20 Second Timeout

"Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association" Examines the ABA's Impact on Sports and Society

"Time has marched on, but the memories are forever."--Julius Erving speaking about the ABA  

George Karl, Julius Erving, and Common are the executive producers for Amazon Prime's four part documentary "Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association."

Episode one ("Change is Coming") emphasizes the differences between the established National Basketball Association (NBA) and the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA) that was founded in 1967. Anyone who dismisses the ABA as a minor league does not know or understand basketball history; as I noted in my recap of the 2026 Legends Brunch, "Many Hall of Famers started their careers in the ABA, including four-time MVP/three-time champion Julius Erving, three-time MVP/one-time champion Moses Malone, two-time MVP/three-time champion Mel Daniels, one-time MVP/one-time champion Artis Gilmore, one-time MVP/two-time champion George McGinnis, three-time champion Roger Brown, four-time scoring champion George Gervin, David Thompson, Bobby Jones, and Louie Dampier." It should be emphasized that in the 1977 NBA All-Star Game (the first All-Star Game after the ABA-NBA merger), 10 of the 24 All-Stars had played in the ABA, which is remarkable considering that the ABA was a much smaller league than the NBA; the concentration of high level talent in the ABA is undeniable.

Episode one begins with some quotes that place the ABA's significance in historical context. Gervin declared, "The ABA was the first integrated workplace in America." Bob Costas--who began his broadcasting career as a play by play announcer for the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis--noted, "A legend is something that has an element of mystery. The ABA may be the last significant legend in American sports." Erving said, "[There is a] responsibility for those who come to the other side of this to tell the story." 

Mack Calvin asserted, "When you look at it, the NBA was a dying, boring, stale professional sport." In general, I agree with the notion that the ABA was more entertaining than the NBA, but I would add that the greatness and the skills of the best NBA players of that era--including but not limited to Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Oscar Robertson--should not be overlooked or diminished. Erving himself has consistently said that his all-time five "was, is, and always will be" that quintet, with Connie Hawkins as the sixth man. 

George Mikan, who was honored as the greatest basketball player of the first 50 years of the 20th century, served as the ABA's first commissioner, and he minced no words about the ABA being in a money war versus the NBA. Much of the narrative arc of episode one is framed around "ABA Attack," the league's plan to seize market share from the NBA to force a merger between the two leagues, much as the AFL rose to prominence a few years earlier and eventually forced a merger with the NFL. The first prong of the attack was "Steal a Star." 

Rick Barry was the NBA's Rookie of the Year in 1965-66 after averaging 25.7 ppg and 10.6 rpg, and he won the NBA scoring title in 1966-67 (35.6 ppg) en route to leading the San Francisco Warriors to the NBA Finals, where they lost to a dominant Philadelphia team featuring Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Chet Walker, and Billy Cunningham. 

Barry jumped to the ABA after the 1966-67 season even though a court upheld the reserve clause in his contract with the Warriors, which meant that he would have to sit out the 1967-68 season before suiting up for the ABA's Oakland Oaks. 

Barry scoffed at the notion that today's players are better than players from his era, noting that when he played he did not have access to strength coaches, agility coaches, or dieticians the way that modern players do. He said that one would have to "be on drugs or something" to not understand how much better players from his era would do in today's era than they did in their era when they had no access to modern sports science. Barry said that he was not arrogant, but that he was--and is--confident because confidence "is the key to great success."

With Barry ineligible for the 1967-68 ABA season, the ABA activated the second prong of its attack: "Welcome Castoffs."

Connie Hawkins was blackballed by the NBA after being falsely implicated for being associated with infamous college basketball fixer Jack Molinas. Hawkins played in the American Basketball League and then for the Harlem Globetrotters before the ABA welcomed him in the league's inaugural season. As I noted in my obituary for Hawkins, he "led the Pittsburgh Pipers to the 1968 ABA title, averaging 30.7 ppg in seven games versus the New Orleans Buccaneers. Hawkins averaged 29.9 ppg, 12.3 rpg and 4.6 apg during the 1968 playoffs after averaging 26.8 ppg, 13.5 rpg and 4.6 apg during the regular season. Hawkins was the league's top scorer during the regular season, playoffs and Finals." Hawkins soon settled his lawsuit versus the NBA, after which he signed with the Phoenix Suns and made the All-NBA First Team in 1970.

One of my few quibbles with "Soul Power" is that Roger Brown's story of exile and redemption was not told in parallel with Hawkins' story. Like Hawkins, Brown was blackballed by the NBA before being embraced by the ABA. Brown won the 1970 ABA Playoff MVP after leading the Indiana Pacers to the first of their record three ABA titles (1970, 1972-73), and he remained loyal to the Pacers even after the NBA lifted its ban against him. Brown is the quintessential ABA player: he was cast aside by the NBA, he played his entire pro career in the ABA, and his accomplishments were ignored for far too many years before he was finally inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. "Soul Power" included highlights of Brown's play and cameo appearances by his daughter and grandson, but did not explain that Brown had overcome significant obstacles just like Hawkins did. Erving was one of many Hall of Famers who spoke highly of Brown to me, so I am surprised that Brown's story was not done justice in "Soul Power." I understand that every documentary has space/time limitations that inevitably cause some good material to end up on the cutting room floor, but the story of the ABA cannot and should not be told without prominently mentioning Brown.

Barry had an immediate impact in his first ABA season, leading the league in scoring in 1968-69 (34.0 ppg), but he only appeared in 35 games due to injury. The Oaks won the 1969 ABA title thanks to the efforts of Warren Jabali, who earned the 1969 ABA Playoff MVP award after averaging 28.8 ppg, 12.9 rpg, and 2.9 apg as the Oaks went 12-4 during the postseason. Episode one devotes significant coverage to not only Jabali's basketball prowess but also his militant attitude (or what was perceived to be his militant attitude). Jabali passed away on July 13, 2012, so in death as in life he seems condemned to have other people speak for him and define him. I strongly encourage anyone interested in learning about Jabali to read my tribute to him, including a full-length interview from 2005.

The ABA suffered a setback when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) chose the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks over the ABA's New York Nets; he told each league to make their best offer, and the Bucks made the better offer. The ABA subsequently tried to offer more than the Bucks had offered, but Abdul-Jabbar kept his word to take the best first offer. 

With Barry injured, Hawkins jumping to the NBA, and Abdul-Jabbar spurning the ABA for the NBA, the ABA desperately needed a flagship player. Episode two ("Growing Pains") begins by focusing on the third prong of the ABA's attack: "Draft Underclassmen." The NBA had a rule against signing any player before his college class graduated, but the ABA's Denver Rockets drafted and signed 20 year old Spencer Haywood in 1969 after he led Team USA to the 1968 Olympic gold medal and excelled as a sophomore for the University of Detroit in 1968-69 (32.1 ppg, 22.1 rpg). Haywood's family picked cotton in Mississippi, and the ABA created a "hardship" exception for drafting underclassmen.  

Haywood authored one of the most dominant rookie seasons in pro basketball history, winning Rookie of the Year, All-Star Game MVP and regular season MVP honors in 1969-70 after leading the ABA in scoring (30.0 ppg) and rebounding (19.5 rpg). He joined Wilt Chamberlain and Wes Unseld as the only players in pro basketball history to win Rookie of the Year and regular season MVP in the same season.

Haywood's contract with the Rockets proved to be worth far less than the advertised value of $1.9 million. After the team refused to make things right, Haywood jumped to the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics in 1970. Haywood's college class had not yet graduated, so rival NBA teams sought an injunction to prevent Haywood from playing in the NBA. This set off a legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Haywood won in court, and this changed the game forever on the court. "Hardship" is now called "early entry," as the modern NBA has done away with the pretense that teenagers are only being drafted if they can prove that their families are suffering financial hardship. Seven subsequent "early entry" players became members of my basketball Pantheon: Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James.

With Connie Hawkins and Spencer Haywood both jumping to the NBA, the ABA desperately needed a new, young superstar. This led to the fourth prong of the ABA's attack: "Draft the Doctor Now."

Julius Erving (also known the Doctor or Dr. J) won three ABA regular season MVPs (1974-76), three ABA scoring titles (1973-74, 1976), and two ABA championships (1974, 1976) while establishing himself not only as the greatest player in ABA history but one of the greatest players in pro basketball history--but he did not look like a superstar as a high school player: Erving arrived at the University of Massachusetts in 1968 as a 6-3, 165 pound forward before growing three inches and gaining at least 30 pounds. Like many players who reached their final height later in life, Erving developed multi-positional skills: he could handle the ball and pass like a guard, but he could also rebound and play inside.

After the Supreme Court compelled the NBA to permit Spencer Haywood to play, the league still was not drafting underclassmen, so the ABA had an opportunity to swoop in and obtain the Doctor's services. The Virginia Squires signed Erving in April 1971, after he completed his junior year at UMass.

As a young player, Erving's most dominant skill was rebounding, and he already had an unselfish mindset well beyond his years: he had the ability to be a dominant scorer, but he was not obsessed with scoring. Charlie Scott was the Squires' primary scoring option during Erving's rookie season (1971-72), and it was obvious that Scott was chasing the scoring title, so Erving averaged 15.7 rpg (third in the league) while scoring 27.3 ppg as the second option. Scott jumped to the NBA's Phoenix Suns late in the season after he had clinched the scoring title (34.6 ppg, setting the ABA single season scoring record), and then Erving averaged 33.4 ppg in the final 10 games of the regular season, with three games of at least 40 points. In the playoffs, Erving averaged 33.3 ppg, 20.4 rpg, and 6.5 apg, one of the most dominant state lines ever posted by a rookie in postseason play. 

In "Soul Power," Costas explained Erving's impact: "With all due respect to other great ABA players, Dr. J is what gave the league credibility outside league cities and outside the core of ABA fans because even the franchises that did consistently well operated outside the notice of most American sports fans. So, a lot of it took place, relatively speaking, in the shadows."

If there had been any doubt about the quality of the ABA initially, by 1971 it was clear to any objective observer that the ABA's best players could match up with the NBA's best players, as demonstrated in the two ABA-NBA Supergames played in 1971 and 1972. Although the NBA All-Stars won the first game 125-120 and the second game 106-104, it was eye-opening for the casual fan (and for the NBA itself) to see just how competitive the interleague matchups were. 

After the NBA was forced to realize how good the ABA players were, the NBA began a counter-attack to the ABA's attack, and the first prong of that counter-attack was "Poach the Players." The NBA shifted from a haughty position of asserting that ABA players were not that good to an aggressive position of trying to sign ABA players to NBA deals.  

Rick Barry and Julius Erving only faced each other once in a playoff series, and Barry's New York Nets prevailed 4-3 over Erving's Squires in the 1972 ABA Eastern Division Finals. The Nets faced the Indiana Pacers in the ABA Finals. Roger Brown outscored Rick Barry 32-23 in game six as the Pacers won the series, 4-2. Brown led the Pacers in playoff scoring (20.5 ppg) in 1972, but Freddie Lewis (19.2 ppg) was named the 1972 ABA Playoff MVP. "Soul Power" noted that the Pacers were not only successful on the court, but they proved to be a unifying force within an Indianapolis community that had previously been divided along racial lines. The Pacers' players comprised a close-knit group that remained close-knit decades after they retired. Larry Brown, who was a three-time ABA All-Star before becoming a Hall of Fame coach, said, "I wish our world was like the Pacers' locker room. It's all about can you play and are you a decent human being. Do you care about the people that sit next to on both sides. That's the only thing that matters."

Barry jumped back to the Warriors after the 1971-72 season, making it all the more imperative for the ABA to not lose Erving, which led to the second prong of the NBA's counter-attack: "Steal the Doctor." 

Episode three ("Icarus") shines the spotlight on Erving, one of the greatest and yet most underrated players in pro basketball history. Five-time ABA All-Star Ralph Simpson made a bold statement early in the episode: "I don't never think there will be another Dr. J. I think there will be another Michael Jordan. Doc did things that were just incredible, that defied human nature." Simpson echoed what many players who played with and/or against Erving have told me: Erving, particularly when he showcased his full talents in the ABA, had something that no other player ever had. The respect, even awe, that fellow professional basketball players have for Erving is rare. I have spoken with many professional basketball players, and I cannot think of a player who is more revered by other players than Erving. 

Larry Brown, who coached against Erving in the ABA and in the NBA, said, "When he went to the NBA, Julius was great. Everybody recognized him as being one of the great players ever. They didn't really see the true Julius when he was in the ABA." 

After his sensational rookie season, Erving took a closer look at his Virginia contract and--much like Spencer Haywood did--realized that the deal was not quite as good as it had seemed at first. Erving and his representatives disputed the validity of the contract with the Squires, and Erving signed a contract with the NBA's Atlanta Hawks--but then the Milwaukee Bucks selected Erving (whose college class had now graduated) with the 12th pick in the 1972 NBA Draft. Erving joined forces with Pistol Pete Maravich in some preseason games with the Hawks before a three judge panel ordered Erving to return to the Squires. Erving had a sensational second season with the Squires, averaging a career-high 31.9 ppg to win the first of his three scoring titles. After the 1972-73 season, the cash-strapped Squires traded Erving and Willie Sojourner to the New York Nets for George Carter, Kermit Washington, and cash considerations. The Nets then signed Erving to an eight year contract reportedly averaging $350,000 per season, making Erving one of the highest paid pro basketball players at that time.

In his three seasons with the Nets, Erving won three regular season MVPs, two ABA titles, two ABA Playoff MVPs, and two scoring titles. Erving led the Nets to the 1974 ABA championship, averaging 28.2 ppg, 11.4 rpg, 5.0 apg, 1.8 spg and 1.4 rpg during the Finals in a 4-1 win over the Utah Stars. "We won the first time we went to the Finals," Erving said. "And most teams don't win the first time they go to the Finals. It was one of my greatest thrills in my whole career." The 1973-74 Nets had the youngest starting lineup in pro basketball (average age: 22.6 years old), and they are perhaps the most underrated championship team in pro basketball history: the Nets went 22-3 down the stretch--10-1 to finish the regular season and 12-2 in the playoffs. The Nets tied the 1971 Milwaukee Bucks' pro basketball record for best playoff winning percentage (.857), a mark that stood until Erving's 1983 Philadelphia 76ers went 12-1 (.923); in an expanded playoff format, the 2001 Lakers went 15-1 (.938), and then the 2017 Warriors went 16-1 (.943).

The fifth prong of the ABA's attack was "Unconventional Leadership." The Spirits of St. Louis, the team that hired young broadcaster Bob Costas straight out of Syracuse and that dethroned the Nets 4-1 in the 1975 playoffs, were owned by the Silna brothers, who were barely older than the squad's star players. Kentucky Fried Chicken owner John Y. Brown and his wife Ellie owned the Kentucky Colonels. Ellie led an all-female board of directors that ran the team; at that time, it was unprecedented for women to have an active and controlling role in the operation of a professional sports franchise. Ellie hired Hubie Brown (no relation), and that proved to be the key move for a team that had repeatedly fallen short despite having a talented roster. The Colonels won the 1975 ABA Finals versus the Pacers in yet another chapter of that storied rivalry. Hubie Brown used a 10 man rotation, installed a strong defense, and got the most out of Hall of Famers Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, and Louie Dampier. 

The Colonels challenged the 1975 NBA champion Golden State Warriors to a winner take all game, but the Warriors declined, which speaks volumes about the relative strength of each league at that time; the sixth prong of the ABA's attack was "Just Kick Their Ass," which is what ABA teams did to NBA teams in preseason games that were played with great intensity. Any pretense about the NBA's alleged vast superiority over the upstart ABA falls apart when considering that the ABA teams beat the NBA teams more often than not in head to head play: in 1974, the ABA went 15-10 versus the NBA, followed by a 16-7 edge in 1975 and a 31-17 advantage in 1976.

Episode three ended by cramming in a lot of information in the last five minutes, with scant details. The seventh prong of the ABA's attack was "Steal the Refs," and the eighth prong of the ABA's attack was "Steal Their Biggest Legend," referring to Wilt Chamberlain, who the San Diego Conquistadors signed in 1973 as a player/coach. Chamberlain's player rights were still owned by the L.A. Lakers, so Chamberlain coached the Conquistadors in 1973-74 but did not play for them. The ninth prong of the ABA's attack was "Secret Drafts." ABA executives signed college players to secret contracts so that the players could maintain their college eligibility while also being legally bound to play for a particular ABA team. The episode concluded by noting that in 1975 the New York Nets and Denver Nuggets--two of the league's most stable and successful franchises--had petitioned the NBA for membership without informing the other ABA teams. Dan Silna, co-owner of the Spirits of St. Louis, stated that he had been "betrayed by my partners," and Erving called it "Mutiny on the Bounty."

Episode four ("Party's Over") chronicled the end of the ABA, culminating in the ABA-NBA merger during which four ABA teams (Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, San Antonio Spurs) joined the combined league while the players from the remaining ABA teams were placed into a dispersal draft. 

Before the ABA's demise, the league tried everything it could do to survive. The 10th prong of the ABA's attack was "Draft High Schoolers." The Utah Stars signed Moses Malone straight out of high school in 1974, and he had an immediate impact as a rookie, averaging 18.8 ppg and 14.6 rpg (fourth in the league), including a league leading 5.5 offensive rebounds per game--the first of nine times that Malone led the ABA or NBA in that category.

The 11th prong of the ABA's attack was "Find New Basketball Fans." The league struggled financially overall, but Denver and San Antonio developed loyal fan bases, and that carried over after both teams joined the merged league in 1976.

The 12th prong of the ABA's attack was "The First Slam Dunk Contest." The ninth and final ABA All-Star Game featured the hometown Denver Nuggets--who had the best record in the league--facing All-Stars from all of the other teams. The Nuggets won, 144-138. The halftime show was the first official Slam Dunk Contest, with Julius Erving, David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, and Larry Kenon squaring off for the crown. Thompson was an incredible leaper and he did some spectacular dunks, but Erving stole the show with his last dunk: he trotted from one free throw line to the other end of the court, cradling the basketball like a softball in his huge hands, and then he turned around, ran back where he came from, took off with his foot straddling the free throw line, and threw down the clinching dunk. Erving had previously dunked from the free throw line in games, but this particular free throw line dunk became an iconic symbol of his special talents and of how he embodied the free spirited nature of the ABA.

Erving's Nets captured the 1976 ABA title in the league's final season. In The Ultimate "Five Tool" Players, I explained why Erving's 1975-76 campaign is one of the greatest single season performances in pro basketball history:

Julius Erving put up the first--and most impressive--five-tool season. In 1975-76, he led the ABA in scoring (29.3 ppg) and ranked in the top seven or better in the league in each of the other four categories. He also placed eighth in two point field goal percentage and seventh in three point field goal percentage. Erving actually came very close to being a five-tool player in each of the three previous seasons, missing by just .6 apg and .2 spg in 1972-73, .8 rpg in 1973-74 and .6 spg in 1974-75. All of that was just a warm-up for Dr. J’s final dramatic operation in the ABA, when he led the New York Nets to the 1976 championship over the Denver Nuggets, topping both teams in all five statistical categories during that series: 37.7 ppg, 14.2 rpg, 6.0 apg, 3.0 spg and 2.2 bpg. Performances like that inspired the two quotes that best summarize Erving’s impact on the game: ABA Commissioner Dave DeBusschere once said, "Plenty of guys have been ‘The Franchise.’ For us, Dr. J is ‘The League’"; Pat Williams, the 76ers General Manager who acquired Erving shortly after the 1976 ABA Finals, later said of Erving, "There’s never been anyone like him, including Michael. If Julius was in his prime now, in this era of intense electronic media, he would be beyond comprehension. He would blow everybody away." 

After the Nets celebrated in their locker room, Erving decamped to the shower, and there is a striking series of photos of him sitting in the shower by himself, still wearing his uniform. Sitting on a couch looking at those photos nearly 50 years later, Erving said, "I think basketball has always been an escape from the real world. So I think sitting in the shower on the floor, that was like the preparation for going back to reality. Knowing this is the swan song of the ABA, it was like just looming over you. With all the joy and excitement of playing basketball, and winning trophies and all that, there is this flip side--the sadness associated with the ABA being done."

The 13th prong of the ABA's attack was "Surrender." The league had fought the good fight for nine seasons, but had never obtained a national television deal or any other revenue source large enough to keep battling against the NBA. The ABA started the 1975-76 season with nine teams, but the Utah Stars and San Diego Sails folded before the end of the campaign while the Virginia Squires limped to the finish line with a 15-68 record and then folded after not being able to make payroll. The NBA refused to accept more than four ABA teams in the merged league. The Kentucky Colonels accepted a little more than $3 million compensation from the surviving ABA teams. The Silna brothers owned the Spirits of St. Louis, and they had some leverage as the last ABA team left out of the merger, because the merger could not proceed until all underlying claims had been resolved. The Silnas negotiated a deal to receive $2.2 million in compensation for their players who were signed by NBA teams, plus a 1/7th share of each of the surviving ABA teams' visual media revenue in perpetuity. "In perpetuity" is the key concept here; based on the buyout the Colonels accepted, it appears that the NBA valued the media rights portion of this deal at around $1 million--but as the NBA became more popular and the league's media rights soared in value, the Silnas and their lawyer Donald Schupak pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars before the Silnas reached a confidential settlement with the NBA in 2014 to end the payments. That settlement was reportedly worth $500 million.

Each of the four surviving teams paid $3.2 million to join the NBA. The Nets also paid over $4 million to indemnify the New York Knicks. Erving claimed that Nets' owner Roy Boe had promised to renegotiate his contract if a merger took place, but Boe (1) asserted that he had not made such a promise and (2) did not have sufficient financial resources to pay more to Erving. Thus, the Nets sold Erving to the Philadelphia 76ers for around $2.5 million, and the 76ers then signed Erving to a six year deal worth around $3.5 million. Steve Austin was the fictional "Six Million Dollar Man," but Erving had become a real life $6 million man at a time when $6 million was a lot of money to pay to acquire any athlete--even an athlete as extraordinary as Erving, who 76ers' General Manager Pat Williams termed the "Babe Ruth of basketball" to convince the team's owner Fitz Dixon to acquire Erving. In the first post-merger season, Erving won the 1977 All-Star Game MVP and led the 76ers to the NBA Finals, where they took a 2-0 lead versus the Portland Trail Blazers before dropping four straight games. Erving won the 1981 NBA regular season MVP award--becoming the only player to win a regular season MVP award in both leagues--before teaming up with Moses Malone to lead the 76ers to the 1983 NBA title.

"Soul Power" concludes by focusing on the shameful way that the NBA shortchanged ABA players regarding pension payments. The NBA may not have a legal obligation to pay any more money than it has already paid to retired ABA players, but the NBA has abrogated its moral responsibility in a manner that is a blot on the league's name that can never be wiped out. For decades, the NBA dragged its feet, clearly waiting for as many retired ABA players to die off as possible to limit the amount that the league would pay out. In 2022, the NBA finally took some minimal steps to help retired ABA players, but the limited benefits provided are a drop in the league's vast bucket of money and not nearly enough to make up for decades of neglect. "NBA Cares" is an empty slogan papering over the reality that the NBA cares most about maximizing its profits; the NBA not only failed to credit ABA players with their years of service in the ABA, but it shortchanged the "pre-65ers," the players who laid the groundwork for the NBA to become a multi-billion dollar business. 

Scott Tarter, an attorney from Indianapolis who grew up watching the Pacers and later got to know many of the retired ABA players, is the CEO of Dropping Dimes Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping retired ABA players.

Other than the unnecessary disrespect directed toward the great NBA players of the 1960s and the omission of the details of Roger Brown's story, "Soul Power" provides a compelling narrative tracking the ABA from its humble beginnings to its on court greatness to its sad demise--but it should be noted that the ABA did not really die: the legacies of Connie Hawkins, Mel Daniels, Roger Brown, Spencer Haywood, Julius Erving, Artis Gilmore, Moses Malone, George Gervin, and other great players who began their professional careers in the ABA are interwoven into basketball history, and the modern game borrowed/stole a lot from the ABA, including the three point shot, the Slam Dunk Contest, and a wide open style of play. 

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Supplementary Materials 

Those interested in learning more about the ABA should check out NBA TV's 2006 documentary "The Last Night of the ABA" focusing on game six of the ABA Finals but also providing a lot of meaningful background and context about the ABA.

The 2008 NBA TV show "Game to Remember: Game Six, 1976 ABA Finals" featured Erving and his New York Nets teammate Brian Taylor reminiscing about the ABA's final game.

For many years, I vigorously advocated for Roger Brown to be inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, an honor that he received posthumously in 2013. Here is more information about Roger Brown:

Roger Brown: Ankle Breaker and Shot Maker (December 27, 2004)

Interview with Ted Green, Producer of "Undefeated: The Roger Brown Story" (October 30, 2012)

Roger Brown is Finally Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame! (February 16, 2013)

The Neon Presents Special Screening of "Undefeated: The Roger Brown Story" on Thursday August 15 (August 13, 2013) 

Labels: ABA, Artis Gilmore, Connie Hawkins, Hubie Brown, Indiana Pacers, Julius Erving, Kentucky Colonels, Mel Daniels, New York Nets, Oakland Oaks, Rick Barry, Roger Brown, Spencer Haywood, Virginia Squires

posted by David Friedman @ 12:55 PM

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George Gervin: An Appreciation

George "Iceman" Gervin may be one of the most underrated great players in pro basketball history. Gervin is overlooked for several reasons: he began his career in the ABA, he did not win a championship, and his prime years happened just before national/international coverage of pro basketball exploded. Gervin should be appreciated for being that rare player who is both a great shooter and a great scorer. During his career, Gervin shot. 504 from the field and .841 from the free throw line. He not only led the league in scoring four times (1978-80, 1982) but he also ranked in the top 10 in field goal percentage twice (1977-78), and he ranked in the top 10 in free throw percentage five times (1975-76, 1982-83, 1986). Gervin showed off his soft shooting touch with his deadly jump shot, his uncannily accurate bank shot, and his legendary finger roll, but he also excelled at drawing contact, ranking in the top 10 in free throws made for 11 straight seasons. 

"Stat gurus" tout "advanced basketball statistics" and proclaim that today's NBA players are so smart and efficient because they focus on only shooting layups/dunks and three pointers, but Gervin is a model of true basketball efficiency, as demonstrated by his shooting percentages and by his low turnover rate (3.0 tpg for his career, never averaging more than 3.8 tpg in a season) despite having the ball in his hands so much. Jacking up three pointers without regard to time/score/game situation is a high variance approach to basketball that is neither efficient nor fun to watch. I would rather watch George Gervin than James Harden, and any true basketball fan who has seen both players feels the same way.

For the first 43 years of NBA history (including the ABA's nine seasons as well), only two players won at least four scoring titles: Wilt Chamberlain (seven) and George Gervin (four). Michael Jordan now holds the record (10), and Allen Iverson and Kevin Durant won four scoring titles each. Julius Erving holds the ABA record with three scoring titles. Gervin ranks 12th in ABA/NBA career regular season scoring average (25.1 ppg), just ahead of Karl Malone (25.0 ppg) and Kobe Bryant (25.0 ppg), and just behind Oscar Robertson (25.7 ppg) and Damian Lillard (25.2 ppg). He also ranks 14th in ABA/NBA career playoff scoring average (26.5 ppg), just behind Stephen Curry (27.0 ppg) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (26.7 ppg). Gervin averaged at least 30 ppg in five different playoff series, and he led the league in playoff scoring average six times (1975 in the ABA, and then 1978-82 in the NBA).

Gervin's scoring prowess is impressive, but he was more than just a sharp shooting prolific scorer. He was an excellent rebounder and shotblocker from the guard position, and he led the Spurs to 10 straight playoff appearances. Gervin logged five 100-100 seasons during which he had at least 100 steals and at least 100 blocked shots; the 6-8 Gervin first played forward, but he spent most of his pro career at guard, and he is the only guard who had at least four 100-100 seasons. In recognition of Gervin's all-around game, he finished second in MVP voting in 1978 and 1979, and he also ranked in the top five in MVP voting in 1980 (third) and 1981 (fifth). Gervin earned five consecutive All-NBA First Team selections (1978-82), four All-ABA or All-NBA Second Team selections (1975-77, 1983), and 12 straight All-Star selections (1974-85).

Gervin twice won the Seagram's Seven Crowns of Sports award for basketball player of the year. That award is all but forgotten now, but it was a big deal in the 1970s and 1980s. The Seagram's awards were determined based on a computer formula that compared players at the same position in terms of scoring, shooting accuracy, free throw percentage, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots. Since players were only compared to players at the same position, it would seem that an award should have been given to the top finishers at each position and not just to the player with the top overall score. I have done a lot of archival research and used a variety of sources to piece together at least a partial list of Seagram's winners. The first public reference to the Seagram's awards that I found happened in 1974, but it is not clear if awards were given out at that time or if the rankings were just released to publicize the concept. Subsequent reports refer to the 1975 awards as the inaugural Seagram's awards. For the record, the top three basketball players in Seagram's 1974 rankings were Julius Erving, Bob McAdoo, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Here are the Seagram's basketball winners that I found, with runner-up information listed if available.

1975: 1) Bob McAdoo 2) George McGinnis 3) Julius Erving

1976: 1) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2) Julius Erving 3) Bob McAdoo

1977: 1) Bobby Jones 2) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

1978: 1) George Gervin 2) Paul Westphal 3) David Thompson

1979: 1) George Gervin 2) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 3) Paul Westphal

1980: 1) Julius Erving 2) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 3) George Gervin

1981: 1) Julius Erving 2) Adrian Dantley 3) Moses Malone

1982: 1) Magic Johnson 2) Julius Erving 3) Adrian Dantley

1983: 1) Larry Bird

1984: 1) Larry Bird 2) Isiah Thomas 3) Magic Johnson

1985: 1) Michael Jordan

1986: 1) Larry Bird

1987: 1) Michael Jordan

"Iceman: A George Gervin Story" traces Gervin's life path from humble beginnings in Detroit to becoming an all-time great basketball player. By the end of the documentary, what shines through is not just Gervin's indisputable basketball greatness but also his kindness and his commitment to helping other people, embodied in the George Gervin Academy charter school program that he founded in San Antonio. Steve Smith and David Robinson--who are both well known for their extraordinary philanthropic efforts--credit Gervin as the inspiration for their community service work. Gervin said that his legacy will be defined not by what he did on the court, but by the people he has helped off of the court, declaring, "That's my trophy." Gervin delivers the same message, in more detail, in his autobiography Ice: Why I Was Born to Score.

The story of how Gervin signed with the ABA's Virginia Squires is remarkable. In 1972, Gervin was playing in the CBA after being expelled from Eastern Michigan University because he punched an opposing player (Jay Piccola, who later became President of Puma North America, and who appeared in "Iceman," describing the apology letter that Gervin wrote to him, a letter that Piccola has kept). The ABA paid Sonny Vaccaro to find talented players, and Vaccaro arranged for Gervin to have a tryout with the Squires. Squires owner Earl Foreman asked Gervin to go on the court and shoot. Gervin, wearing street clothes, put on such a tremendous shooting exhibition that Foreman signed him on the spot--according to Vaccaro, the deal was signed on a napkin! Vaccaro insists that Gervin made 50 straight shots from all over the court. Gervin, with his trademark laugh and smile, says that he does not remember making 50 shots, "but I don't remember missing any, either!" 

Gervin joined the Squires in the middle of the 1972-73 season, teaming up with fellow future Hall of Famer Julius Erving. Erving established himself as a superstar as a rookie in 1971-72, averaging 27.3 ppg and 15.7 rpg in the regular season before leading the league in playoff scoring (33.4 ppg) and playoff rebounding (20.4 rpg). When Gervin became a Squire, Erving was on his way to winning the first of his three scoring titles. Erving insisted to Gervin that they play one on one after practice, something that Erving picked up from his brief time as Pistol Pete Maravich's teammate with the Atlanta Hawks, as Erving told me: "It really was one of the joys of my life to play with Pete, to be in training camp with him. We used to stay after practice and play one-on-one. We would play for dinner after practice. I did the same thing with George Gervin once he became my teammate [in Virginia]--I pretty much learned that from Pete. If this guy is going to be your teammate, you really need to stay after practice and get to understand his game and know his likes and his dislikes--where he likes the ball and that kind of stuff. The best way to do that is to just play--go play each other one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three. Play away from the coaches, away from the whole team practicing in unison." In "Iceman," Erving added that he liked to challenge his teammates so that they would not become lazy, and he said that he is proud of how great Gervin became.

The cash-strapped Squires traded Erving to the New York Nets prior to the 1973-74 season, and then they sold Gervin to the San Antonio Spurs during the 1973-74 season. Erving led the Nets to two ABA championships (1974, 1976), and Gervin emerged as one of pro basketball's top scorers while lifting the Spurs into becoming perennial contenders. Erving and Gervin faced each other in two memorable playoff series, with Erving's Nets beating Gervin's Spurs in the 1976 ABA playoffs en route to claiming the final ABA title, and then Gervin's Spurs defeating Erving's Philadelphia 76ers in seven games in the 1979 Eastern Conference Semifinals. Erving averaged 32.1 ppg, 11.3 rpg, and 4.6 apg with shooting splits of .488/.222/.824 in the 1976 series as the Nets won in seven games, while Gervin averaged 27.1 ppg, 9.1 rpg, and 2.7 apg with shooting splits of .523/.000/.812. The three point shot was not a major weapon at that time, as Erving only attempted nine and Gervin only attempted three during that series. Erving was the leading scorer in five of the seven games, including a series-high 41 points that were not quite enough to prevent the Spurs from winning game six in San Antonio, 106-105. In the 1979 series, Erving averaged 26.0 ppg, 6.6 rpg, and 6.0 apg with shooting splits of .542/.755, while Gervin averaged 26.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg, and 2.6 apg with shooting splits of .550/.820; three point shooting is not included in the shooting splits because the NBA did not start using the three point shot until the next season. I provided game summaries of the 1976 series in Julius Erving's Playoff Career, Part II: Two Championships in Three Years with the Nets, and I provided game summaries of the 1979 series in Julius Erving's Playoff Career, Part III: Consistency, Frustration and then a Glorious Championship Run.  

What stands out about Erving and Gervin is not just the wins and the points, but their artistry, a facet of Gervin's game that Erving poetically described in a 1986 interview with Bob Sakamoto: "He personifies being at one with certain elements in the universe that, at least theoretically, are supposed to have a certain effect. When I see him play, sometimes it makes me think about the psychic side of the sport, abstract things that can be introduced to the sport and explained through his motion. It really is a tribute to him that he can trigger this in me, because I've seen a lot of players come and go, and he's probably my favorite." Of course, everything that Erving said about Gervin is true of Erving as well.

After beating Erving's 76ers, the Spurs lost 4-3 to the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets in the 1979 Eastern Conference Finals. The Spurs shifted to the Western Conference in 1981, and Gervin led them to the 1982 Western Conference Finals, but the eventual NBA champion L.A. Lakers swept them 4-0. The Spurs acquired Hall of Fame center Artis Gilmore before the 1982-83 season, and the Gervin-Gilmore duo led the Spurs back to the Western Conference Finals, but the Lakers prevailed again, 4-2. 

The Spurs traded Gervin to the Chicago Bulls before the 1985-86 season. Gervin backed up second year sensation Michael Jordan before Jordan suffered a foot injury that caused him to miss 64 games. Gervin started 75 games and played all 82 games, averaging 16.2 ppg in his final NBA season.

After his NBA career ended, Gervin played a season in Italy. He credits that time in Europe for helping him to refocus his life priorities and attain greater balance; near the end of Gervin's NBA career he struggled with drug addiction, and that battle almost cost him his family. Gervin is candid about this period, saying that he suffered from a "malfunction" in his brain. John Lucas, the number one overall pick in the 1976 NBA Draft, lost his NBA career to drug addiction, but he has spent much of his post-playing life helping others battle substance abuse. Gervin sought out Lucas, and Lucas played a key role in Gervin's recovery. 

Gervin feels that his most powerful legacy is his family and his community service work. He has said that he never sought fame, and that he played basketball because he loved to hoop. His journey is so different from the journeys of many of today's star athletes, who have been pampered and showered with praise since childhood, and then are provided with generational wealth because of their athletic abilities; too much public adulation and too much money distorts reality, and often leads to a sense of entitlement as opposed to a sense of responsibility.

So many of today's athletes scream, "I'm him!" Erving is not like that, and neither is Gervin. Gervin combines confidence with humility. He knows that he could not just score but also play at a high level, but he was never a showboat, and he gives credit to his teammates. Gervin has always spoken highly of his Spurs backcourt partner James Silas, and at the 2005 ABA Reunion Gervin told me, "James Silas was a guy who we really went to at the end of the game. James Silas never missed free throws. They don't give him enough credit and I'm disappointed in that, but we (the ABA players) give it to him because we played with him and respect him and a lot of us idolize his play."

Uninformed people often think that great athletes are running, jumping, and scoring without much thought, but the reality is that excellence in sports requires intelligence. You can get a glimpse of this intelligence in George Gervin's answer to my question about what made Roger Brown special: 

He probably had one of the best first steps in basketball. You've really got to understand basketball to know what I'm saying when I say 'first step.' Matter of fact, I learned that from him when I played against Roger Brown--that first step. He used to pivot and make you move and he isn't going anywhere. It was probably one of the best moves that I picked up and when I went to the guard spot it really helped to take my game to the next level.

Speaking to me in a 2004 interview that I quoted in my Roger Brown tribute article, Gervin added that he wished that modern players emulated Brown's approach to the game: "What guys don't realize today is that first step is everything because if I can get the first step on you then you will never catch me--and if you do catch me then all I have to do is fake and you will go for the fake because you are trying to catch up--you are in a recovery situation. That's where Roger was good. He forced you into a recovery situation all the time, so you had to go for his fakes." Gervin contrasted Brown's use of the first step with the way that too many current players overuse the dribble: "Dribbling that ball five, six, seven, eight seconds is a travesty. What are the other four guys doing--standing there watching? A lot of the guys pound the ball today, but we used to move the ball around and when we got it we took that first step and made something happen. So we (retired legends) hope and pray that the guys understand that you really need to give the ball up. If you're not going to make your move, give it up, go back and get it. Don't just stand there and pound it."

Gervin was a basketball artist and a basketball technician--and the two traits are connected: by mastering the sport's fundamental techniques, Gervin acquired the necessary foundational skills to enable his creativity to blossom. He played basketball with unbridled joy, and it was a joy to watch him play.

Labels: Artis Gilmore, Chicago Bulls, George Gervin, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Roger Brown, San Antonio Spurs, Seagram's Seven Crowns of Sports, Virginia Squires

posted by David Friedman @ 11:04 PM

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Remembering George McGinnis, Two-Time ABA Champion and 1975 ABA Regular Season Co-MVP

George McGinnis, who won two ABA championships (1972, 1973) with the Indiana Pacers and shared the 1975 ABA regular season MVP with Julius Erving, passed away on Thursday at the age of 73 after suffering a heart attack at home last week. McGinnis had deep Indiana roots, as he led Washington high school (Indianapolis) to a 31-0 record and the state championship in 1969 before starring at Indiana University. In 1970-71 in his only varsity season at Indiana University, McGinnis became the first sophomore to lead the Big Ten in scoring (30.0 ppg) and rebounding (14.7 rpg). Taking advantage of the new Spencer Haywood rule that enabled underclassmen to jump from college to pro basketball, McGinnis joined the ABA's Indiana Pacers for the 1971-72 season, departing Indiana University just before the arrival of Bobby Knight; it would have been interesting if those two Hall of Famers had teamed up, and McGinnis later said that playing for Knight would have helped his development as a player.

Listed at 6-8, 235 pounds, McGinnis had a body that looked like a statue of a Greek god carved out of flawless marble. McGinnis drove to the hoop with power, but he also had a soft touch on his patented one-handed jump shot. He possessed a rare combination of size, strength, speed, scoring ability, rebounding prowess, and passing skills; in short, he was LeBron James before LeBron James (although James enjoyed a much longer career). Overshadowed by a Hall of Fame rookie class including Erving and Rookie of the Year/regular season MVP Artis Gilmore, McGinnis averaged 16.9 ppg and 9.7 rpg in 1971-72, joining Gilmore, Erving, Johnny Neumann, and John Roche on the 1972 ABA All-Rookie First Team. McGinnis averaged 15.5 ppg and 11.4 rpg in the playoffs as the Pacers won their second ABA title in three years.

McGinnis was a key figure in the fabled "Interstate 65 rivalry" pitting the Indiana Pacers versus the Kentucky Colonels. In a May 24, 2004 interview at Conseco Fieldhouse prior to game two of the Eastern Conference Finals pitting Detroit against Indiana, I spoke with McGinnis about his role on those dominant 1970s Pacers teams, and he told me, "I was probably one of the first--if not the first--big power forwards who could come out on the floor and handle the ball…In our offense I could bring the ball up." McGinnis was a friendly and enthusiastic interview subject, as were all of the former Pacers who I have been blessed to interview, including Hall of Famers Coach Bobby "Slick Leonard" and center Mel Daniels, plus Len Elmore, Billy Knight, and Darnell Hillman. Researching and writing about the great Roger Brown--who passed away in 1997 and was not inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame until 2013--will always be a life highlight for me. McGinnis had fond memories of Brown, telling me what he learned from Brown as a young player: "I think learning just to--I was very excitable. If there was a big game, I got really up and then by the time you got 10 minutes into the game I was spent, in terms of energy. So I think that one of the key things that I learned for him--especially in playoff basketball--was that you never get too high or too excited because it is a 48 minute game and you have to play the whole 48 minutes. The team that wins the first 10 minutes is not necessarily the team that is going to win the game. So I think just being calm and handling pressure situations, more than anything else, is what I learned from him."

Daniels, Leonard, and McGinnis have all passed away now, and I feel a keen sense of loss not only for the basketball greatness they represent but for a wonderful time in my writing career that exists now only in fond memories.

In his second season with the Pacers, McGinnis averaged 27.6 ppg (second in the ABA behind Erving) and 12.5 rpg (fourth in the ABA). He finished third in regular season MVP voting behind Billy Cunningham (who later coached him with the Philadelphia 76ers) and Erving (his future teammate with the 76ers). McGinnis averaged 22.3 ppg and 13.7 rpg versus Kentucky in the 1973 ABA Finals, scoring 27 points in Indiana's 88-81 game seven victory at Freedom Hall in Kentucky. He was named the 1973 ABA Playoff MVP.

McGinnis averaged 25.9 ppg (second in the ABA behind Erving) and 15.0 rpg (second in the ABA behind Gilmore) in 1973-74, earning the first of three straight All-ABA First Team selections. He averaged 24.0 ppg and 11.9 rpg in the playoffs, but the Pacers lost to the Utah Stars in seven games in the Western Division Finals. 

McGinnis reached his peak in 1974-75, winning the ABA scoring title with a career-high 29.8 ppg, ranking fifth in rebounding (14.3 rpg), and ranking third in assists with a career-high 6.3 apg. In the 1975 ABA Finals, the Colonels avenged their 1973 loss to the Pacers by beating the Pacers 4-1 despite McGinnis averaging 27.4 ppg, 14.0 rpg and 6.4 apg, gaudy numbers that were actually a bit below his overall playoff production that year (32.3 ppg, 15.9 rpg and 8.2 apg). In 2009 when I wrote about the only players to average 30-7-7 in a playoff season that short list included Oscar Robertson (1963, 1966), George McGinnis (1975), Michael Jordan (1989), and LeBron James (2009). Since that time, James accomplished the feat three more times (2015, 2017, 2018), and Luka Doncic did it twice (2020, 2021), while Russell Westbrook (2017) and Nikola Jokic (2023) each posted one such playoff run. Jokic is the only player in that club who won a championship in his 30-7-7 postseason, although Robertson, McGinnis, Jordan, and James each won at least one championship in other seasons. 

I asked McGinnis what it felt like to play basketball as dominantly as he did, particularly during the 1975 playoffs. He said, "I mean I think that was a point in my career where I guess--I hear present day players talk about being 'in a zone' or the bucket being bigger than or looking like the ocean--that is kind of like what it was for me back in '73, '74. I was probably at the peak of my physical ability and things came easily for me. I can't tell you that I thought about it. A lot of it was just natural ability."

McGinnis jumped to the NBA prior to the 1975-76 season, joining the Philadelphia 76ers. He averaged 23.0 ppg (sixth in the NBA), 12.6 rpg (sixth in the NBA), and 4.7 apg as the 76ers improved from 34-48 to 46-36 and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 1971.

After the ABA/NBA merger in 1976, the New York Nets sold Erving to the 76ers. Philadelphia General Manager Pat Williams had a "20-20-20" vision for the 76ers: he wanted Julius Erving, George McGinnis, and Doug Collins to each average around 20 ppg as opposed to having one player average 30 ppg while dominating the ball. Erving averaged 21.6 ppg, McGinnis averaged 21.4 ppg, and Collins averaged 18.3 ppg as the 76ers posted the Eastern Conference's best record (50-32) in 1976-77. Former MVPs Erving and McGinnis each made the All-NBA Second Team, and sacrificing individual glory for team success seemed to be working out wonderfully as the 76ers raced out to a 2-0 lead in the 1977 NBA Finals--but then Bill Walton's Portland Trail Blazers won four straight games to take the championship. McGinnis struggled mightily in the playoffs, but the 76ers' "20-20-20" vision seemed to be on target for the 1978 title after the 76ers again posted the best record in the Eastern Conference (55-27). However, the 76ers lost 4-2 to the eventual champion Washington Bullets (now known as the Washington Wizards) in the Eastern Conference Finals, and then they traded McGinnis to the Denver Nuggets for Bobby Jones. The 76ers lost in the NBA Finals in 1980 and 1982 before acquiring Moses Malone, the 1982 regular season MVP who teamed up with 1981 regular season MVP Erving to lead the 76ers to a dominant 1983 title run. 

Although conventional wisdom is that the 76ers had to get rid of McGinnis to win the title, Erving told me that he disagrees with that assessment: "Probably, if our team had stayed together, instead of being broken up, I think we would have won the title prior to '83. I think that we had the makings of a great team and we had a lot of parts. All the teams that we beat to get to the Finals before we lost to Portland should have spoken volumes."

When I interviewed McGinnis, I told him what Erving said, and I asked McGinnis about his memories of playing against and then playing with Erving. He replied, "Playing against him was a monster. He was absolutely incredible. He did things that make you go, 'Wow, did he really do that?' I never really appreciated how great he was until I actually got the opportunity to play with him for a couple years and I saw him do something different almost every night. He was just way ahead of his time. He was a tremendous guy, hell of a guy, class guy, but I strongly believe that our team would have won a championship, as he said, if they would have left it alone. But hey, that's sports, and they eventually won one in '83. I thoroughly enjoyed playing against him because, I can say this, I beat him more than he beat me (in the ABA)." McGinnis added that Erving "was kind of the straw that stirred the drink for our league" (borrowing the phrase that Reggie Jackson once used to describe his impact on the New York Yankees). It is true that McGinnis' Pacers went 16-14 versus Erving's teams (Virginia Squires, then New York Nets) from 1971-75, although Erving did not play in one of those losses. Per Statmuse, Erving's teams posted a 13-1 record versus McGinnis' teams in the NBA.

McGinnis averaged 22.6 ppg in his first season with Denver and he was selected as an All-Star for the final time, but his numbers declined in 1979-80 and the Nuggets traded him to Indiana, where McGinnis played until 1982 before retiring at just 31.

In 2017, McGinnis was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Here is how I summarized his Hall of Fame credentials at that time:

McGinnis' career and prime were both shorter than McGrady's but McGinnis was the only Hall of Fame eligible NBA or ABA regular season MVP who had not been inducted. McGinnis shared 1975 ABA regular season MVP honors with Julius Erving, who two seasons later joined forces with McGinnis to lead the Philadelphia 76ers to the NBA Finals. McGinnis played a key role for two Indiana ABA championship teams (1972, 1973), winning the ABA Playoff MVP in 1973. During the 1975 ABA playoffs, McGinnis averaged 32.3 ppg, 15.9 rpg and 8.2 apg while leading the Pacers to the Finals (their third Finals trip in McGinnis' four years with the franchise). McGinnis remains one of just four players who averaged 30 ppg, 7 rpg and 7 apg for an entire playoff season; pro basketball fans are on a first name basis with the other players: Oscar (who did it twice), Michael, LeBron (who has done it twice). Interestingly, all of those players won at least one championship but none of them won a title during his 30-7-7 postseason run.

McGinnis made the All-Star team six times--three in the ABA, three in the NBA--and at his peak he was as good as any player in either league. The one blemish on his resume is that he relied too much on his natural talent, so when his physical skills began to erode he did not adjust his game; he did not make the All-Star team after the age of 28 and by age 32 he was out of the league. Nevertheless, a player who is a key contributor for two championship teams (and two other Finalists) while winning a regular season MVP, a playoff MVP and a scoring title deserves Hall of Fame induction--not to mention the fact that he was also a dominant, record setting collegiate player.

During his Hall of Fame speech, McGinnis talked about how much fellow Hoosier Oscar Robertson was an inspiration for him, and he recalled posting 53 points and 30 rebounds in an Indiana-Kentucky high school all-star game, which was the last time his father saw him play before passing away. McGinnis called fellow Hall of Famer Rick Barry a "professor" because of his on-court wisdom, and he termed Coach Leonard a "father figure."

McGinnis is one of the most decorated and beloved players in the storied history of Indiana basketball--high school, college, and pro--and he played a modern-style game in the 1970s as a triple threat who scored, rebounded, and passed at an elite level. I hope that this tribute article brings back fond memories for readers who are old enough to remember McGinnis' career, and I hope that it is a source of information--and inspiration--for younger fans.

Labels: Bobby "Slick" Leonard, Denver Nuggets, George McGinnis, Indiana Pacers, Julius Erving, Mel Daniels, Philadelphia 76ers, Roger Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 1:51 AM

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My Second Appearance on Benbo's Podcast: The Chosen Game, Coaching Philosophies, MVP Criteria, Interviewing Techniques, and More

I recently made my second appearance on Benbo's podcast, hosted by Dr. James Ben Guest. Our wide-ranging conversation began with sharing our thoughts about Charley Rosen's book The Chosen Game, which describes the influence that Jewish players and coaches had on the development of basketball in the early 20th century. 

Then, we talked about many other subjects, including coaching philosophies (from Nat Holman to Red Holzman to Phil Jackson, with digressions about Larry Brown and Vince Lombardi), MVP selection criteria, and my experiences interviewing various players--including Green Bay's two-time Super Bowl champion safety Tom Brown (who also played outfield and first base for the Washington Senators), six-time NBA champion Scottie Pippen, and 1971 NBA champion Oscar Robertson. 

I compared my approach to interviews with the way that some media members slant their coverage based on a person's availability/affability; for example, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar declined to do an interview with me, but that did not change my opinion that he is one of the most underrated great players in pro basketball history.

I also discussed the importance of using one's platform and talents to maximum effect. I have used this website and other platforms to speak out about the NBA's disgraceful treatment of the "Pre-65ers" and also on behalf of underrated individuals such as Artis Gilmore, Mel Daniels, Roger Brown, and Slick Leonard, who each were eventually, belatedly inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I don't know how much influence my writing had on helping those ABA legends obtain the recognition that they deserve, but the point is that I used my voice to call attention to their greatness. It is disappointing that many people who have been blessed with large platforms/audiences squander the opportunity to, as the saying goes, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Here is the link to the podcast: Jews, Immigration, and Basketball.

Here is the link to my first appearance on Benbo's podcast: Interview with David Friedman: Great Sportswriting is Great Writing.

Labels: Artis Gilmore, Benbo, Charley Rosen, James Ben Guest, Larry Brown, Mel Daniels, Nat Holman, NBA, Phil Jackson, Red Holzman, Roger Brown, Scottie Pippen, Slick Leonard, Vince Lombardi

posted by David Friedman @ 7:40 PM

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Remembering Hall of Famer and NCAA/ABA Champion Bobby "Slick" Leonard

Bobby "Slick" Leonard, who coached the Indiana Pacers to three ABA titles (1970, 1972-73) and was finally inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014, passed away earlier today at the age of 88. Leonard earned Hall of Fame induction as a coach, but he had an accomplished playing career as well. He was a two-time All-American at Indiana University, and he made the game-winning free throw in Indiana's 69-68 1953 NCCA Championship Game victory over Kansas. Leonard averaged 9.9 ppg during his seven season NBA career. During his time with the Lakers, Leonard's teammates included  Jerry West, and the recently departed Elgin Baylor. 

I first met Leonard in 2004 when I was researching my article about Roger Brown, the Pacers' great forward who had won the 1970 ABA Playoff MVP after outdueling Rick Barry in the ABA Finals (Brown scored 53, 39, and 45 points in the last three games of that series). Brown had inexplicably and unjustly not yet been inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Leonard told me, "Roger Brown was a money player. Anytime the game was on the line, Roger was always there. Roger had tremendous ability--one of the greatest small forwards to ever play the game. I've seen everyone that came down the pike in the last 50 years--playing against them, coaching them or broadcasting them. Roger Brown deserves to be in the Hall of Fame."

It was fascinating and a joy to speak with Leonard, who could provide informed takes about players from the 1950s all the way through the 2000s. It was wonderful to hear Leonard's insights about five decades of basketball history as we had wide ranging conversations about Sam Jones, James "Captain Late" Silas, and the NBA's current stars. Right after the Detroit Pistons acquired Rasheed Wallace, Leonard told me during a one on one interview that the Pistons would win the 2004 title. In 2006, Leonard went against the grain, and did not list Steve Nash among his top MVP candidates. Leonard stated that Nash simply was not as good as Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant (Nash went on to win his second consecutive MVP, with Nowitkzi winning in 2007, Bryant winning in 2008, and James winning in 2009-10 and 2012-13).

Of course, we often talked about the many great players he coached with the Pacers, including Gus Johnson, the Hall of Famer who won his only championship ring as a key Pacers reserve in 1973. The Pacers were the Boston Celtics of the ABA, yet it was nearly 40 years after the ABA-NBA merger before Leonard and the key players from the Pacers' championship dynasty received Hall of Fame recognition. I tirelessly promoted the Hall of Fame candidacies of Brown (who was finally inducted in 2013) and two-time ABA regular season MVP Mel Daniels, who was finally inducted in 2012. Brown passed away in 1997 and I never met him, but I had the privilege of interviewing Daniels on several occasions. Daniels passed away in 2015. 

Leonard shared with me his memories of the"Interstate 65" rivalry that pitted Leonard's Pacers versus the Kentucky Colonels. The Pacers beat the Colonels in playoff series in 1969 (coming back from a 3-1 deficit), 1970, and 1973, with the latter matchup taking place in the ABA Finals (the Pacers switched to the Western Division for the 1971 season). The Colonels won the final two playoff matchups, defeating the Pacers in the 1975 ABA Finals and in a 1976 first round miniseries (after the ABA got rid of the division format in the league's final season).

During his Hall of Fame speech, Leonard proudly spoke about his time in the ABA: 

We had some great times in the ABA...They talk about the ABA like we were a minor league to the NBA. Well, I played in the NBA and that's not true. If you want to go back and look at the players we ended up with in the ABA before the merger, you're looking at Moses Malone, you're looking at the Iceman--George Gervin--you're looking at Dr. J--Julius Erving. I can go on, Dan Issel--by the time the merger came, and David (Stern) was there then, we had the players and they needed our players as bad as we needed them, 'cause we'd gone broke...I had a frontline with the Pacers--and I've seen them all, all the frontlines that have come down the pike in the last 60 years or so--with Mel Daniels in the middle, George McGinnis at one forward and Roger Brown at the other forward. Those guys could have competed against any frontline that I've seen. Those were great, fun days. I had that frontline and in the backcourt I had Freddie Lewis, Donnie Freeman, Billy Keller, Tommy Thacker. Backing up the guys up front I had Darnell Hillman and Bob Netolicky.

After Leonard's coaching career ended, he spent more than three decades as a broadcaster for the Pacers. In recent years, he suffered several health setbacks that prevented him from going to road games, but he still did radio commentary for the Pacers' home games. Leonard was the first inductee in the Indiana University Sports Hall of Fame, and he is also a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and the Indiana Sports Writers and Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Leonard's trademark "Boom baby!" call for a Pacers' three pointer is used in a current national advertising campaign featuring Reggie Miller, the Pacers' Hall of Fame guard who played for the team from 1987-2005.

Ted Green made the documentary "Undefeated: The Roger Brown Story" and he followed that with the documentary "Bobby 'Slick' Leonard: Heart of a Hoosier." I recommend both films for anyone who wants to learn more about two Hall of Famers who the Hall of Fame almost forgot.

One thing is certain: real basketball fans will never forget player/coach/broadcaster Bobby "Slick" Leonard.

Labels: Bobby "Slick" Leonard, Elgin Baylor, Gus Johnson, Indiana Pacers, James Silas, Jerry West, Kentucky Colonels, Mel Daniels, Roger Brown, Sam Jones

posted by David Friedman @ 9:57 PM

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Any "All-Time" Nets Team Must Include Julius Erving

Skimming through old basketball articles can be informative and entertaining, but sometimes it can be frustrating. The 2010-11 issue of Athlon Sports Pro Basketball included a five member All-Time Team for each NBA franchise. Each All-Time Team designated two guards, two forwards and one center. No criteria or commentary accompanied the selections, other than a brief Editor's Note highlighting that Shaquille O'Neal was not selected as the center for Orlando (Dwight Howard), the L.A. Lakers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) or the Miami Heat (Alonzo Mourning).

Athlon Sports previously published a solid if unspectacular reexamination of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List, but many of their All-Time Teams are ridiculous. In 2015, Mitch Lawrence selected a "Franchise Four" for 12 NBA franchises that made much more sense than Athlon Sports' All-Time Teams.

Athlon Sports' most egregious error was not choosing Julius Erving for the Nets' All-Time Team. Athlon Sports selected guards Jason Kidd and Vince Carter, forwards Buck Williams and Derrick Coleman, and center Billy Paultz. The inclusion of Paultz, whose Nets' career took place entirely during the franchise's ABA era, makes it clear that Athlon Sports' All-Time Teams are not limited to a franchise's NBA history. Coleman played five seasons for the Nets while Erving played three seasons for the Nets, but Erving had much more impact than Coleman not only on the franchise but also on the entire sport--the NBA's interest in acquiring Erving's talents was a major impetus for the ABA-NBA merger. Erving led the Nets to the franchise's only two league titles (1974, 1976) while winning three regular season MVPs (1974-76, sharing 1975 honors with George McGinnis), two Finals MVPs (1974, 1976), and two scoring titles (1974, 1976). Bill Russell (1961-63), Wilt Chamberlain (1966-68), and Larry Bird (1984-86) are the only pro basketball players other than Erving who won three consecutive regular season MVPs. In the 1976 ABA Finals--when Erving's Nets upset the league-leading Denver Nuggets--Erving had perhaps the best championship series ever, leading both teams in scoring (37.7 ppg), rebounding (14.2 rpg), assists (6.0 apg), steals (3.0 spg) and blocked shots (2.2 bpg).

Erving's omission alone is egregious enough to invalidate the entire project, but Athlon Sports made other mistakes as well. Athlon Sports' Indiana Pacers All-Time Team included Jermaine O'Neal instead of Hall of Famer Roger Brown. Brown won the 1970 ABA Finals MVP and he played for three Indiana championship teams. Brown's impact and legacy far exceed O'Neal's.

Athlon Sports' Portland Trail Blazers All-Time Team listed Sidney Wicks and Rasheed Wallace at forward, leaving out Maurice Lucas. Wicks put up gaudier statistics, but Lucas was a better all-around player, and he was a key contributor for Portland's 1977 championship team. Wallace played well for Detroit's 2004 championship team, but there is no question that Lucas had more impact than Wallace during their respective Portland careers.

Athlon Sports paired Allan Houston with Walt Frazier in the backcourt for the Knicks' All-Time Team. Houston had an excellent career with the Knicks, but I would choose Earl Monroe over him; Monroe played alongside Frazier on the Knicks' 1973 championship team and was selected as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players.

Although Spencer Haywood only played one season for Denver, he won the MVP, the Rookie of the Year, the scoring title, and the rebounding title! During Carmelo Anthony's seven-plus seasons with the franchise he did not accomplish any of those feats (he later won a scoring title with the Knicks), so I would choose Haywood's brilliant year over Anthony's solid seven years. 

Although Athlon Sports listed positional designations, some of their All-Time Teams stretched credulity: Athlon Sports' All-Time Team for Detroit put Ben Wallace at forward to make room for Bob Lanier at center. Similarly, Athlon Sports' Houston team shifted Moses Malone to forward to keep Hakeem Olajuwon at center, and Athlon Sports' San Antonio team placed George Gervin at forward even though he was consistently listed as a guard on All-Star and All-NBA teams throughout his career. If the positional designations were not meant to be strictly followed, then Shaquille O'Neal should have been the Heat's center with Alonzo Mourning listed as one of the Heat's forwards. Instead, Athlon Sports inexplicably moved Rony Seikaly from center to forward and left O'Neal off of the team.

Labels: Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, Earl Monroe, Indiana Pacers, Julius Erving, Maurice Lucas, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, New York Nets, Portland Trail Blazers, Roger Brown, Spencer Haywood

posted by David Friedman @ 5:59 PM

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Mike Storen Helped to Build the Indiana Pacers and the ABA

Mike Storen, who assembled the Indiana Pacers' first championship team in the ABA before serving as the league's Commissioner, passed away on Thursday at the age of 84. Younger sports fans may know more about his daughter, accomplished broadcaster Hannah Storm, than they do about him, but Storen had an impact not just on the ABA but also on several other sports. During his long career as a sports executive, he was affiliated with the Houston Astros (MLB), the World Football League, and the CBA (serving as Commissioner in 1987-88).

The Pacers were known as the Boston Celtics of the ABA after becoming the league's only three-time champions while appearing in the ABA Finals five times during the ABA's nine year run. Storen acquired Hall of Famers Mel Daniels and Roger Brown, he hired Hall of Fame Coach Bobby "Slick" Leonard, he helped choose the Pacers name, he designed the team's first logo, and he selected blue and gold as the team's colors. The Pacers won their first title in 1970 while Storen served as their General Manager, and the foundation pieces that he put in place were essential for the Pacers' title runs in 1972 and 1973. Storen briefly worked in the front office of the Kentucky Colonels before becoming the ABA's Commissioner in 1973. Storen then joined Isaac Hayes in the ownership group of the ABA's Memphis Sounds. The Sounds were sold after the 1974-75 season. Storen became the President and General Manager of the Atlanta Hawks in 1977.

Hall of Fame Coach Larry Brown, who was a three-time ABA All-Star (1968-70) and a three-time ABA Coach of the Year (1973, 1975-76), made a statement after Storen passed away: "For me and so many other guys that might not have had a chance to continue playing, his influence on the ABA just gave countless kids and coaches [an opportunity] to do something they love. And at the end of the day, when you consider the contributions some of those kids and coaches made in the NBA after the ABA was finished, its just remarkable. He just cared about the game and cared about the players in the league."

Labels: ABA, Hannah Storm, Indiana Pacers, Mel Daniels, Mike Storen, Roger Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 1:53 PM

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Mel Daniels, Cornerstone of the Pacers' ABA Dynasty Years, Leaves Behind a Rich Legacy

Basketball Hall of Famer, three-time ABA champion and two-time ABA regular season MVP Mel Daniels passed away on Friday at the age of 71. Daniels won the ABA's first Rookie of the Year award in 1968 after averaging 22.2 ppg and a league-leading 15.6 rpg as a member of the Minnesota Muskies but he made his lasting mark during his six All-Star seasons with the Indiana Pacers. Daniels joined the Pacers for the 1968-69 season and he transformed them from a sub.-.500 team to an ABA Finalist. The Pacers then went 59-25 in 1970-71 en route to the first of their league-best three championships. Daniels was a force to be reckoned with in the paint at both ends of the court, providing the mental and physical toughness that all championship teams must have.

Daniels led the ABA in rebounding three times (1968-69, 71). He is the ABA's regular season career rebounding leader (9494) and he ranks sixth in pro basketball history with a regular season rebounding average of 14.9 rpg, trailing only Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Bob Pettit, Jerry Lucas and Nate Thurmond. Daniels also ranks sixth in pro basketball history in playoff rpg average (14.8 rpg), behind Russell, Chamberlain, Wes Unseld, Pettit and Walt Bellamy.

It is considered a big deal nowadays when a player averages 20 ppg and 10 rpg in the same season; Daniels was nearly a 20-16 player during his six Pacer seasons, averaging 19.4 ppg and 16.0 rpg with Indiana from 1969-74. Daniels clearly deserved to be a Hall of Famer years before Jerry Colangelo finally pointed the Basketball Hall of Fame in the right direction regarding the ABA and I was so happy when he received the long overdue Hall of Fame call but Daniels always deflected talk about his own great career so that he could shine some light on his teammates.

Daniels provided one of my favorite quotes about the inimitable Roger Brown, who Daniels played with on each of those Indiana championship teams: "Those who did not see Roger Brown or didn't know him, missed a treat. He was so good one-on-one that I remember defenders actually screaming for help. He actually dislocated or broke eight guys' ankles (with a) crossover dribble move. He would look at you and put the ball down and look at you again and if you made a move, he would react opposite to that move and get to the basket. Sometimes it was so easy for him, he would laugh at people and miss the layup because he was laughing."

As you can tell from reading that vivid description of Brown's playing style, Daniels had a way with words; he wrote over 20,000 poems. Daniels' favorite poet, Edgar Allan Poe, is also my favorite poet. I was very excited when I first had the opportunity to speak with Daniels more than a decade ago and learn about his perspective on basketball. When I initially contacted Daniels to discuss the ABA in general and Roger Brown in particular, I had not been a credentialed sportswriter for very long but he did a lengthy phone interview with me. He also was generous with his time one on one, face to face on multiple occasions. I miss being able to pick his brain about players old and new. I have always admired Daniels' no-nonsense approach. He spoke the truth, whether or not that made anyone uncomfortable. You never had to wonder where you stood with Mel Daniels. He looked you in the eye, gave you the firmest handshake you will ever feel in your life and he told you how things are.

Rest in peace, Big Mel, and thank you for taking the time to share your stories with me when I was just getting started in this business.

Labels: ABA, Indiana Pacers, Mel Daniels, Roger Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 3:13 AM

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Roger Brown: Ankle Breaker and Shot Maker

Note: This article was originally published on December 27, 2004 at HoopsHype.com but the link no longer works, so I have reprinted the article in its entirety below. Nine years after I wrote this piece, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame finally inducted Roger Brown.

Roger Brown overcame unjust banishments from the NCAA and the NBA to lead the ABA's Indiana Pacers to three championships. Brown's peerless skills and amazing ability to deliver in the clutch inspired basketball legends Julius Erving and George Gervin during the early days of their careers.

Brown starred at Brooklyn's Wingate High. In 1959 he outscored Connie Hawkins 39-18 in the New York City Championship game at Madison Square Garden, but Hawkins' Boys High prevailed 62-59. Brown signed with the University of Dayton Flyers, but he never played college basketball. He and Hawkins were falsely implicated for being involved with Jack Molinas, a former college basketball star turned mobster who paid players to shave points. Hawkins and Brown were banned by the NCAA and the NBA.

Hawkins played in the short lived American Basketball League and then spent several years touring with the Harlem Globetrotters before leading the Pittsburgh Pipers to the championship in the ABA's first season (1967-68). He later reached a settlement agreement with the NBA and became an All-Star with the Phoenix Suns. In 1992 Hawkins was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Brown's life took a different path. He worked in a General Motors plant in Dayton for five years, declining an opportunity to join the ABL because he could make more money working for GM. This proved to be a wise decision when the league folded during its second season.

In 1967 Brown signed with the ABA's Indiana Pacers, realizing that this might be his last opportunity in professional basketball. Most players who do not play college basketball struggle during their first professional seasons--even All-Stars like Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Dirk Nowitzki. Brown jumped from high school basketball to professional basketball without missing a beat, averaging 19.6 ppg and making the All-Star team as a rookie despite playing only AAU ball after his prep days.

Pacers' broadcaster Bobby "Slick" Leonard coached the team from 1968 until 1980: "Roger Brown was a money player. Anytime the game was on the line, Roger was always there. Roger had tremendous ability--one of the greatest small forwards to ever play the game. I've seen everyone that came down the pike in the last 50 years--playing against them, coaching them or broadcasting them. Roger Brown deserves to be in the Hall of Fame."

Leonard used an isolation play that took advantage of Brown's one-on-one skills as well as his passing ability: "We gave him the ball, isolated him and put all four players above the free throw line on the other side of the floor. If they came with a double team, we just cut the man whose defender left toward the basket and he would get a layup." If the opponent tried to guard Brown one-on-one, things got ugly. Leonard remembers, "He had some unbelievable moves. I've seen guys who were guarding him fall down. He had reverse dribbles and stuff. Matter of fact, one time when Larry Bird was younger he was working out with Roger over at Butler Fieldhouse and he wanted Roger to teach him that baseline move that Roger had. He could paralyze you."

Roger Brown enjoyed his greatest season in 1969-70, winning the Playoff MVP after averaging 28.5 ppg, 10.1 rpg and 5.6 apg in the postseason. In the last three games of the ABA Finals versus the Los Angeles Stars, Brown carried the Pacers to their first title, scoring 53, 39 and 45 points, including an ABA Finals single game record seven three pointers. Brown did all this while being guarded by the Stars' Willie Wise, who Erving has frequently mentioned as one of the players who guarded him toughest. Hall of Famer Rick Barry says of Wise, "He was one of the best defensive players that I ever played against."

Like Connie Hawkins, Roger Brown sued the NBA and received an out of court monetary settlement. Brown could have jumped to the more established league--but that never crossed his mind: "I want to clear my name. I have no intention of jumping." Brown felt tremendous loyalty to the team and to the Indianapolis community. In fact, while he was still an active player he was elected to a seat on the Indianapolis City Council.

The Pacers won their second ABA title in 1972 when Brown outscored Barry, then a member of the New York Nets, 32-23 in the sixth game of the ABA Finals. Barry says, "Roger was an outstanding player. He certainly had a terrific basketball career and probably is one of the more underrated guys that most people don't know a whole lot about. He is not really given the recognition that he deserves for the career that he had." He continues, "I sent something in when they asked me to do it when they were trying to get some support for him for the Hall of Fame because, based upon the other people who are in the Hall of Fame, I certainly feel that he is deserving of it based upon his skill level."

Mel Daniels played center for those Pacer teams. Daniels, who won two ABA regular season MVPs and ranks among the top dozen postseason rebounders in pro basketball history (1608 playoff rebounds, 14.8 rpg), declares, "Those who did not see Roger Brown or didn't know him, missed a treat. He was so good one-on-one that I remember defenders actually screaming for help. He actually dislocated or broke eight guys' ankles (with a) crossover dribble move. He would look at you and put the ball down and look at you again and if you made a move, he would react opposite to that move and get to the basket. Sometimes it was so easy for him, he would laugh at people and miss the layup because he was laughing."

Darnell Hillman was an outstanding shot blocker for the Pacers and he offers a similar description of Brown's devastating offensive arsenal: "As clever and quick as he was, Roger had the uncanny ability to make you sometimes turn around in circles and he hasn't even left his spot. You think, 'I've lost him, I've got to find him and recover,' and he hasn't even left his spot. He'd laugh about it." Hillman notes, "In three years of playing Roger I only beat him twice. I played Roger every day, either before or after practice. (At first) I leaned too much on my jumping ability, rather than the technique and art of playing position defense. Playing against him taught me how to stay on the floor and learn the different tricks. One of the things that Roger taught me was that if you are guarding an offensive player, most guys give away when they are going to shoot the basketball--watch a guy's left hand. When he is getting ready to shoot the basketball it's got to come to the ball on the right hand--then you want to close up. When he taught me that it improved my ability to close out on guys and really change their shots."

Before he won four NBA scoring titles, a young Gervin learned a lot from playing against Brown: "He probably had one of the best first steps in basketball. You've really got to understand basketball to know what I'm saying when I say 'first step.' Matter of fact, I learned that from him when I played against Roger Brown--that first step. He used to pivot and make you move and he isn't going anywhere. It was probably one of the best moves that I picked up and when I went to the guard spot it really helped to take my game to the next level."

Gervin wishes that today's players emulated Brown's game: "What guys don't realize today is that first step is everything because if I can get the first step on you then you will never catch me--and if you do catch me then all I have to do is fake and you will go for the fake because you are trying to catch up--you are in a recovery situation. That's where Roger was good. He forced you into a recovery situation all the time, so you had to go for his fakes." Gervin contrasts Brown's use of the first step with the way that many current players set up their moves: "Dribbling that ball five, six, seven, eight seconds is a travesty. What are the other four guys doing--standing there watching? A lot of the guys pound the ball today, but we used to move the ball around and when we got it we took that first step and made something happen. So we (retired legends) hope and pray that the guys understand that you really need to give the ball up. If you're not going to make your move, give it up, go back and get it. Don't just stand there and pound it."

Erving praises Brown's well rounded skills: "Roger handled the ball and moved a lot like Scottie Pippen in his prime. Scottie could handle the ball and run a team. Roger was a much better shooter than Scottie and a prolific scorer who could get his points in bunches. At that time I was 21 and he was probably 31, 32. His depth of knowledge made him someone I wanted to watch and also watch out for. I was just running and jumping and trying to jump over people and (it helped) just to see what he was doing on the ground, knowing that he was a great jumper in his day but by that time he had channeled his energies to be a complete player, be a team player and win championships. So he was already at a place that I was trying to get to."

Brown's body began to break down during the 1972-73 season and he spent part of the 1973 ABA Finals in traction because of a back injury. He was never again the same player, retiring two years later. Brown never averaged 25 ppg in the regular season, but he played on well balanced teams that had several potent scoring threats. Look at Tracy McGrady's numbers when he won scoring titles in ’03 (32.1 ppg) and ’04 (28.0 ppg) compared to this year (23.1 ppg as of December 25). Does his decline in scoring indicate that his skills have eroded or that his role has changed? Brown's ability to score at will in the clutch suggests that he could have put up bigger regular season numbers if the Pacers had needed him to do so. Hall of Fame voters should consider a player's overall impact, not just raw statistics.

Brown died of liver cancer in 1997. Erving eloquently summarizes Roger Brown's legacy: "When I first got into the ABA, Roger Brown and the Indiana Pacers were the best franchise in the league. They had the guys with the biggest reputations, they had big game players in terms of clutch play--but Roger Brown was the go-to guy and when you are the go-to guy on a team with Darnell Hillman, George McGinnis, Bob Netolicky, Mel Daniels, you are talking about a pretty special player. His reputation coming up paralleled the achievements of Connie Hawkins, including the negative experience of being blackballed from the NBA. Then, he played with the Pacers and led them to titles, in addition to being head and shoulders above others as a citizen, running for political office and winning. It's a great basketball story. He contributed in more ways that just basketball but his basketball contributions are far from being insignificant and they are enough to warrant him being in the Hall."

Labels: Bobby "Slick" Leonard, Connie Hawkins, Darnell Hillman, George Gervin, Indiana Pacers, Julius Erving, Mel Daniels, Rick Barry, Roger Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 5:57 AM

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