When the Spurs, Nets, Pacers and Nuggets joined the NBA in 1976, the ABA was forced to close up shop forever, leaving behind these unique and colorful teams in the history books.
1) Spirits of St. Louis (formerly Houston Mavericks, Carolina Cougars)
The NBA-ABA merger of 1976 is a loose term of the word "merger." The NBA, which had 18 teams at that point, absorbed just four franchises from the ABA. This may seem paltry considering that in its heyday the ABA sported 10 teams, all of which were competitive at least for stretches. But by the '75-'76 season, with a merger looming over their heads, many franchises folded, leaving just seven viable candidates alive to join the NBA. While the Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, New York Nets, and Denver Nuggets moved on to the senior league, one of the three final teams left behind was the Spirits of St. Louis. Originally the Houston Mavericks for one season, and then the Carolina Cougars for five more, the Spirits were essentially an expansion team in 1974, as they retained an empty cupboard from their predecessors. Named after the famous plane flown by Charles Lindbergh, the team struggled from the beginning to woo fans in St. Louis, a city that the NBA's Hawks had ditched a few years earlier due to lack of interest. This was certainly no indictment of the team itself, which featured a colorful assortment of talented players, from the incorrigible Marvin "Bad News" Barnes, to the ridiculously physiqued Maurice Lucas, to the phenom teenager Moses Malone. They reached the Eastern Division Finals in 1975, losing in five games to the Kentucky Colonels, but struggled to compete in '75-'76, falling just short of the playoffs. As attendance lulled even further, owners Ozzie and Daniel Silna were planning on moving to Salt Lake City (replacing the folded Utah Stars) and becoming the Utah Rockies for the '76-'77 season. Before that could happen, the merger was brokered and the Spirits were left in the cold.
But don't feel bad for the Silna brothers, who had made their fortune in polyester and previously attempted to purchase the Detroit Pistons. They shrewdly negotiated a deal where they received one-seventh of the NBA TV revenue from the Spurs, Pacers, Nets, and Nuggets, in perpetuity. This wasn't much money in 1976, but in the course of over four decades reportedly earned them over $300 million for owning a franchise that hasn't taken the court once during that time. This agreement finally ended in January of 2014, when the NBA bought them out for a reported sum of $500 million. Of all the defunct ABA franchises, the Spirits were arguably the most influential on the NBA. Coach Rod Thorn eventually became vice president of the NBA league office for many years, while TV announcer Bob Costas soon did pretty well for himself announcing NBA games for NBC, amongst other sports. In the dispersal draft, Malone went to Portland (who immediately traded him to Buffalo), as did Lucas, who became a centerpiece of their 1977 title team.
2) Virginia Squires (formerly Oakland Oaks, Washington Capitols)
Founded as the Oakland Oaks in 1967 by a management group that included minority owner Pat Boone (yes, that Pat Boone), the franchise had a real boon (pun intended) when it landed cross-town superstar Rick Barry for the '68-'69 season. Shots seem to have been fired in a local rivalry with Barry's former NBA team, the San Francisco Warriors, but in reality the Oaks were destined to flame out quickly, despite winning the ABA title in 1969. Barry was obviously seeking revenge on the Warriors team he claimed was underpaying him, but he was also heavily influenced by the Oaks hiring his college coach and father-in-law, Bruce Hale, to coach the team. After the Warriors sued to keep Barry off the court in Oakland for one year, the Oaks struggled without him in the '67-'68 season and attendance never fully recovered, as the Bay Area proved unable to sustain two major pro teams. When the Oaks were sold to the D.C. based lawyer Earl Foreman in 1969, the debt that the franchise had already accrued would haunt it for its remaining existence. Foreman relocated first to Washington, playing as the Capitols for one season, then to the Hampton Roads area of Southeast Virginia, where the Squires were born.
Though Barry actually made an appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires uniform, the related story quoted him insulting the state of Virginia and Southern language and culture, influencing the team to trade their one star to the New York Nets. This may have been a convenient excuse, however, as Foreman's financial troubles also forced his hand in the transaction. The Squires were somehow still a title contender in '70-'71, and somewhat popular in the region as they split their home games between Hampton, Norfolk, Richmond, and Roanoke. Things seemed even more promising in '71-'72 when rookie Julius Erving quickly became one of the ABA's biggest sensations, and the Squires managed to pair him with George Gervin in '72-'73. But despite the talent and the steady fan base, the Squires were continually knocked out of the playoffs early and unable to break even financially. They eventually sold Dr. J to the Nets and Gervin to the Spurs, plummeting both their win totals and their attendance numbers even further. They somehow survived to the end of the '75-'76 season on a wing and a prayer, but were declared insolvent and a "regional" franchise by the league, and were therefore "cancelled" by the ABA, thus missing out on the compensation package that the other remaining non-merger teams, like the Spirits, were able to exploit. Despite the failed ABA experiment, the Hampton Roads area has remained a popular potential destination spot for NBA expansion or relocation to this day, most recently when rumors of the Kings moving surfaced in 2011.
3) Pittsburgh Condors (formerly Pittsburgh Pipers, Minnesota Pipers)
The city of Pittsburgh has seen plenty of NFL, MLB, and NHL championships in the last half century, but only one pro basketball title. Before the "We Are Family" Pirates, Steel Curtain Steelers, or Sidney Crosby Penguins owned the city, that one basketball championship came courtesy of the Pittsburgh Pipers in 1968, when they won the inaugural ABA Finals, a dramatic seven-game affair against the New Orleans Buccaneers. Their star player was Connie Hawkins, the Rucker Park legend who was black balled from the NBA and came to the Condors after a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters. Hawkins was a dominant force, leading the league in regular season and playoff scoring, and winning the MVP en route to carrying Pittsburgh to the title. The rest of the roster was talented top to bottom, with solid veteran supporting players like Chico Vaughn and Art Heyman surrounding Hawkins, and the Pipers had strong local support, as the Steelers and Pirates were in the midst of prolonged slumps, while the newly founded Penguins were struggling to find footing. But then, owner Gabe Rubin seemingly lost his mind. He moved the franchise just weeks after the championship was won, landing in Minneapolis, where the Minnesota Muskies had already failed to succeed the year before (see #4 below). The Minnesota Pipers struggled on the court, due mainly to a knee injury to Hawkins and several coaching changes, and failed to draw any fans, prompting Rubin to inexplicably move the team back to Pittsburgh.
Mostly ignored by scorned fans, the Pipers couldn't overcome the loss of Hawkins to the NBA, and fell to the bottom of the ABA standings in '69-'70. Rubin mercifully sold the team in 1970, but by then the damage was already done in Pittsburgh, and with the Steelers and Pirates becoming title contenders, the locals couldn't be bothered to care anymore about pro basketball. Hoping a re-branding would drum up interest, the new ownership held a contest to rename the team. "Pioneers" was adopted, and then immediately dropped when a local college with the same nickname threatened to sue. Condors was then selected, with no real explanation (indigenous to only the West coast of North and South America, no non-captivity condor has ever come close to the Steel City). Unable to return to the playoffs in 1971 or draw more than 1,000 fans per game, the Condors owners, desperate to make it to a merger with the NBA, took on drastic measures, even going so far as to calling the team the United States Condors and hosting games in locations as far flung from Pittsburgh as Birmingham, AL and Tucson, AZ. The league office finally put the Condors of their misery at the end of the '71-'72 season.
4) The Floridians (formerly Minnesota Muskies, Miami Floridians)
With the legendary George Mikan installed as the league's first commissioner, it was inevitable that one of the ABA charter franchises would be located in Minnesota. Seven years removed from the Lakers leaving for Los Angeles, the Twin Cities had apparently moved on from caring about basketball. Despite installing Mikan's former teammate Jim Pollard as coach, and building a talented and entertaining roster anchored by star center Mel Daniels, the Muskies' (they were named after a popular local fish) run to the second round of the playoffs was mostly ignored by the citizenry of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Thus, they became a second Minnesota-based basketball team to pack up and depart for sunnier denizens, as the Muskies became the Miami Floridians in 1968. Despite being forced to sell Daniels to the Pacers just to stay afloat financially, the Floridians were competitive in their first season, reaching the playoffs before falling to the Pipers team that had replaced them in Minnesota. Once the performance on the floor started to slip in the '69-'70 season, Floridians owner Ned Doyle, a former ad executive, became notorious for his outlandish promotions and other off-court shenanigans that inspired the fictional "Tropics" team in the Will Ferrell movie Semi-Pro. These included alligator wrestling as halftime shows, double bills with boxing events, and giveaways as varied as a live turkey (the "winning" fan turned it down), beer kegs, pantyhose, pumpkin pies and 40 pounds of gefilte fish (oy vey!). But the Floridians were probably most famous for their ball girls, who drew a certain type of clientele, distracted opposing players, and predated the Cowboys cheerleaders as bikini-clad sports-related entertainment. Unable to draw consistent fans in Miami Beach, the Floridians eventually dropped the "Miami" from their names and played home games all across the state of Florida, including an aircraft hanger in West Palm Beach with a broken air conditioning unit, forcing teams to deal with the incoming ocean breeze when the doors and windows had to be left ajar to deal with the heat. Although their creative promotional ideas would eventually spread to all of the ABA and later infect the NBA, the Floridians were hemorrhaging money and forced to shut down after the '71-'72 season. Miami fans are still derided for their lack of interest in any sport besides football, but the NBA's Heat, founded in 1988, have managed to succeed without whacky promotional ideas thanks to a revitalization of the Miami Beach area creating a consistent fan base, and the luring of high profile free agents like Shaquille O'Neal and LeBron James.
5) San Diego Sails (formerly San Diego Conquistadors)
The first, and only, ABA expansion franchise, the Conquistadors were rushed into production in 1973 to fill a void in San Diego left by the NBA's Rockets leaving for Houston two years prior. The team that came to be known colloquially as the "Qs" were owned by Leonard Bloom, a former orthodontist who made big money in real estate, then spent years trying to get second level pro teams off the ground in San Diego (in addition to the Conquistadors, he also founded an AHL hockey team and a WTT tennis team). An early harbinger of the team's financial struggles was Bloom's immediate animosity with Peter Graham, manager of the state-of-the-art San Diego Sports Arena. Bitter that his own ownership bid had been denied and unwilling to negotiate with Bloom, Graham refused to let the Conquistadors play in his arena, and the team was forced to call nearby Peterson Gym (home of the San Diego State basketball teams) home, despite its paltry 3,200 seat capacity. Unable to secure a better arena, and constantly pressured by the league to relocate the franchise to Los Angeles, Bloom attempted to make a huge splash in 1973 when he signed Wilt Chamberlain as a player-coach. Wilt's former NBA team, the Lakers, weren't pleased with this arrangement, however, and successfully sued to block Chamberlain from playing for the Conquistadors. He was relegated to being just a coach, and an apathetic one at that, often outright skipping games to promote his autobiography. With Caldwell Jones leading the way on the floor, San Diego still managed to reach the playoffs in 1974 in spite of their insouciant coach, but slipped in standings in '74-'75 as Bloom was unable to lure any decent pieces to build around Jones. He also failed to secure a new arena in nearby Chula Vista, and in the summer of 1975 finally gave in, selling the franchise to former Nuggets co-owner Frank Goldberg.
Goldberg looked to completely rebuild the franchise brand from scratch to make it more appealing for the expected NBA merger. He changed the team name to Sails, classed up their jersey colors and logo, and hired Bill Musselman as coach. The Sails also finally moved into Graham's San Diego Sports Arena, but the arena was mostly empty for the first few home games of the '75-'76 season, and Graham was quickly losing money. A report surfaced that the Sails' chances of being included in the impending merger were supposedly minuscule, as Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke wasn't keen to the idea of another NBA franchise in Southern California. Disheartened and increasingly disinterested, Goldberg folded the franchise just 11 games into the season. The ABA executive office had to quickly reshuffle the remaining league schedule, and San Diego's entire roster was essentially put on an auction block. Jones landed with the Kentucky Colonels, and eventually found further success with the Philadelphia 76ers. San Diego did get an NBA franchise just three years later when the Buffalo Braves moved to town and became the Clippers, but they would stay for just five seasons before heading north to Los Angeles.
6) Utah Stars (formerly Anaheim Amigos, Los Angeles Stars)
A viable second pro basketball franchise in Southern California was still considered a pipe dream when the Anaheim Amigos came into fruition in 1967, as part of the original ABA lineup. The region already had the Lakers, featuring Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, UCLA basketball with John Wooden (and Lew Alcindor at the time), and the high school basketball was highly competitive and closely followed. Just as Art Kim started the Amigos that year, the NBA was also trying its hand at bringing more pro teams to the region by chartering the San Diego Rockets. Neither franchise lasted more than three years in California. This was actually Kim's second attempt at the venture, having moved the ABL's Hawaii Chiefs from his native state to Long Beach in 1962, but the league folded before they could finish a single season in the golden state. Five years later the Amigos set up shop right across the street from Disneyland at the Anaheim Convention Center (they also played several home games in Honolulu), and lost their home opener to the Oakland Oaks, which seemed to set the tone for the entire season. As the team limped to the league's second worst record in '67-'68, Kim fruitlessly tried some clever marketing to draw fans away from West, Alcindor, and Mickey Mouse, including a mascot dressed up as a "bandit" that fired blanks into the air during games (often frightening players). After a sale of the team to construction magnate James Kirst, the Amigos moved up north on the I-5 to Los Angeles, becoming the Stars. Kirst remade the team in full, changing not just the city, nickname, and uniforms, but also the coach (hiring Celtics legend Bill Sharman), general manager, and the entire roster save for two holdouts. Success was not immediate, but Sharman rallied his team of neophytes (the top nine rotation guys in the lineup were all 26 or younger), led by rookies Mack Calvin and Willie Wise, all the way to the 1970 ABA Finals, where they fell in six games to the Pacers. Kirst and the team front office were so taken aback by the playoff run that they hadn't bothered to book their home arena, and therefore had to play most of the playoff home games back in Anaheim. Unable to sustain a fan base despite the success, the team was sold again, this time to cable TV pioneer Bill Daniels, who moved the franchise to Salt Lake City.
They were the first pro team ever to play in Utah, and the always ambitious Daniels envisioned them as the "Green Bay Packers of pro basketball." In many ways that vision came true, as the Utah fans glommed on to what was essentially the only sports offering in the region. It helped that the Stars had been built into a contender, with Sharman still manning the sidelines and NBA All-Star center Zelmo Beaty added to the already talented young lineup. Daniels also signed some former BYU stars like Jeff "Mutt" Congdon to sweeten the deal, and the Utah fans came out in droves, breaking the ABA attendance record in their first season. The Stars players responded with a championship run, defeating the Kentucky Colonels in seven games in the 1971 ABA Finals. Though Sharman left that summer to take the head coaching job with the Lakers (Daniels actually sued him for breach of contract, but lost), the Stars remained steady contenders for the next several years, including a return trip to the ABA Finals in 1974. Though the franchise remained successful and popular in the region, Daniels was running low on funds due to an unsuccessful bid to become governor of his native Colorado, and tried to make one final splash by signing high school phenom Moses Malone. Utah reached the playoffs in their final season, '74-'75, but Daniels could no longer sustain the team. After two potential franchise sales fell apart due to financial insolvency of the buyers, Daniels was forced by the league to fold the team 16 games into the '75-'76 season, and most of the players were sold to the Spirits of St. Louis, including Malone. Daniels was also forced to sell off equipment and other assets (the 1971 championship ball was supposedly auctioned off to a fan), and later in life when he had made yet another fortune in cable TV, he tracked down as many former Stars season ticket holders as he could and reimbursed them for the cancelled games in '75-'76. Although the team didn't make it to the merger, it certainly proved that pro basketball was viable in Salt Lake City. The Spirits of St. Louis planned on moving there and becoming the Utah Rockies in 1976, but were ultimately left out of the NBA merger and folded instead. The New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah in 1979, and have remained there ever since with one of the NBA's most loyal fan bases.
7) Baltimore Claws (formerly New Orleans Buccaneers, Memphis Pros, Memphis Tams, Memphis Sounds)
One of two ABA teams, along with the Floridians, who laid the groundwork for future NBA franchises in major cities, the Claws began life as the first pro team in New Orleans, and eventually became the first in Memphis. They were founded as the New Orleans Buccaneers in 1967 by a group of seven investors that included radio personality Morton Downey, Jr. As coach, they hired Babe McCarthy, famous for controversially crossing the color line with his Mississippi State teams in the early '60s, and their best player was small forward Doug Moe who, like his rival Connie Hawkins, had been banned from the NBA for life, and was playing ball in Italy when the ABA called on him. With Moe, a young star center in Red Robbins, the sharpshooting Jimmy Jones, and play making specialist Larry Brown (yes, that Larry Brown), the Bucs won the ABA Western Division and reached the inaugural ABA Finals, losing in seven games to the Pittsburgh Pipers. Though the franchise would last seven more seasons, it would win just one more playoff series in its existence, and never again return to the Finals. After finding some success with fans playing at the Loyola Field House right in the heart of downtown New Orleans, the Bucs unwisely moved to the more cramped and less convenient Tulane Gym in 1969. As the ticket sales dwindled, management planned on changing the name to the Louisiana Buccaneers for the '70-'71 season and expanding home games across the state, but instead wound up selling the team to P.W. Blake, who moved them to Memphis.
Though the team still had McCarthy as coach and some talented players on the court, there were major problems in Memphis right from the start. Most glaringly an issue was the uninspiring name, Pros, and the uniforms. They were supposedly chosen by Blake in a tightwad measure to save money on jersey updates by changing the team name to a four-letter word that could easily be sewn over the "Bucs" on the existing jerseys. There was also scheduling conflicts in securing the newly built Mid-South Coliseum, as the arena's current tenants, Memphis State, didn't take kindly to the idea of pro basketball stealing their thunder, and forced the Pros to play the majority of their home games during the week when fan turnout was lowest (they were also forced to add some home games in Jackson, MS). Despite all the obstacles the Pros were actually quite popular with Memphis fans, but this wasn't enough for Blake, who shocked everyone when he quit as owner in 1970, turning the team over to the league office. Just when it looked like the team would be sold and moved again, the fan base stepped in, starting a "Save Our Pros" program that included a public stock offering to raise money to buy the team. It somehow worked, and the Pros played almost an entire season with their fans as actual owners. Though ticket sales were steady in '71-'72 the team was still losing money and the ABA had to step in and take over again, this time selling the team to Charlie Finley, owner of the Oakland A's, who changed their name to the Tams, and their color scheme to green-and-gold to match his baseball team. He also installed Adolph Rupp as team president, but despite the measures of good will, behind the scenes Finley was miserly, cutting costs and consistently exploring ways to move or sell the franchise. Finley's ownership and the Tams moniker lasted just two seasons, when the ABA league office stepped in again and took over the franchise from its obviously disinterested leader. A new ownership group included several famous local musicians like Isaac Hayes, so the Memphis Sounds was as good a team name as any. The Sounds roster was completely remade with veteran talent, and managed to reach the 1975 playoffs, but the writing was on the wall for pro basketball in Memphis. Franchise ownership changed hands for the fourth time in just five years, this time to a group of investors in Baltimore, who moved the team to the Charm City and called it the Baltimore Hustlers, though pressure from the league office forced them to change it immediately to the Baltimore Claws.
The Claws had so many problems from the get-go that they made the Memphis teams look like a standard bearer of consistency. They traded immediately for superstar Dan Issel from the Colonels, but the $500,000 that was intended to be sent to Kentucky as part of the deal never materialized and the trade fell apart, leading to Issel joining Denver instead. After playing several preseason games in front of sparse crowds, with uniforms that were literally the old Sounds jersey with a "Claws" patch sewn over them, it was obvious that the Claws weren't going to last the season. The ABA league office disbanded them a week before the regular season was set to begin, and their players were dispersed in a special draft. Star center Mel Daniels was apparently so disillusioned by his experience with the Claws that he decided to retire rather than report to a new team. Just a couple months after the Claws' executive offices were shuttered (not by choice, but by decree of the building owners who locked them out), the San Diego Sails and Utah Stars also folded, leaving the ABA with just seven teams.
8) Kentucky Colonels
If there's one major thread running across each of these folded ABA franchises, it's ownership and location regularly changing hands as teams were constantly under threat of financial insolvency like a sword of Damocles hanging over their head. This led to inconsistent results on the court and ridiculous promotional ideas off it. But, aside from some amusing idiosyncrasies, the Kentucky Colonels were an exception to this rule. The franchise was founded in 1967 by a married pair of show dog breeders, Joe and Mamie Gregory, who were only slightly interested in basketball but convinced by local fans to front the money. The Gregory's prize dog Ziggy became the team's unofficial mascot, showing up for every home game, often in elaborate outfits, and even garnering rumors that the franchise was actually technically owned by the dog (it sprouted from a possibly apocryphal story where Ziggy was once denied entry into a road arena, and Mamie replied that he must be present court side because he's the team owner). While mostly known for their famous canine, bright chartreuse uniforms, and publicity stunts like signing the first female pro basketball player, the Colonels were quietly a solid team. Featuring floor general Louie Dampier (a former Kentucky Wildcat star), scoring machine Dan Issel, and powerful post presence Artis Gilmore, the Colonels reached the playoffs in all nine years of ABA existence, and finished as the league's all-time leader in wins. They reached the ABA Finals three times, losing in 1971 and 1973 in thrilling seven-game series against the Utah Stars and Indiana Pacers respectively, before finally winning it all in 1975 under coach Hubie Brown. Team ownership did change hands once, when the Gregories sold the team in 1973 to John Y. Brown, a famed lawyer and Kentucky Fried Chicken owner (this seems as good a place as any to note that the basketball Colonels were not named after the KFC mascot, rather the term "Kentucky Colonel" which is an honorary title bestowed on the governor of Kentucky). Brown bought the team to prevent a rumored move to Cincinnati, and invested heavily in the successful franchise (he also gave a large share of power to his then wife, Ellie, who intriguingly installed an all-female board of directors for the team). Though the Colonels could make a case as the ABA's winningest and most stable team and played their home games in a great arena (Freedom Hall, famous for also hosting Louisville basketball for over 50 years), the NBA was ultimately disinterested in expanding to the traditional South. The Spurs, Pacers, Nets and Nuggets were deemed the four franchises worthy of making the NBA merger, and the Colonels were forced to fold. Gilmore went on to a successful NBA career with Chicago, while the aging Dampier struggled in the new league with San Antonio and retired in 1979. Brown was bought out by the NBA for approximately three million dollars (compare that to the Spirits owners, whose astute TV deal has reportedly netted them over $800 million since 1976) and did soon get to try his hand at ownership in the bigger league, eventually purchasing the Buffalo Braves. While Salt Lake City, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis, and New Orleans all eventually received NBA franchises to replace their departed ABA teams, the city of Louisville has been void of major pro basketball for 42 years and counting, despite regularly being mentioned as a possibility whenever a team threatens to sell and/or relocate.