With all of the hysteria over LeBron and free agency, everyone has had an opinion. Below, is a post from G’s dad on why history shows Miami should be careful what they wish for.

The recent acquisition of LeBron James by the Miami Heat takes me back to 1977 when my beloved Philadelphia76ers acquired Julius “Dr. J” Erving from the New York Nets. At the time we had a nice roster consisting of former ABA stars like George McGinnis, hometown hero Jelly Bean Bryant (Kobe’s Daddy), homeboy hero (Lloyd (World) Free, and my personal favorite Darryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins. Sitting in my grad school dorm room I kept pinching myself thinking I was dreaming the whole thing up. My Sixers were now the class of the NBA. We had maybe not the best but clearly the most exciting team in professional basketball.

Dr. J was the LeBron of this era. The only problem was that the NBA had fallen on hard times. This was a year or so before Magic and Bird came in to save the league. By the time the NBA Playoffs were underway in 1977 I had moved to Rochester, New York where – unbelievably – the championship series was not picked up by the local CBS affiliate. I had to drive all over Monroe County to in a vain and ridiculous attempt to get radio reception so that I could follow the games.

Unfortunately – although the Sixers had an all star roster, the team lacked something when it came to chemistry. Our sixth man Steve Mix went into a slump and the coach Gene Shue ended up using Bryant in that role. Bryant – who was an explosive player – was not nearly as reliable a shooter or rebounder as Mix. But Mix became so discouraged by losing his sixth man status to Bryant that he was never the same player. McGinnis went into a legendary slum during the playoff series against Portland. It got to the point that his own teammates would yell “BRICK!” whenever he took a shot in practice. He ended up taking (and missing) the potentially game tying shot which enabled Portland to win the NBA title.

During Game 2 of that series (which I actually drove to Philly to watch) there was a fight between Darryl Dawkins and Maurice Lucas of the Trailblazers. I remember Dawkins’ brother coming onto the court dressed in a white suit. Guys were running around fighting and taking shots at each other. Except for Dr. J. He was seated at mid court waiting for the gang war to end so that he could get back to the game – which the Sixers won. I figured the series was sewn up – but Dawkins started squawking about how his team mates didn’t come to his defense during the game. This was made worse by Lucas – being a tough guy from Pittsburgh – basically made Dawkins look silly for the rest of the series.

The bottom line is that although the Sixers put together a popular, exciting and fairly successful team via the 70’s version of free agency, the team never won the ultimate crown. We did not win the title until 1982 when we got rid of George McGinnis,Bibby, Free (who legally changed his name to World B. Free) and Caldwell Jones, and added Moses Malone, Bobby Jones, Maurice Cheeks, and Andrew Toney. In fact only one player from the 1977 team survived to win a championship on the 1982 team – Julius Erving.

So Miami fans be very careful what you wish for. My theory is that once a team spends big money to assemble huge talent they become very impatient. Even guys on the team feed into the hype about the need to win immediately and every year for a number of years. But in the NBA winning is never enough. You have to win a championship – a ring – to be considered a true winner. If the Heat go 2 or 3 years without a ring than this experiment will be deemed an abject failure. The experiment paid off for the Sixers – but not without pain and patience.

1977 Sixers Roster