Julius Erving maintains auction is not to pay off debt
Julius Erving is best known as a former member of the Philadelphia 76ers. Now, the man commonly referred to as Dr. J. has encountered money trouble.
Centre Daily reports that Erving is being sued by Georgia Primary Bank, claiming he owes more than $200,000. The lawsuit was filed on October 18 against Erving and his company, The Erving Group Inc. of Atlanta. Allegedly, Erving took out a $1 million line of credit in April 2009, which was due in April 2010. Reportedly, a balance of $205,277.84 remains.
Coincidentally, Erving announced that he is auctioning off pieces of NBA memorabilia. He maintains that the auction and the lawsuit are just coincidences.
“That irony actually gave me a sleepless night last night. I had to laugh at it and cringe at it that these stories would run concurrent with one another… We decided to do it a long time ago. To claim it’s a firesale or to clear up some debt, I don’t think so. You don’t do an auction overnight. This has been long planned. We had 4,000 catalogs that have been mailed already to people who buy this kind of stuff,” Erving said.
A portion of the proceeds will go to the Salvation Army and will run from October 28 to November 19. For a list of all the items included, go here.
Read more about Julius Erving’s auction here.
