Julius Erving wouldn’t have fathered tennis player Alexandra Stevenson, 32, if her mother hadn’t gotten braces on her teeth, the Hall of Fame basketball player writes in his new autobiography, “Dr. J.”
The hotly anticipated book is supposed to be under lock and key until its official publication on Tuesday, but I found an early copy at a downtown bookstore.
Erving tells how he met Samantha Stevenson — whom he describes on the page as “a smart single woman — a pretty white girl, a bit of a hippie giving off a vibe of availability” — in 1978 when she was covering the Philadelphia 76ers for Sport magazine.
“She becomes someone who helps me unwind if I’m feeling high-strung or stressed. I can drive over and spend a relaxing evening that might even include oral sex,” Erving writes. “I can only remember one time that we actually had intercourse, and that was because she had just gotten this new orthodontia to straighten her teeth. With wire and gleaming metal bristling in her mouth, oral sex was not an option.”
But Erving, known for his Dante de Blasio-like Afro and his thunderous dunks, felt terrible in 1999 when his and Samantha’s out-of-wedlock daughter — playing in the semifinals at Wimbledon — was caught in a media firestorm over her famous father.
“I’ve paid a terrible price for my sins and there is some justice in that. But should Alexandra have had to pay a price? What sin did she commit?”
No second opinion required, Dr. J.