The old ABA fueled fan interest by being innovative, flashy and different

The Doctor. The Skywalker. The A-Train. The Ice Man. Moses. Their names were as big as the game itself. And when these ABA stars – Julius Erving, David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin and Moses Malone – took the court, people watched. Founded in 1967, the original ABA competed head-on with the well-established National Basketball Association in a time when America had opened its mind up to anything and everything. In its heyday, the ABA was a high-flying circus act of basketball, complete with a multi-colored ball, three-point line, 30-second shot clock and a host of flamboyant players. In 1976, its last year of existence, the ABA pioneered the now-popular slam dunk contest at its all-star game in Denver.

While the freewheeling style of the ABA eventually caught on with fans, the lack of a national television contract and protracted financial losses pushed it to the brink of collapse as an independent circuit. The leagues ultimately merged in 1976, with four ABA teams absorbed into the older league: the New York Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs. Two other clubs, the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis were disbanded upon the merger. A third, the Virginia Squires, had folded less than a month earlier and missed out on any opportunities a merger might have provided.

One of the ABA’s legacies is that it tapped into markets in the Southeast that had been collegiate basketball hotbeds, including North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky. At the time, the NBA focused on the urban areas of the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast, and showed little interest in placing a team south of Washington, D.C.

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