Julius Erving hasn't been shy in sharing his opinion on what the Philadelphia 76ers should do with disastrous acquisition/free-agent-to-be Andrew Bynum. The Hall of Famer, Philly legend and strategic adviser to the 76ers favors the team moving on from the injury-riddled big man, saying back in April that the Sixers "have not benefited one degree" from importing the former All-Star center, and that if re-upping the talented but fractured former Los Angeles Lakers center means signing up for "total uncertainty for another year, I don't think the organization should stand for that or the fans should stand for that."

Apparently, a couple of months and some subpar (but enthusiastic) flamenco dancing hasn't done much to soften Dr. J's stance. Not only that, but at a special Philadelphia premiere screening of "The Doctor" — the 90-minute documentary about his life and career set to air on NBA TV on June 10 — Erving told reporters that he believes the 76ers' new Sam Hinkie-led front office would do well to be wary of dealing with bill-of-goods-seller Mitch Kupchak ... and Danny Ainge, too, while we're at it. From Jason Wolf of USA TODAY Sports:

[Erving] said he believes the owners will turn the 76ers into a championship contender, but cautioned that it will require a degree of shrewdness and common sense to make it happen, alluding to the team's ill-fated acquisition of Bynum, whose knee injuries prevented the center from playing last season, as a major misstep. "When you talk to the Lakers, when you talk to the Celtics, when you talk to — well, those two in particular — the guy on the other end of the phone has his fingers crossed," Erving said. "So whatever he's telling you, he's not telling you the truth. He's working a deal for him. And what happened to us last year with getting damaged goods hopefully will only happen once. And that's the extent of that learning curve."

There are several obvious and immediate responses to this:

• To a certain extent, every general manager/president of basketball operations/deal-making executive in the NBA is probably holding back at least a little bit of information every time a deal's being struck, because that GM/president/exec is trying to get more of what he/she wants while giving up less of what he/she doesn't. That's the way the game is played, and a big part of negotiating at that level is knowing what you're not being told.

• Erving probably has at least a little bit of residual hatred toward the Lakers and Boston Celtics based on the fact that he saw an awful lot of them in high-leverage situations during his playing career. The Sixers played the Celtics 88 times (46 wins, 42 losses) during Doc's 11-year NBA career, including five knockdown, drag-out playoff series (of which Philly won three) that included, among other things, Doc and Larry Bird choking each other. The 76ers also met up with the Lakers in the NBA Finals three times in four years, losing in 1980 and 1982 before sweeping L.A. in 1983, and went 22-21 against the Lakers in 43 total meetings over the space of 11 years. Old rivalries die hard, you know?

• Saying that the Lakers tricked the 76ers into trading for damaged goods suggests that anybody with access to popular Internet search engine www.yahoo.com wouldn't already know that before the age of 25, Bynum had already undergone multiple surgeries on both knees — arthroscopic surgery after dislocating his left kneecap in January 2008, a procedure to repair a torn right medial collateral ligament in February 2009 and another to repair a torn right meniscus in July 2010 — and that he was about to seek Orthokine treatment to alleviate arthritis in his knees during the summer of 2012.

• Even if there was some cloak-and-dagger stuff involving Bynum's full medical history being hidden from the Sixers' medical team, it's not like it should come as a shock that a 7-foot, 280-plus-pound man with a history of knee problems would be more likely than others to develop further knee problems. It's hard to blame someone for selling you a lemon when you didn't really check under the hood, right?

Still, while blaming the Lakers (and, apropos of nothing, the Celtics) for being dirty tricksters is unnecessary and at least a little silly, it's easy to understand Erving's distemper toward the Bynum situation as the completely natural outgrowth of frustrations felt by many Sixers fans after a miserable season that seemed rife with possibility when Philly participated in the four-team megadeal that brought Bynum to Pennsylvania and shipped Dwight Howard to Hollywood. To review:

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