Erving wasn't an original in quite the same way that Ruth was, or Bill Russell, or Bobby Orr or Pele. However distinctive his style, Erving owed a tremendous debt to Elgin Baylor, and lesser amounts to Bob Cousy, Connie Hawkins and all the Globetrotters, Gus Johnson and Earl Monroe. He wasn't even the first great leaper; when Erving was a child on Long Island, Jumpin' Jackie Jackson was already a playground legend, able, the breathless tales went, to rocket so high that he could "take a quarter off the top of the backboard and make change on the way down." ... Still, for all that Dr. J wasn't, what he was, in sum, was significant. Each part of him was nearly consummate, so that, taken as a whole, he may well have been more whole than any other athlete of his era.

--From "Last Rounds for the Doctor", Sports Illustrated, May 4, 1987, by Frank Deford