen. tavis: you said three or four things i want to pick upon. you used this word humility. again, all of my family and friends know that you have been my hero since i was a kid, in

part because, when i was a kid watching you, a kid growing up in indiana, watching you -- in indiana, you know, huge basket all states >> no question. >> one thing i noticed you even as a child was your humility on the court. speaking of football, there is a lot of this info all and even in basketball -- in football and even in basketball. it is almost hard to resist doing a dance or getting in somebody's face. with all the moves you ever did, you would go to the whole jump this way, turn that way, flip act this way, left-hand, right- hand, back to the left-hand, behind the back board, whatever you did, you would do it and run right back down the court. i do remember one time see you get in somebody's face with all the gift and talent you had. so tell me about that humility. that is more than just award, it seems. ,> the influences on your life

there might be a moment where you get into a situation and you might say what would julius do or what would mom think or what would dad think. influenceslly good in my mom, first and foremost. the guy i was talking about from last night, don ryan, my first coach. the victory over in high school, ray wilson, earl mosley, chuck madeleine. look, when youd, play sports, you are lose -- you are going to lose sometimes. and i have cried. i did not have control over the tears. but i always had control over boasting, always. because boasting was something that, you know, emotions don't make you do that. you program your brain to do it id sometimes, when i see it, crack up because guys are just following other guys.

i want to make my dance funkier than his dance. [laughter] or whatever. i'm, like, really? i don't get too mad at it because i have kids and grandkids and they are part of that generation that celebrates the moment. who said weoaches are not celebrating unless we win the game and the team is not over in the first quarter, second order, the third quarter or even the fourth quarter. it is over when it is over. when we win, we get on the bus and we can celebrate. but prior to that, i don't want to see it. tavis: you have done it to her three times in this conversation. what comes clearly in this book is that you are so full of gratitude which, again, doesn't surprise me given how humble you were on the court, even with your artistic genius on the court. but this sense of gratitude comes from where? in this conversation, you have listed 18 names already and it is clear that you have angels

along the way looking out for you. be on your mom and dad. >> absolutely. my mother and father separated when my younger brother was born. so my mom pretty much raised me and my sister and brother alone. so that is why she gets the highest honor second to god because she was an angel on earth. and i always had a motto. i never wanted to make her life more difficult than it already was. looking at the challenges, the mothers, single moms and divorce. to the projects where we lived in the projects where we lived. i don't want to make it any harder. let me make it easier. i started doing the early morning paper route when i was preteen. so i was too early to be out there but i was making my $12 a week in getting your $10 and keeping two dollars to have a little pocket change. i was 11 to 12 years old when i was doing that.

i was hoping the economics at the house. just got better as time went on because the opportunities got better. people always wanted to be around a kid who was a nice kid, a kid who was an athlete. there were a lot of doors that opened because of the skills that you're blessed with. but when she walked through those doors, what do you do with it? and there was such a thing -- and you're probably familiar with this growing up in indiana -- there was a traveling team. i always wanted to be on the traveling team, the team that can get on a bus or get in a car am a get in a van and go to the next community and go see what it was like playing on the other side of the tracks. and then coming back and telling the stories and then your -- and then you need to go back again and go farther away. so from long island to new york city, and long island to new jersey, long island to pennsylvania, long island to

connecticut. those were things that made me want to see the world. because of those experiences. and the individuals who took me to those places, because i could not go on my own, those were my angels. they looked out for me. tavis: you mentioned your brother and your sister. it is the case that you never close on the death of a loved one like you close on a house. it is never too far from you. >> yeah. tavis: but i got the sense watching the documentary on you, a brilliant acumen tree, and reading the book that -- a brilliant documentary, and reading the book that you still carry your brother who was lost at 16? >> i was 19 and he was 16. he suffered for a couple of years without us really knowing what the problem was. that was part of the closure aspect that was a problem for the whole family.

alexis,e and my sister, we could run and jump and we were kind of athletically built then he was less athletically built. he was small. and he was always playing with us, but he didn't have a lot of the natural ability that we had. whereas his mind was always running ahead of ours though because he did things like join the civil air patrol in school and that was the last thing i was thinking about, going into the army when i was after junior high school. [laughter] he always carried his briefcase around and i always wondered what kind of papers he had in their. a book bag -- my sister had a book that again he had a briefcase and he was the youngest one -- my sister had a book bag and he had a briefcase and he was the youngest one. wasould be 60 now because i

63. is something that i can't let go of and i don't want to let go of. , there was this series of bouts with lupus that theymisdiagnosed because always just talk about other things. his skin would break out in rashes and sometimes he had problems breathing. he was asthmatic when he was young so they would talk about asthma. they would just talk about other things and really couldn't and pointed until he succumbed to it and then there was an autopsy which revealed that lupus risk the ptosis, which is now my mortal enemy since age 19, was the one that took my brother away. tavis: you are the last

surviving member of your immediate family. >> yeah. tavis: alexis is no longer here either. two: cancerxis past and pneumonia. colon cancersed to and pneumonia. she was 37 and i was 30 4 p.m. so that was a most theater years ago -- almost 30 years ago. 2004, was last to pass in which awakened my sense of my own mortality and sense of purpose in terms of why i'm here, why i've been blessed with the cap form -- the platform to do different things. philanthropicfelt way because of the salvation army influence in my young age. and i've project it in my story about always having the character out in front of me, that tomorrow will be the best day of my life. hopefully, i can make a

difference tomorrow that i haven't been able to make today. i don't know exactly what it is or how it will happen. all i know is that it's a possibility. and during the course of operating my life and living the lifestyle that i live now, where i do have a beautiful wife and three beautiful children at home and i have four sons and three daughters and five grandchildren. so we have fullness to somewhat compensate for the absence of the media family members. but the immediate family members are the ones that the book is dedicated to as well as the future generations from my mother's family and my father's family, that they could hear first-hand from me what my story is. you know, so often, stories are games andnd

adventures, you know, those are things that are reported by others and they are not always accurate. is to try toe book set the record straight. you heard it from the horses mouth. i can't be misquoted. tavis: talking about setting the record straight and how stories can be conflated and conflicted and confused, i guess the best --mple would be the rocker the rucca league. everybody knows about the rookie league. you are out there in doing your thing. to this day, there are certain stories that just don't sound acura. you set the record -- don't sound accurate. the recordis straight on some of those things.

>> some of those games are the best i ever played in and the drama associated with it just kind of stayed in the confines of the neighborhood. kid, that isisland where i was torn in raise -- that isn't where i was born and raised. so i was like an invader. but then something happened. [laughter] i got adopted. up to when you would show play though, folks would be on top of rooftops, buildings. they would be on top of rooftops just to watch you fly through the air and do your thing. >> they were there to watch everybody, not just me. i was hard of the show -- i was part of the show. those were the days. >> hall of famers. it was always something about

playing a couple of years in the rucca league that validated you being one of the guys. you had to get your streak reds -- your street creds. [laughter] we played ball of our lives, but until you played in that park, there is no true credibility. and then there are guys who played an apartment never played in the nba or organize or play for the ncaa or in an ncaa tournament. so on that particular stage, which is the more traditional and revered as such, but they are playground legends. there was one rumor out there about joe hammond showing up at halftime and scoring 50 points off me. [laughter] you know i had to dispel that one. [laughter] tavis: you have lived such

a rich life and are living such a rich life. but it's clear to me that you want your fans to know that basketball was but 16 years of your life, 16 good years of professional basketball. knownk most of your fans those stories. i want to get to the part of julie serving that we don't know. i would assume that coming your adult life, maybe your entire life, you tell me, as difficult as losing her brother was, which had to be tough, no doubt about it, but losing your son cory, i can't imagine. parents aren't supposed to bury their babies. you talk about it a little bit in the book. >> when you get to that stage in the story, honestly speaking, even though i worked with a ghostwriter, a lot of it is still a blur. the years from the time it happened to maybe the next three

of the years, a lot richness of our autobiography fades because it becomes a blurred period because of being on an emotional roller coaster and trying to sort it out and rekindling spirituality and acceptance. it really is a nightmare. it is a parents worst nightmare. it led to the dissolution of our relationship eventually because of turquoise handling it a lot different than i handled it. you know, it created a gap that could be repaired. the statisticsf associated with parents losing children and then getting divorced, it is phenomenal. the numbers are higher than the normal divorce rate.

so, yeah, it is not something that you want to have happen to you. and when it does, you still have to go on and you still have to go on and try to find something to grasp ahold to to turn a negative into a positive. so we created a foundation and we have been able to, for several years, support people from all walks of life in terms of economic needs, educational needs, and creating opportunities through that,. it is something that is always hard to talk about. you wouldn't wish that on anybody, even your worst enemy. tavis: because i didn't spend a lot of time talking about and there are so many stories about the aba years in the nba, i didn't talk about the fro. >> what fro? [laughter] tavis: let me ask you this as the exit question two in cap so

all of this. what your fans know -- i know what your career, what your legacy have meant to me. i will hold the deer for as long as i live. i suspect all of your other fans -- meet me in the parking lot and we can fight about this. but what do you most regard about the gift that you were given to play this game? what do you most regard about your career? i didn't realize until i was 20 that i was going to be a professional basketball player. alwayso that, i was trying to be the student athlete, understanding that the and are a selection process come on the athlete's side, you tried to be as good as you can possibly be. and you still might not be good enough to be selected.

on the academic side, this is how you're going to feed your family. this is how you are going to support yourself or your going to get a job consistent with your course of study. and you are going to go out to the world to even if you are fortunate enough to have a cup of coffee in the athletic world and get paid for it, you still won't make enough to take care of you the rest of your life. so you will have to work. you have to transition from that at some point in time. so i always had this reality check in place and then that i was able to sign a pro contract and play for 16 years, that was gravy. all of that was icing for me because i really didn't expect it. in terms of putting it in perspective about how you want people to think of you or feel

about you, i am probably one who never starts the best of all conversation or the sports conversation. i always choose to try to talk more about the complete package conversation, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you know, try to be the best person that you can't, try to keep all of those things growing and moving towards a common object if. -- common objective. if you can do that with all the areas of your makeup, the characteristics that you do have them a you will end up in a positive place. it has always been about and always be about having the peace of mind that makes you happy. if you have that personal peace of mind, you will be happy. tavis: the book is simply titled "dr. j, the autobiography."

it makes a great holiday gift. i suspect anybody in your family who is a guy who loves best of all will appreciate this as a gift. i highly recommend the memoir, the autobiography from dr. j called "dr. j." it's an honor to have you here, man. that is our show for tonight. thank you for watching. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit cut -- visit tavis smiley on pbs.org. tavis: join me next time for a conversation with david gary am a seller rating 10 years. that is next time. see you then.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. thank you. ♪)

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