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Are there any folks who are starting to believe professional basketball is (sort of) a spring sport? I’d rather share thoughts about pro basketball in June anyway than any other sport (except for anything big happening int eh NFL).
My NBA thoughts, thought, start with a misnomer I’ve discussed on this platform in the past: delayed NBA championship game telecasts, and not the determination of whether pro basketball is a winter or spring sport.
While the late 70s/early 80s were a time period during CBS’s sole network broadcast hold on NBA regular season and playoff games, I was right about the fact the network was uncomfortable televising NBA games during certain days of the week affecting their popular series such as Dallas, Knott’s Landing, and Barnaby Jones (to name a few).
The misnomer, on my part, was inaccurately recalling the 1977 NBA finals - the first season following the ABA-American Basketball Association (ABA) merger – had a delayed telecast. It did not. Each game broadcast after the local late newscast was because it was played in Portland.
The NBA on CBS, the name of the show behind NBA television coverage did, however, tape delay some regular season games.
I also believed, solely from recall, the network stopped delaying broadcasts after the 1980 NBA finals featuring the L.A. Lakers (with Magic Johnson in his rookie season), and Julius “Dr. J” Erving’s Philadelphia 76ers.
Wrong again.
The more accurate information regarding tape delayed NBA finals games on CBS includes one NBA title game in 1978 (Seattle Supersonics – now the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Washington Bullets – now the Wizards). There were also two more tape delays in the 1979 finals featuring these two teams, and in 1982 when the Lakers and Sixers met once again for another title clash.
Nonetheless, my point when I discussed this issue in articles past was how the NBA has come a long way as a television program and has influenced a global fascination with basketball. What other pro sports league – even the NHL – was delaying title game broadcasts.
Here we are in the present with the Indiana Pacers clinching game 1 of the NBA finals with a clutch jumper to begin what I hope is the journey toward an NBA championship.
A Pacers title would mean three of the four teams who joined the NBA from the ABA (defunct after the 1975-1976 season) now have NBA titles. The San Antonio Spurs picked up five in the early part of this century, and the Denver Nuggets won the 2023 title.
This would leave the Brooklyn Nets as the only former ABA team without a title. The Nets, who were the ABA champs in the league’s final season, were led by the aforementioned Dr. J, and had a solid team that had to be dismantled in order for the New York Nets (their location at the time was Nassau County on Long Island) to cover their entrance costs into the NBA.
While the Nets have appeared in the NBA finals, they have yet to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy (named for the NBA commissioner who facilitated the NBA-ABA merger). Even with the possibility of the Boston Celtics unloading some of its core players, the Nets are too far down the ladder to see a chance for another shot at the title with teams like Indiana, Cleveland, and New York set to retain most of their talent.
I always rooted for the ABA teams to succeed as soon as they joined the NBA, and I pull for them each time one of the teams reaches the finals. This year’s finals have some local color, and I title in Indianapolis for any sport since the Colts won the Super Bowl would be welcome.
One wish I had was that – instead of the Nets who I did not realize were so broke – the Kentucky Colonels had been the fourth merger team.
The Colonels were led by colorful and brilliant coach Hubie Brown (who would shine in Atlanta and New York in future years) and an on-court cast of talent including Artis Gilmore (who ties Indiana’s Darnell “Dr. Dunk” Hillman for most awesome 1970s afro), Maurice Lucas (immediately impacted Portland’s turnaround season in the first post-merger season for ’76-’77 champion Portland). Caldwell Jones (who ended up on the runner-up 76ers in that same post-merger season) and Louie Dampier.
We now must look to June high school clashes between Indiana and Kentucky All-Stars, and occasional IU-Kentucky regular season non-conference clashes to get our fix for what seems to be a natural and very interesting state rivalry that would have been fun to watch if it were carried up to the professional level.
The Colonels’ owner, John Y. Brown, who was wealthy enough to pay the $3 million required to join the NBA but opted to receive $3 million from the senior league that he used in turn to purchase the Buffalo Braves, then trade them for ownership of the Boston Celtics.
The Chicago Bulls, who had original draft rights to Colonels’ star center Artis Gilmore, put on the full-court press to keep Kentucky out of the league so they could lay claim on their coveted big man. The Bulls – who earned the worst record in the 1975-1976 NBA season – had the first pick of the ABA dispersal draft.
Convenient.
Another factor keeping the Colonels out of the NBA, despite fielding an incredibly talented roster and a loyal fan base, was the senior league’s lack of interest in an Ohio Valley location for professional sports.
The NBA, instead, preferred Indianapolis’s market size, so we have in the present day on our TV sets this NBA season, an opportunity to see the Pacers aim for a title, and distinction of the third NBA-ABA merger team to have a trophy in their case to accompany nearly a handful of ABA trophies from the early 1970s.
