ABA–NBA merger
As part of the merger agreement, the NBA agreed to accept four of the remaining six ABA teams: the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, and San Antonio Spurs.
[1]) On the ABA's end, they had no real long-term plans for survival since they initially hoped to last for around 3-5 years and then either successfully merge with the NBA or fold operations entirely.
On June 18, 1970, only three years after the ABA began play, the NBA owners voted 13–4 (barely being over the 3/4 majority), while the ABA owners unanimously voted 11–0 to jointly seek approval from the U.S. Congress to pass an exception to existing antitrust law in order to merge the rivaling circuits into a single, 28-team league that would retain the NBA name.
The NBA's ratification of the May 1971 deal would have had every team but the Virginia Squires be included in the merger (Virginia's exclusion related to them being too close to the territory of the Baltimore Bullets (now Washington Wizards) at the time, and the Squires would have to be forced to either move their franchise again to join in or fold operations altogether) in exchange for the ABA to drop their antitrust lawsuit and other legal actions against the NBA, each ABA team paying the NBA $1.25 million over a ten year period, no ABA team having a share in television revenue for two seasons, and the two leagues holding a common draft for college players.
[13] That would be the last serious attempt at a merger by the two leagues until 1976 following the resolution of another antitrust lawsuit led by Oscar Robertson combined with the ABA losing multiple teams during their final season of existence.
[16][17] The Robertson suit was finally settled on February 3, 1976, but for the entirety of its pendency, it presented an insurmountable obstacle to the desired merger of the two leagues in general.
[22] Sports Illustrated noted at the time that "the tactics Storen says the ABA will employ sound a good deal more like those used by AFL Commissioner Al Davis in the last days of the football war than a plan for peaceful coexistence.
Before the 1975–76 season, the Denver Nuggets and New York Nets both applied to join the NBA earlier than the intended merger of leagues occurred.
The Nuggets' and Nets' attempted move to the NBA created a great deal of ill will within the ABA, as well as brought attention to the emerging financial weakness of some of the league's lesser teams from that period of time, with the Memphis Sounds soon turned into the Baltimore Claws being the team most immediately in trouble with the ABA due to that squad's own troubled financial situations ever since moving the New Orleans Buccaneers out to Memphis, Tennessee back in 1970.
On November 12, 1975—just three weeks into the regular season—the San Diego Sails (formerly known as the Conquistadors up until the ABA's final season began) folded operations themselves.
Most of the important Stars players, including future Hall of Famer Moses Malone, were sold to the Spirits of St. Louis in an opportunity to help that franchise out for the season.
The Squires had sold multiple fan favorites throughout the years such as Rick Barry and Warren Jabali prior to the team's move to the state of Virginia, as well as Billy Paultz before he even had a chance to play for the franchise, Julius Erving, Swen Nater, and George Gervin (the last of whom resulted in a failed court case being involved) because of constant financial problems.
The Colonels, in turn, lost a seven-game semifinal series to the Denver Nuggets, led by Dan Issel and David Thompson.
The Nuggets, in turn, lost the ABA Finals to the New York Nets with Julius Erving, who had defeated George Gervin and the San Antonio Spurs to get there.
After the Squires folded, six teams were still standing as the ABA and NBA, with the Oscar Robertson suit settled, commenced their final merger negotiations.
In addition, the Kentucky Colonels–Indiana Pacers rivalry was the league's fiercest, and in all of professional basketball (NBA included), the Colonels ranked sixth in attendance.
[49] In spite of that history, the Colonels' final games came in the 1976 ABA Playoffs as the defending champions bested the Pacers to advance to the semifinals before bowing out to the Nuggets in a tight seven-game series.
Furthermore, since the entry of the Milwaukee Bucks into the league had blossomed into a lucrative local rivalry for the Bulls, the team decided it would be more profitable to bring Indiana into the NBA as opposed to trying to keep the Pacers out.
The Portland Trail Blazers took Maurice Lucas for $300,000, the Buffalo Braves took Bird Averitt for $125,000, the Indiana Pacers took Wil Jones for $50,000, the New York Nets took Jan van Breda Kolff for $60,000, and the San Antonio Spurs took Louie Dampier for $20,000.
)[62] The Silnas also expressed interest in moving the Spirits team to Hartford, Connecticut instead, but the Boston Celtics were adamantly against that idea, claiming it was intruding upon their area rights.
[64][65][66][67] In June 1976, the remaining ABA owners agreed, in return for the Spirits folding, to pay the St. Louis owners $2.2 million in cash up front in addition to a 1/7 share of the four remaining teams' television revenues in perpetuity (the 1/7 share being the representation of the initial survival of the seven remaining ABA teams that survived the final ABA regular season banding together in the merger talks with the expectation of at least one franchise being left behind before the Virginia Squires' late folding left the league down to only six teams by the time final merger talks began).
[75] In that first post-merger season, four of the NBA's top ten scorers had come over from the ABA (Billy Knight, David Thompson, Dan Issel and George Gervin).
Although the financial and draft penalties caused the team to slip after coach Larry Brown's departure, the Nuggets would remain an NBA power throughout the 1980s.
As mentioned above, they were included in the merger more or less as an afterthought after the Bulls effectively vetoed the inclusion of the Colonels, who were on far stronger footing financially and in team operations.
Nate Archibald, the one bright spot left on the roster, broke his foot and the Nets finished their first NBA season at 22–60, the worst record in the league.
In addition to them, former Virginia Squires players from that final season including Jan van Breda Kolff (who was first a part of the Squires before joining the Colonels to end the final ABA season), such as Mel Bennett, Mack Calvin, Fatty Taylor, Luther Burden, Mike Green, Dave Twardzik, Willie Wise, Jim Eakins (who had also previously played for the Squires, but was last playing for the ABA champion Nets before leaving that team sometime either during or after the merger commenced), and Swen Nater would also end up playing in the NBA themselves through other teams following the dispersal draft.
[105] Hubie Brown, former head coach of the Kentucky Colonels, Atlanta Hawks, New York Knicks and Memphis Grizzlies: "We (the ABA) were ahead of the NBA in so many different ways.
In 1969 the ABA's Denver Rockets signed Spencer Haywood, a sophomore star at the University of Detroit who had played on the 1968 United States men's Olympic basketball team.
[112] In the 1967–68 season, its inaugural, the ABA introduced new statistical categories that would be counted during the games – blocked shots, steals, individual turnovers, separated rebounds to defensive and offensive.
The suit was settled for a total of $800,000 (less than $4,000 per claimant), but the players, organized into a group called Dropping Dimes, have continued to fight for an equitable share of the NBA profits.
