[1] By the time the conflict was resolved in the fall of 1974, it was too late for a weakened franchise that had been forced to play, in the interim, at bandboxed Peterson Gymnasium (3,200 seats) on the campus of San Diego State University, and Golden Hall, a multipurpose facility in downtown.

Relegated to a sideline role, Chamberlain was reduced to an indifferent, 7-foot-1-inch sideshow who once skipped a game in favor of an autograph session for his recently published autobiography.

League officials then ordered Bloom to take preliminary steps toward moving to Los Angeles, in hopes of returning to a market abandoned by the Utah Stars four years earlier.

With a completely different roster, color scheme, set of uniforms and just about everything else, the re-branded Sails sought to repeat Denver's turnaround a season earlier from mediocrity to championship contender.

Goldberg soon learned San Diego was to be shut out of the pending ABA–NBA merger, reportedly due to the insistence of Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke, who refused to share his Southern California fan base with a team to the south.

(The Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs joined the NBA, while the owners of the Kentucky Colonels and 6th place Spirits of St. Louis were paid off and folded their franchises.)