A quarter century and a million basketball plagues ago, Roy Boe lunched at the Nassau County Country Club and tried, one last time, to convince Julius Erving he should end his holdout and rejoin the New York Nets.

Boe, owner of sports franchises and cruncher of fiscal figures, sat on one side of a dining table. Erving, celestial soarer with aerodynamic Afro, sat on the other. They ate. Boe did most of the talking, as always. They spoke hopefully about an uncertain future, about the franchise moving into the NBA from the shards of the ABA.