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ABA Trivia Question. Do you know the answer?
SanctionII
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in Sports Talk
What ABA team has had the highest profit margin since the merger of the NBA and ABA took effect in the 1976-77 season?
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SanctionII
Posts: 11,731 ✭✭✭✭✭
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Nets?
Flint Tropics?
The real winners in the ABA/NBA merger.
<< <i>I'd say the Spirits of St Louis, since they had no expenses and receive cuts from all of the other teams. >>
what he said
The owners of that club agreed to go out of business in return for a yearly payment from the other teams (probably the four ABA Franchises that joined the NBA [Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, New Jersey Nets, and Indiana Pacers] instead of all teams in the NBA).
To this day the owners of the Spirits get checks every year, for the past 34 years. I do not know how long the payments will continue in the future and I do not know how much has been paid each year for the past 34 years. I bet the checks are getting bigger every year. Talk about a great business decision, though I understand that the yearly payment clause in the contractual paperwork was not a major point of discussion and sort of slipped in unnoticed. Whoever came up with this contract term and successfully inserted it into the contract document for the owners of the Spirits should be getting a yearly tip from the owners [or at least a heck of a big Christmas Card and Christmas Gift every year].
A little Spirit trivia is that one of its players, Marvin, "Bad News" Barnes, was the Latrell "Choke And Threaten To Kill" Sprewell of the 1970's.
He was crazy and one day got mad at a teammate in practice. He threatened the teammate, left practice and returned a short time later with a tire iron intent on carrying out his threat to his teammate. But for other players on the team intervening and disarming him, he would have carried out his threat. He also, like Gilbert Arenas, packed heat.
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Here is some ABA history I can tell you.
In Denver in December, 1974 I attended a Denver Rockets v. Utah Stars game. I was on Xmas vacation from my freshmen year in college.
Moses Malone played for Utah. He did not start the game and was put in the game with a 2-3 minutes to go in the first half. He played most of the second half. He had 35 points and 23 rebounds in a little over one half of the game. An 18-19 year old kid who just dominated. David Thompson (later known as Luke Skywalker) had a very nice game for the Denver Rockets also.