American Basketball Association
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Categories: American Basketball Association | 1967 establishments | Basketball organizations | Basketball leagues | Defunct basketball leagues | 1976 disestablishments
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For the league that began in 1999, see American Basketball Association (2000-).
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a professional basketball league founded in 1967, and eventually merged, in part, with the National Basketball Association (NBA).
League historyThe original ABA was founded in 1967, competing with the well-established National Basketball Association, until reaching an agreement of merger in 1976. Ultimately, four ABA teams were 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, missing out on the opportunities that a merger might have provided. The ABA distinguished itself from its older counterpart with a more wide-open, flashy style of offensive play, as well as differences in rules (a 30-second shot clock–as opposed to the NBA's 24-second clock–and use of a three-point field goal arc). Also, the ABA used a colorful red, white and blue ball, instead of the NBA's traditional orange ball. The freewheeling style of the ABA eventually caught on with fans, but the lack of a national television contract and protracted financial losses would spell doom for the ABA as an independent circuit. In 1976 (its last year of existence), the ABA pioneered the now-popular slam dunk contest at its all-star game in Denver. Perhaps the most significant long-term contribution of the ABA to professional basketball was to tap into markets that had been collegiate basketball hotbeds (North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida) of the southeast. The NBA was focused on the urban areas of the industrial northeast and midwest and showed no interest in placing a team south of Washington, DC. NBA great George Mikan was the first commissioner of the ABA, where he introduced both the 3-point line and the league's trademark red, white and blue basketball.[1] Dave DeBusschere, one of the stars of the New York Knicks championship teams, moved from his job as Vice President and GM of the ABA's New York Nets in 1975 to become the last commissioner of the ABA and facilitate the merger of the four ABA teams into the NBA.[2] List of ABA teamsList of ABA championships
Prominent players of the ABASemi-ProThe 2008 film Semi-Pro takes place in 1976, during the league's last days. At a meeting of ABA owners, the commissioner states that only four teams will be merged, and they vote that the teams that place in the top four will be those four. Fictional owner Jackie Moon rallies his Flint Tropics team to move to fourth place. (In real life, the placement of teams had nothing to do with which four teams went to the NBA. Those teams were determined by various business-related factors.) See also
References
External links
ca:American Basketball Association I de:American Basketball Association es:American Basketball Association eu:American Basketball Association fr:American Basketball Association it:American Basketball Association ja:アメリカン・バスケットボール・アソシエーション (1967-1976年) no:American Basketball Association pl:American Basketball Association (1967-1977) fi:American Basketball Association | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
