The ABA only existed from 1967 to 1976, but had a major impact on the history of professional basketball. This year’s conference finals feature two former ABA franchises, the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs. There’s a chance that 2 old ABA teams could meet in the finals for only the second time since the merger.
Here’s a brief history of the league that gave us the three point shot and the red, white, and blue basketball:
Thanks for posting. Have watched this before, but will definitely watch again. When I was young, I saw some Virginia Squires games at Norfolk Scope Coliseum/Arena. Most o were after Earl Foreman had badly mismanaged the team and was forced to trade/sell Julius Erving and George Gervin (for a while journeyman George Irvin was also on the roster, which made listening to the games on a radio challenging).
I remember being a 1975 game when they came back from a 20+ point deficit to beat the New York Nets. Also remember seeing Artis Gilmore — who was pretty damn tall even without the fro.
One of the games we went to featured a “free ABA basketball” promotion. Since so few people attended, we ended up with something like half a dozen. At the time these were literally throw aways — I’d inflate one, play with it until it got lopsided, and repeat. Damn…recently saw the same cheap style of ball sell for over $100 on eBay.