For some modern basketball fans, the American Basketball Association (ABA) is a lost relic of basketball history, mostly remembered by the iconic red, white and blue basketball. Yet the ABA was so much more. It was a high-flying, energetic, and cutting edge basketball league that gave birth to the three-pointer and dunk contest. Hall of Famers like George Gervin, Rick Barry, and Moses Malone brought a high-level of confidence and swagger to the upstart league that eventually merged with the NBA in 1976.
Timed to the 50th anniversary of the merger, Amazon Prime Video’s docuseries Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association, which is now streaming, chronicles the league’s impact and legacy. Prior to the release of the series, SPORT attended the New York City red carpet premiere and naturally we brought one of our favorite covers out of the archive, from March 1975, featuring New York Nets superstar Julius Erving. It was a conversation starter for Dr. J.
“Life was great. I’d just been traded to the New York Nets when we did this photoshoot,” Erving told SPORT, holding the print issue in hand and reflecting on the photo shoot during our interview. “When it came out, it got a lot of publicity. My friends were excited about it, my family was excited about it, and my teammates were excited whenever someone from the ABA got publicity and this was definitely publicity.”
In the 1975 SPORT cover feature, titled “A Day With The Doctor,” written by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York sports columnist Jimmy Breslin, Doctor’s budding stardom is juxtaposed against basketball purgatory amongst small but fervent crowds, mostly of a younger generation of suburban fan, on Long Island.
“He belongs with the great sports crowds because he is, Julius Erving, the best basketball player alive at this time, and perhaps the best basketball player of his size ever to be alive,” Breslin comments. “He belongs in a city, he belongs to the ages of sports. And here he was getting a half-cheer from a half-crowd in White America.”
Before Erving ascended to new heights in New York, he gained valuable experience as a young player getting his start with the Virginia Squires. “For me, going to the Virginia Squires, I wasn’t even the best player on the team,” Erving recalls. “Charlie Scott was the best player on the team. Ray Scott was the veteran that had already proven himself, so I just wanted to blend in and those guys took me under their wing and those guys showed me the dos and don’ts of being a great pro.”
At the red carpet, Erving was joined by fellow ABA player and Hall of Fame NBA Coach George Karl, and broadcasting legend Bob Costas, whose career started in the ABA calling play-by-play for the Spirits of St. Louis on KMOX Radio from 1974 to 1976.
Reflecting on his time calling games in the ABA, Costas told SPORT, “Marvin Barnes and the Spirits of St. Louis exemplified everything that was crazy, and in its own way wonderful about the ABA. It was a wild ride, no question about it.”
A common theme that presented itself throughout our conversation with Erving is that the Soul Power docuseries is not a self-serving mission to promote his legacy in the ABA, but the legacy of players and coaches that didn’t get the shine they deserved back then. When asked if there were any players that he wished got more attention back then, Erving referenced five-time ABA All-Star Mack Calvin, and two-time All-Star and 1972-1973 Rookie of the Year Brian Taylor as players that deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
Speaking on what he hopes current NBA fans take away from Soul Power, Erving says, “I don’t want them to sulk too much because of what they can’t see live because the ABA isn’t around anymore, so that opportunity isn’t there. The opportunity is to look, learn, and hopefully expand your knowledge. It will be a period of growth and addition to what they already know”
In many ways, the ABA was ahead of its time, especially the development of the three-point shot, which is ever-present in modern basketball. During the 1969-1970 ABA season, each team averaged 6.3 three-point attempts and Louie Dampier himself attempted 6.7 threes per game. It took until 1990 for an NBA player to average more than 6.7 threes per game.
Director Kenan Kamwana Holley (Left), Julius Erving (Center), and George Karl (Right) at the Soul Power The Legend of the American Basketball Association premiere at Regal Union Square in New York. Credit: Prime Video
Soul Power director Kenan Kamwana Holley says during the process of directing the docuseries, he was surprised to learn the ABA would regularly beat the NBA in interleague games. According to Remember The ABA, over the last three seasons of exhibitions between the leagues, the ABA went 15-10 in 1973, 16-7 in 1974, and 31-17 in 1975 and the ABA won the overall interleague rivalry, 79 games to 76.
When asked what the title “Soul Power” means to him, Holley chalked it up to an underdog story.
“It is the power of your soul versus the powers that be,” he says. “These guys were up against so much with the NBA. They were up against so many walls that should not have been able to be hopped over and they did it. They did it because they had unique individual expressionism in the way they played and they had each other. They were very tightly linked when it came to how they handled each other.”
It’s very rare in today’s world that freedom of individual expressionism is paired with a communal love and respect for a common goal. The ABA is a beautiful story of teamwork, triumph, and togetherness that leads to a lasting legacy being told through Soul Power.