Original subtitles

And there, my friend, is the very dramatic brand of basketball which can

enjoyed only in the ABA.

It's the 70s, a cultural time like none other.

There is Julius Irving. Look at that move behind the back. Oh, that's

Rick. Over here in the ABA, Iceman said to Beth, we're here to entertain.

Back in the day, playing this league wasn't ready for us, man.

Some bad boys in that league.

We can make it show y 'all, man, what y 'all was missing.

Could this new basketball league cause war with the established National

Basketball Association?

Well, Bill, the war is here.

NBA was like old, big, skinny, white dude, boring game.

There was something fresh in the ABA.

The ABA, you go back and look at all the great players they have.

Moses Malone, the Skywalker, Dr. Dunn, the A -Train, the Iceman. The ABA was

about doing things the NBA wasn't going to do. The ABA brought the three -point

shot to the game of basketball.

They brought playing fast.

And of course, the slam dunk contest started in the ABA.

Every guy walking into the stadium for the game dressed differently, that

absolutely came from the ABA.

So you got to look good on the court and you got to look good off the court.

The ABA comes into existence at a really intense period in American history.

The ABA was the first integrated workplace in America.

Being vice president of basketball operations, I always say I stand on the

shoulder of a giant.

Legend is thrown around a lot in sports.

A legend is something that has an element of mystery in it.

And the ABA may be the last significant legend in American sports.

Responsibility for those who come to the other side of all this.

Tell the story.

The American Basketball Association played with a bright -colored ball that

you want to salute.

That's the way the game should be played.

I felt that I wasn't being paid what I should have. He appealed his case to the

United States Supreme Court.

If they don't merge, a lot of these players are going to be out of a job.

There's no tomorrow.

Professional basketball in the past 50 years has changed a lot.

How did we go from here?

To here.

A little -known secret.

It all started with these guys.

My name is George Iceman Girvin, and I am an ABA guy.

My name's Larry Brown, and I'm an ABA guy.

I'm Willie Wise.

I'm Tom Hoover.

I'm Bobby Jones.

Hi, I'm Rick Barry. My name is Spencer Haywood. Hi, I'm George Carl. I'm Martin

Skilmore. I'm Matt Calvin. I'm James Jones.

I'm Dan Issel. Joe Hamilton.

I'm Julius Irving, and I'm an ABA guy.

When you look at it, the NBA was a dying, boring, stale professional sport.

Bob Pettit all over the place running wild.

The NBA at that time had the huge centers. The ball went into the center

never really came out again.

It was boring basketball.

Mid -60s.

The NBA was nowhere near as popular as the number one sport, which was

And basketball was an afterthought.

At that time, the NBA was the third option for the American sports viewing

public. And ABC was running like Wild World of Sports and like race against, I

don't know, like a horse or something. And it was kicking the NBA's ass.

So it was ripe for competition.

an all -or -nothing gamble.

In 1967 came pro basketball's most exciting new idea, the

American Basketball Association.

The commissioner of the ABN, George Mikan, the man who was acclaimed the

greatest basketball player of this century's first 50 years.

George Mikan was not only huge physically, at what, 6 '10", 6 '11",

like that, but just a...

A whale of a forceful man and a businessman.

So it made terrific sense to all of us for the guy with his background and

expertise in the game itself to be the spark plug to bring it all together.

Everybody respected George Minton.

I couldn't resist asking George one more question, and that is, what do his old

NBA friends have to say about his new job?

Good luck, baby.

We think we'll have a very fine presentation.

We're hiring coaches, general managers. We have the sites.

We have a schedule ready, and come October, we'll be in business.

It's new. It's revolutionary.

And they call it the ABA.

The New York Nets.

The Los Angeles Stars.

The Oakland Oaks.

The Floridians.

Houston Mavericks.

The Kentucky Colonel.

The Chaparral.

The Denver Rockets.

New Orleans Buccaneers.

Piper.

The Indiana Pacers.

Right from the get -go, the ABA was hoping to create just enough competition

with the NBA so that the NBA would merge with them.

The owners, to a great extent, wanted to create a league, and they wanted a

model after the American Football League. American Football League

game is on the air.

The NFL had a monopoly. They were it.

And then the upstart league showed up, the AFL.

which led to the merger.

Seeing the success of the AFL was part of what the people who came up with the

ABA thought when they took the chance.

It was a winning shot.

ABA's owner said, I'll make buku bucks because we're going to merge the NBA and

I'll reap the benefits of that.

If you were an entrepreneur in 1967 with the desire to own your own pro sports

franchise, why not take a risk on the ABA?

The cost of buying an NBA franchise in 1967,

$1 million.

The cost of buying an ABA franchise, $5 ,000.

And the fact the ABA buying was $5 ,000 would translate to $44 ,000 now.

That's crazy.

For the ABA to force the NBA into a merger, they'd have to create a demand

dying sport.

To do this, They'd have to find a way to totally innovate the game.

This obstacle is why other pro basketball leagues that had come to

NBA in the past have failed.

Sure, the ABA buy -in was only $5 ,000, but you still had to lease the arena,

market to the fans, and pay the players.

What type of business person would go all -in on the ABA?

And now, your host for tonight's hullabaloo, Pat Boone!

Like today, I pass

the time away, throwing five million down the drain.

I'm the only entertainer who was ever involved that I know of with the ABA.

I had a friend, Ken Davidson.

Ken said, you know, I have the franchise, the right to the Oakland

I'd like you to come aboard, and I'll give you 10%, and you won't have any

financial responsibility, but you serve as president.

So I said, okay, and I went to Oakland.

The flower children and the drug -taking and just breaking all rules and taboos

and the ABA, they did the same thing.

I liked it. I knew it was a little garish.

It didn't seem as traditional. That was part of the point. It was something new.

The total destruction of professional basketball is very much within the

framework of what's going on, and I think the NBA is concerned.

There was the older people who weren't sure that that would fit the game. It's

like older people always are. Why don't you just keep doing the way we always

have?

Red Auerbach didn't like the ABA.

He didn't like the competition.

He liked to control things.

Red was all about control, and he really controlled the NBA.

Red Auerbach was the face of the Boston Celtics.

He was the legacy and the history and the identification of the NBA.

NBA champions for the 11th time in 13 years.

Red really didn't like the ABA. He did everything he could to shut it down,

about that it was a minor league, bad mouth it.

We didn't pay much attention to it. We thought it was a bunch of guys trying to

become pests.

This was all about the attitude of superiority in the establishment versus

upstart. Their little world was very much disrupted by a presence of a

competitor. Of course, they're angry.

And obviously the number one thing is the siphoning of talent.

George, this new basketball league could cause a money war between the two

leagues. Do you see a money war coming and an eventual merger along?

Well, Bill, the war is here.

We're going to...

go aggressively at all the new talent, the coming stars and everything else. So

they're in for a battle. Believe me.

The ABA came along. They looked at every place that they could hurt the NBA.

The ABA confronted the giant NBA.

It truly was David and Goliath.

And we put a wonderful stone.

and our sling named Rick Barry. Rick Barry of the San Francisco Warriors, new

scoring champion.

Last year, he was rookie of the year. This year, he jumps to the very top.

Rick Barry.

Rick Barry is a cocky would be one word, confident would be another word,

arrogant would be another word, complex human being.

I'm ready.

I was born ready.

Oh, boy, look at this, ABA day.

What was this here? Oh, my God.

Wow, back with the old days of the Oakland Oaks. The ABA was great in a lot

ways. It was horrible in a lot of ways. I mean, this can be perfectly honest. A

lot of pictures that I've never seen before. It's just kind of cool.

Yeah, a little floater, that's a good one.

Come on, I mean, it's not often a player comes into the league and does what I

did, you know, two -time first -team All -Pro, lead the league in scoring, MVP

of the All -Star game.

People say to me, Rick, you guys couldn't play with these guys today. I

you must be on drugs or something, because do you understand how much

would be if I was playing today?

We had no strength coach. We had no agility coach. We had no dietician. We

nothing. Zero.

It'd be crazy how much better a basketball player I would be if I was

today. That's the kind of bullshit that I can't even stand hearing.

What do we have over here?

Interesting.

Dual ABA ball.

Barry returns to the lineup and thinks of free throws.

I had the record for a while of consecutive free throws made in the game

This is from somebody who knows how to shoot free throws.

80 % should be the benchmark.

You have the luxury of missing one out of every five shots that you take, and

you could be an 80 % free throw shooter. How in the world do you live with

yourself if you can't do that? You should be ashamed of yourself.

A lot of people call me arrogant.

Trust me, arrogant.

It's not what it's about. It's about confidence.

And I was an extremely confident person. I'm still confident to this day. That's

the key, I think, to great success.

Rick, if you would, tell me, why did you leave the NBA for the NBA?

Well, basketball has always been fun for me.

I loved the game.

Started playing when I was five years old.

And I get done having...

Pretty darn good second year in the pros.

NBA commissioner Walter Kennedy gives Barry the silverware of the MVP.

But I didn't have a lot of fun playing in the NBA.

Bill Sharman was a terrific guy. I really liked him as a person. As a

wasn't fun to play for.

The only way we're going to get it back is to play it smart.

He's the one that started the morning shoot -arounds, which I think is the

biggest waste of energy in the world.

I think it's a total joke to use any energy at 10 o 'clock in the morning

you've got to play a game that night.

He took the fun out of it for me.

So now, all of a sudden, my then -father -in -law, who was my college coach,

Bruce Hale, was going to be the new coach with the Oakland Oaks of the new

league, the ABA.

I said, wow, that could be very interesting. I can get to play for my

-law, who I love as a coach, who helped me become the player that I was in the

pros. When he joined that team, they approached me and said, would you be

interested? And I said, yeah. I said, I'll tell you what to do. Give me your

best offer.

And I got their offer. I went to the Warriors, and I told them, I said, you

to give me your best offer.

And they low -balled me.

Rick Barry announced he was coming over to the Oakland Oaks from the Warriors.

Well, that's when all hell broke loose.

How is this contract illegal?

In what way? I don't know. Enough for the lawyers and the judge.

What about the legal aspects? What did Franklin Muley say to you when you met

with him?

Well, I'm sure that Franklin Muley is going to have to take all the legal

actions that he possibly can to try to reverse this. The difference in the

ability from Rick.

to the next best player in the league. None of these fellows that I've gone

are even, none of them, even a starter.

Any legal litigation, I just want to concentrate on playing basketball.

He doesn't go there strictly on the basis of evaluating this league as

to that league. He calls other things, which include his family ties and Pat

Boone, and it's for show business.

It has nothing to do with movie contracts whatsoever. I mean, this is

that would really be foolish for me to base my decision on.

Yes.

Would you be willing to play for the Warriors if they get this injunction? I

have nothing to say about that.

You would play for them, though. I did not say that. At the present time, I

would not.

Frank Muley, the pugnacious little owner of the San Francisco Warriors.

I say little because he was smaller than me.

There was a recess while the court proceedings were going on, and I'm in

hallway with Frank Muley, and he's looking up, and he said, you know, I own

these Warriors, and you took my best player, and I'm determined to get a

-dollar judgment against you.

The California state judge did rule in favor of the NBA's Warriors, granting

only $1 million, but also binding Barry contractually to the Warriors for an

additional season.

This decision in favor of the NBA has been called into question by some.

I not only have heard that the judge was a Warrior fan, but I know he was.

And of course, he wouldn't have let it influence his decision. Who would think

that? Barry would now have to decide whether to return to the NBA or refuse

play and sit out a year in his basketball prime.

George, you've signed some big -name players from the established National

Basketball Association, namely Rick Barry. What's the status with Barry

now? Well, Rick has to make his own decision whether or not he wants to play

us. He signed a contract whereby he can play if he chooses to sit out this year.

Are you still a warrior?

No.

I decided to play for Oakland.

And I said, okay, great. I choose not to play. And why?

Because I would control the destiny of my basketball career.

In the summer of 1967, months away from the tip -off of the ABA's inaugural

season, the league would open its door to its first crop of players.

The ABA...

It was an underdog league that gave underdog individuals like myself an

opportunity. The Los Angeles Lakers offered me a tryout and a free signed

autographed jersey by Jerry West and the ABA. They offered me a $12 ,000

contract and a $3 ,000 bonus.

I never should have been given the opportunity to play professional

but the ABA gave me that.

My first contact with the NBA was the San Francisco Warriors GM at that time.

sat down, he talked to me, and he offered me a contract, which was at the

minimum, $12 ,000.

And I said, well, I'd kind of like to listen to what they offer the other

league.

Oh, no, that's just a Bush league.

Those guys, they can't play ball.

There were a lot of guys who were trying to make it, and they were trying to

prove themselves. All of us who were just invitees to camp, we had to really

and play hard.

Every single practice, every single drill, so we could gain whatever edge

we possibly could. Otherwise, that opportunity was so fleeting, and it

away.

Do you want a job where you have to carry a brown bag to work, or do you

job where you can do what you like to do and make a living?

No video record exists of the ABA's first game.

This November contest from the first month of the ABA's inaugural season is

first known recording.

Here we go, the start of the ABA game.

In season one, the ABA is searched for.

and found considerable talent.

The AVA style of play was at the time a revelation, fast, free,

and all out.

Guys were trying to prove themselves and prove that they belonged and that they

could play basketball.

And a lot of guys didn't take kindly to it. So, yeah, it could become violent.

The ABA was a pretty physical league. There was a fight almost every night.

In the ABA, there was a lot of fighting because it was okay then. You didn't get

thrown out.

And things got very physical. There were a lot of fights.

I mean, it was like a hockey game. People don't go to hockey to watch

They go to watch a fight break out.

I remember one of the All -Star games.

The coach and the owner of one of the teams got into a fight. I mean, they're

talking about a serious fight.

You know, swinging at each other, grabbing stuff, rolling on the ground,

the jacket off him, ripped the sleeve off his sport coat. I mean, it was

Who said basketball wasn't a contact sport?

Hey,

hey, hey, hey. Come on, Bobby. Let's go.

That's all right.

I didn't see it. I didn't see what happened.

You know, today, if you get off the bench, you get fined. But back in the

if a fight broke out and you didn't get off the bench to help in the fight, you

got a fine.

It was crazy.

You have to understand, this was the last chance.

I mean, if you didn't make it in the ABA, then you were going home to work 9

5 in some kind of job. And so a lot of these guys literally fought to save

jobs.

The ABA knew that while a good rumble may stir the crowd for a moment, in

to make fans love their league long term, they would have to innovate both

game and the showmanship.

of pro basketball.

The ABA didn't just allow, they encouraged a wide open style of play

that was exciting and that emphasized innovation.

And the ABA had to try almost anything just to stay afloat, just to try and

attract some fans.

A lot of things that would have been unthinkable in the relatively staid NBA.

What the hell?

Give it a try in the ABA, which starts with the ball itself.

Another thing that really struck out was the ball. That red, white, and blue

ball started showing up in the schoolyard.

The red, white, and blue ball was unique.

They were in the entertainment business before the NBA really understood what

that was all about.

The most important contribution to the game itself is the three -pointer.

A unique feature is to award three points for field goals made from outside

arc drawn 25 feet around the basket.

Fred Lewis, home run.

We have added the home run in basketball where now any of the players that shoot

from behind 25 feet gets the three points instead of the two.

It was a new thing. It was innovation.

The ABA, for instance, you know, we shoot the three -point play, which I

is very exciting going down into the last three minutes of the game.

And if you're six down and you shoot a couple of those things, you know, you're

right back in the ballgame.

It turned out that fans loved it.

Three -point shot. He scores.

This was a big, big plus for the ABA.

Nobody is seated in the building.

Without the three -point shot, there's no Steph Curry.

Curry gets a look, fires away, ties the game for three. No Reggie Miller.

There's no open style of play.

Here's LeBron.

LeBron for the tie.

Without the ABA, you don't have that.

The ABA had developed a staff, but they needed a thought.

Faced with Rick Barry's court -ordered absence, The ABA decided to make a move

that the NBA had refused to make.

The ABA went after the Hawk.

Watch the six -foot -eight Hawkins stuff.

Connie Hawkins came up playing on the playground courts of New York City,

basically a high school phenom.

Met Hawkins in high school.

He was tall, suave, and debonair.

He was just a heck of a basketball player at a very young age.

In all -star games, he was almost a certain MVP because he just had the

the flash, and he could put the ball in the hole.

A lot of folks said that he was good enough to be a pro when he was just in

school.

But his name came up in the investigation of this game -fixing

When he was a young man, there were always men who hung around the

courts offering to buy them lunch and giving them things in order to entice

to play in their tournaments or to play on their team.

And so he came across a guy, Molina.

who was the real mastermind behind this 1961 game -fixing scandal.

You know, they had tried to almost groom him to be somebody who could

potentially reach out to his network of college players, but he never actually

contributed in that way.

But because of these encounters, his name came up in the investigation.

And they threw him in a room, no lawyer.

no family, nothing, and said, you're guilty and you need to admit it.

And they kept him there for a couple days and finally admitted that, yeah, he

knew this guy.

He just realized the only way out of this was to tell them what they wanted

hear, giving a false confession.

And when word got out, that was it. So his career never happened.

The NBA, they had all the power in the world, and the NBA did not bother to do

any kind of investigation of their own to figure out whether or not those

accusations were true.

It screwed them up, man. The league bought them from coming in. It was all

Connie Hawkins disappeared. An itinerant basketball player just looking to play

wherever he could, ending up with the Globetrotters because he could and he

paid. Here's the guy that's thinking, I'm never going to have my shot.

He can't play in the NBA.

He's banned from earning a living at what he's good at for, like, years.

The ABA comes along, and it's his salvation.

Because Connie Hawkins was like a legend that you really couldn't see.

Hawk, of course, was the first.

True superstar.

You know, the first ABA superstar.

Connie Hawkins, most valuable player, leading scorer.

6 '8 center of the Piper. This is Hawkins in the all -star game.

And this is how you guarantee two points.

This is Pittsburgh on the evening of May 4th, 1968.

But it wasn't an ordinary spring evening in Steel Town.

where nearly 12 ,000 basketball fans had paved their way into Pittsburgh's Civic

Arena to watch the seventh and deciding game of a basketball championship.

Connie Hawkins, oh man, he was just, he just took over.

Hawkins again.

The Pipers finally proved what they had known all along, that they were indeed

the best in the ABA.

For Connie, I think, I don't know if it could have been much sweeter than having

that opportunity, seizing it, overcoming adversity, and winning the title.

The ABA offered him the chance to show the NBA.

that he was actually of professional quality.

His saving grace was the fact that two lawyers, the Littmans, launched a $6

million lawsuit against the NBA, accusing them of participating in what

called a group boycott, which essentially means that they effectively

to refuse to draft him.

Connie Hawkins actually ends up coming out on top in that lawsuit. The NBA

up deciding to settle.

Connie was 29 when he came to us. His first year in the NBA after he was

cleared, he made first team All -NBA that first year. The leading scorer of

Phoenix Sun playing in his first All -Star game at 6 '8 from Iowa, Connie

Hawkins. The ABA.

had given Connie Hawkins a platform.

His 1968 ABA championship birthed a Life magazine article that shone a spotlight

on the injustice of his being illegally banned by the NBA.

The NBA's absolute power was being challenged by this new breed of player.

I was in the NBA.

You negotiated your own contract. You didn't demand.

You accepted.

That was the climate at that time.

And if you didn't have enough husper and balls to go in and figure out

that this was your value and this is what you were worth, they would come to

just like they came to me and said, this is what we're going to give you. And I

said, no.

What do you mean no?

Who do you think you are? You don't come in here demanding things from us.

That kind of.

Now,

you could go for it, and you would be under that thumb wherever.

Or you could say, hey, I want to play in the league, but you're going to pay me,

and I'm not going to be your boy.

How much of it was racially motivated?

All of it.

Before the ABA was actually established,

Black players faced a racial quota in the NBA, and it was kind of unspoken,

informal, but very much a fact. So we'll let a few ballplayers in, but we'll

make sure that they're the right type of black ballplayer.

With the coming of the ABA, it offered a number of new teams, a new league,

whereby black players who weren't really given a fair chance quite often in the

NBA were allowed in the ABA.

When you look at it, the ABA was the first integrated workplace in America.

You know, you had the civil rights, the bill in 64, and another one in 65.

But you can't legislate people's hearts.

Integration in the workplace, It was another 10 to 15 years before you really

saw that happening.

I mean, I remember I graduated from college in 79.

I was interested in being a journalist. It was that recent that you could meet

every black person at the New York Times, or Sports Illustrated for that

in 1979, because there were that few and there were that still recent.

The ABA comes into existence at a really fascinating moment in American history.

We think about 1967 as this really intense period.

We are divided against ourselves.

It's not clear what will be the true measure of equality coming out of the

legislative victories of the civil rights movement.

But what is clear is that young people aren't going to stand by and just accept

the status quo.

Sports become a larger metaphor for these changes.

of activity.

In the late 60s, you see the fight, you see the strength, you see the

resilience, you see that in the ballplayers, that same inspiration that

going on in the city and the fire you see in the players, you see it in the

game.

Anytime there's struggle,

It enriches the soul.

And guys from the ABA, like, went through those struggles, and that's why

can come out with soul. Soul is like a pure expression, a divine expression of

who you are. They were forced to know who they are.

We were of another generation. We were younger.

You know, Ali, you're not going to tell me what to do.

No.

No, it ain't going to work.

In the late 1960s, the percentages of African Americans in the ABA far

that of Major League Baseball, which was about 13%, and in the National Football

League, which was around 21%.

It

was hard in that period to sort of shed all of the ideas about black laziness.

African -Americans' inability to be team players, their selfishness.

That's what they thought in the NBA.

They wouldn't have, they didn't want black players on the team because they

thought they just played as an individual to get, not as a team, but as

individual player to get all the prestige on them, not as a team.

While Bill Russell was thought to be the exception.

The prevailing thought and stigma around black players was that you could not

win with them.

It was selfish and flashy.

In some instances, non -coachable.

However, in the ABA, this stigma would be challenged by Warren Jabali.

The baddest dude to come out of Missouri.

A man among boys. He was a badass.

Physical. He was militant. Militant.

Militant. He had some anger in him.

You know, he really did.

Talk about your roommate.

Ah, Jesus.

I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up.

I have never in my life, I used to cry.

I just hated white people.

What was Warren's feeling towards white people?

Didn't like them.

And he didn't like whites. Well, that's true, you know. He ain't like no white

people. Right away.

He let me know, you know, we're going to be teammates. We're going to play on

the court together.

But off the court, I don't want anything to do with you. I can't remember

anybody ever being that direct.

Did he come in the league as Warren Armstrong?

Warren Armstrong played at Wichita State.

Him and Kareem was supposed to have been the two best players to come out in

high school.

He had the physical tools there. He just could have his way on the court.

He was built like a linebacker, right?

Physically, he could do whatever he wanted with the other guards that could

handle him.

Man, he'd be over there checking me and going to grab my side.

I couldn't even move. I'm being strong.

And at 6 '2", he could jump like he was 6 '9". He was

an amazing player, an amazing competitor.

I don't know why he had this thing about white folks.

I don't know where he got it from.

I know we went after some of the white guys. I knew that.

Shit. Jabali, I mean, that's just the way he was.

I wouldn't say he hated white people, but he believed in his own people.

He would always talk to me after the games about, you know, you got to be

black, man.

Howard Wright was a rookie. And after the game, we were in the locker room

getting dressed.

And Howard had a pair of tighty -whities, you know, jockey underwear on.

Warren reached over and grabbed the underwear and ripped them off

of Howard.

And Jabali ripped them off and said, your family picked cotton. Don't you

wear cotton underwear in this locker room again.

You have to understand the kind of person that I was.

Why did Jabali come along?

Well, it's like I was saying, you know, like after listening to Malcolm, you

start thinking about these things that he was talking about.

African -Americans should name themselves,

define themselves, speak for themselves.

What does Jabali mean?

Jabali, a large, conspicuous rock.

That's right. That works?

That works?

Okay!

It is in 1968, Oakland, where Warren Jabali and Rick Barry, would be brought

together as teammates on the Oakland Oaks.

The slender 6 '7 blonde bomber from the Bay Area proved to everyone that he was

everything there was to be in a basketball uniform.

Talented Warren Armstrong, the Oakland strong boy, easily earned Rookie of the

Year honors in the ABA. The 6 '7 Barry, former scoring champion of the NBA, to

give Coach Hannum's Oaks the potential to go all the way.

Armstrong's rebounds show his ability to drive in close where the action is

rough.

35 games into the 1968 -69 season, with Barry averaging a league -leading 34

points per game.

The dynamics of the Oakland Oaks team was suddenly altered.

Rick Barry's big fear was that he would be injured in the ABA by guys that were

jealous of his contract.

And he did get injured, and pretty badly, and was out.

Physically, I think that I got knocked around a little bit more in the ABA than

I did in the NBA.

because the ABA, of course, was concentrating on my great deal. The

out to try and prove something by stopping me. I did have a reputation,

is the price that you have to pay.

It really hurts to have Rick Barry sidelined for the rest of the season,

it's the risk you take and the increasingly rough sport of pro

I remember when Rick got hurt, he got hurt the next game we had. We were

in Indiana against the Pacers.

And you could tell Alex thought we had no chance.

He didn't think we had a chance. We are a young team, and I believe learning

something every time we go on the floor.

I definitely feel that we would have been better with Rick, but there's

little silver lining someplace.

Our strong only 6 -2 from Wichita State played both front and backcourt for the

Oaks.

After Rick Berry got hurt.

Warren Jabali. As a rookie, he really carried the team.

Oakland, California sees the deciding series of the ABA playoffs.

It's the Oakland Oaks versus the Indiana Pacers.

When I had fun during the playoffs of the first year when we were playing the

Indiana Pacers.

Because I was having 33.

Like, the playoffs is a different game, man. The playoffs turned into, like,

school ground.

Because, like, they just let you go. You do your thing.

In the fourth quarter, with seconds left in the game, we were down three points.

And Warren just got the ball and just turned around and launched a Steph Curry

three -point shot, and he swished it.

We won the game.

Then Warren just took over.

Larry Brown passing to Warren Armstrong.

A beautiful shot.

One of the

commonplace ideas was that you could not win with black players as your

main components of your team.

One of the players who first had the opportunity to erase that stigma was

Jabali. And he broke the stigma because he was just a great player.

Armstrong assists to Akins.

He really carried the team to the championship.

Warren Armstrong stops two of 39 points for the game.

His free throws make it final.

Oaks 135, Pacers 131. The Oaks are the new ABA champions.

By season three, the ABA had the NBA's attention.

The NBA hadn't thought their competition would survive this long, but the ABA

proved willing to do whatever necessary to stay in existence.

And now... The ABA was set to challenge the NBA for the most prized player to

ever come out of the college ring.

The article in Sports Illustrated made a mistake when they pronounced it

Alcindor. It's Alcindor.

In Lou Alcindor of UCLA, we have a three times the most valuable player of the

NCAA. He led the Bruins to three national championships and the most

player by the pros.

Lew Alcindor at the time, now Kareem Abdul -Jabbar, graduated from UCLA in

He was by far the greatest prospect coming into the league, at least in the

of Will Chamberlain, maybe ever.

This is somebody who is known nationally as a star.

And now, of course, choosing between the ABA and the NBA.

So both leagues felt like they needed to have him in their respective leagues.

Lou Alcindor decided to come with us since he is probably the most publicized

basketball player in the history of the sport and he's internationally known

that he would guarantee the success of the league.

Our plan is to have him play somewhere in the league. Wherever he desires to

play, we'd like to make that available to him.

He wanted to play in New York, so they were going to say, fine, you can play in

New York.

New York Nets had the ABA rights to Kareem.

Kareem, grown up in New York, was very partial to New York.

So that would have made the New York offer almost certainly better than the

offer, which was in Milwaukee.

He was not particularly interested in living full -time in Milwaukee.

Now, Lew Alcindor, always a man of integrity, even as a 20 -year -old, told

ABA and the NBA, I will hear one offer.

Make me your best offer, and then I will decide.

We set the ground rules. We told them there would be one negotiation.

and to do their best at that one negotiation they got together as a

all agreed we'll all put in a big pool of money to get lou to sign with us and

the idea was that they would present him with a check for one million dollars

and when they sat down with him that would be kind of their big sales pitch

here's a million dollars today we do have a certified check for one million

dollars

It's in the Lou Alcindor collateral account, a check for him, right there.

can pick it up.

George Mikan, he's going to be doing the negotiations.

Mikan either brings the check and doesn't give it to him or doesn't even

it and makes an offer to Alcindor that was significantly less than what the ABA

guys had agreed on doing.

That was supposed to be the thing that really iced this deal was this million

-dollar check.

Mikan said subsequently that Kareem was aware of the check.

That doesn't seem to hold true for me from looking at things, given that

in his memoir, basically said that he would have preferred to have played for

the New York Nets so he could stay in New York. So that would seem to indicate

that he was not given the check.

Llewellyn sent a sign to play professional basketball.

with the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association.

In our dealings with the ABA, they made things very clear at the beginning and

then proceeded to get more and more unrealistic.

Their offer did not compare with the offer that I got from the Milwaukee

It was as simple as that.

The ABA guys lost their mind and started screaming at Mikan.

What did you do? What happened?

And my understanding is he kind of said, well, I just didn't believe that he

would do that.

Mikan was somebody who was a star in the NBA back in the 50s and was sort

of operating on the mindset of what it was like for players back in the 50s and

the early 60s who had no leverage, who didn't understand their worth.

Didn't have the advisors to tell them how much to ask for and what to ask for.

So, I mean, I think part of it was just being out of step with this new pro

basketball terrain of competition.

And probably some of it was like, well, he should just be grateful for what

we're offering him.

And even though they tried to go back to him and say, no, no, no, no, wait a

minute. We'll give you way more than that.

He was done, and he's a man of his word, and he said, no, I'm good. I made my

call, and it was game over.

Not coincidentally, George Mikan was not commissioner much longer beyond that.

There was a great deal of anguish and frustration at Mikan for not giving the

very best offer to the ABA and taking Kareem's direction seriously. They

basically discarded his clear instructions, and the result was the ABA

That was probably the worst possible move they could have made and really

changed the history of the league. I mean, getting someone of his

stature, that would have been a huge, huge plus for the ABA.

I think with Lew Alcindor, a .k .a. Kareem Abdul -Jabbar, it could have

accelerated the process of merging if it had happened earlier.

It would be basketball history.

You know, long -term, big picture.

He was the guy who could have changed all that.

By 1969, the ABA had tried everything in their fight against the NBA, and

nothing had worked.

First, they tried stealing the star player in Rick Barry, but the NBA got

banned from playing for a year, which discouraged other NBA players from

the jump.

Then they tried welcoming cast -offs like Connie Hawkins, but in giving

platform to shine, they gave him the necessary exposure to win his lawsuit

jump to the NBA.

They had polled position on the race for Lou Alcindor, but made a mistake that

cost them Lou and cost Commissioner Mike and his job.

The defeats only made the renegade league more reckless.

They decided to break the NBA's whole damn system.

The ABA decided to draft underclassmen.

The rule in the NBA was class graduation.

You couldn't even sign up for the NBA until four years out of high school.

You're ineligible to sign a contract.

That was an NBA rule. That's all it was. This was sort of like a gentleman's

agreement between the NCAA and the team owners and league officials of the NBA.

And that sort of controlled the flow of players into the league automatically.

They had a monopoly on your life.

So it was kind of those okey -doke rules that, you know, could certainly be

defied. We're in competition with the NBA for talent.

We are.

We're going to make a determined effort to acquire the best talent for our

league. The ABA did its most masterful work in terms of disrupting the NBA's

labor system by going into colleges and getting underclassmen. They knew that

they were working against the system.

And that's changed things too, hasn't it, right? Now we're talking about one

done. That started with the ABA saying, you know what, a guy has a right to make

a living.

It allowed them access to a number of NBA -worthy players.

It gave the ABA a real shot in the arm to take underclassmen. In the 60s, the

widely held belief was that an underclassman would not be physically

handle the demands of a pro basketball season.

The ABA had to make sure the first underclassman they brought in was the

guy.

No one knew who I was.

Everybody saw me play and said, oh, my God, he's a phenom.

You can divide basketball history in terms of who can become a professional

not become a professional in pre -Sensor Haywood and post -Sensor Haywood.

I was an accidental revolutionary.

He goes to one year at University of Detroit.

and then decides he's done with college, and he signs with the ABA. All hell

broke loose in the NBA.

The Senate Monopoly subcommittee continued hearings on the professional

basketball leagues today.

The story has to be told, and the truth has to come out.

I threw the league all the way to the Supreme Court.

I got tired of the press screwing me over, and the team screwed me over, and

said, okay, great, I can play the same game.

The NBA had to adapt or it was going to die.

I'm being asked to tone it down.

What does tone it down mean?

We're about to put on a show.

Nobody knew it was coming.

Absolutely nobody.

And it will fly to you.

This heart, it speaks

sweet words

to you.

and smile these

hearts