1975–76 ABA season

[4] The Virginia Squires folded in May following the end of the regular season, but before the conclusion of the 1976 ABA Playoffs,[5] due to them being unable to make a $75,000 league assessment one month before league merger talks with the NBA began.

With the conclusion of the season, the June 1976 ABA-NBA merger saw the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, and San Antonio Spurs join the NBA, while the Kentucky Colonels and Spirits of St. Louis accepted deals to fold.

The deal accepted by the Spirits' owners, Ozzie and Daniel Silna, would turn out to be quite lucrative, as they agreed to receive a seventh of the television revenue generated by each of the four newly added franchises in perpetuity.

The Colonels then lost a seven-game semifinal series to the #1 seeded Denver Nuggets, 4 games to 3.

The other semifinal saw the New York Nets outlast the San Antonio Spurs 4 games to 3.