How Good Was the ABA? — Part 2

This is the second half of a series comparing the American Basketball Association (ABA) to the NBA. Part one compared the ABA, in its first two seasons (1967-68 and 1968-69), to the NBA. This post compares the ABA in its last few years to the post-merger NBA.

The ABA's final game was Game 6 of the 1976 Finals, in which the New York Nets defeated the Denver Nuggets. Before the start of the next season, the Nets, Nuggets, Pacers, and Spurs all joined the NBA, and the other ABA teams folded. Before we look at individual players, let's check out the ABA's teams.

Teams

New Jersey Nets

The pre-merger and post-merger Nets are hard to compare because they lost Dr. J. Julius Erving led the team to ABA championships in 1974 and 1976, but the team sold him in exchange for New York territorial rights following the merger. Let's use an Erving-centric scope for this:

Here's what I see: the Nets went 30-54 in 1973, then got Dr. J and won 56 games a year. Then they lost the Doctor and dropped to a 22-24-win team. It looks like increased competition in the NBA cost them a couple of wins, but the big factor is Erving. We'll discuss him in more detail below, but first, let's look at the other teams.

Denver Nuggets

In the first season after the merger, the Nuggets, led by All-Stars David Thompson, Bobby Jones, and Dan Issel, won the Midwest Division and tied for the second-best record in the NBA. The following season, Denver had the second-best record in the West and advanced to the Western Finals. After that, Jones got traded and Thompson started to have health issues. They were good again in '79, then down for a couple of seasons before rebuilding with Alex English.

The Nuggets were one of the best teams in the ABA before the merger, and they were one of the best teams in the NBA after the merger.

Indiana Pacers

An ABA powerhouse in the early '70s, winning titles in 1970, '72, and '73, the Pacers gradually declined as stars like Roger Brown and Mel Daniels got old. In the ABA's final season, Indiana went 39-45 and lost in the first round of the playoffs. They continued to decline after the merger, winning 36 games in '77 and 31 in '78.

I don't see any damning evidence that they collapsed when they had to face NBA competition. They just continued to drop off a little bit from their championship peak.

San Antonio Spurs

The Spurs were pretty even-keel in the mid and late 1970s.

There's a small dip in their first year as part of the NBA, but that could easily be random variation, as could their jump in '78. I tend to think that the Spurs were just a .600-ish team throughout the late '70s, in either league. The '78 Spurs won the Central division and had the second-best record in the East.

Conclusion

The ABA teams that joined the NBA didn't fall apart in the face of stronger competition. The Nuggets and Spurs were among the best teams in the NBA in the late '70s. The Pacers were a below-average team, but they hadn't been tearing things up in the ABA's final seasons, either. The Nets were the worst team in the NBA, but that probably had more to do with losing their best player — a transcendent talent with a GOAT argument — than with the transition to a more challenging league.

Based on the success of the ABA teams that joined the senior league, it is obvious that the ABA in its later years was a major league, and probably pretty close to the NBA in quality.

Players

1977

ABA stars immediately tore up the NBA. In 1977, the first season after the ABA folded, the 10-player All-NBA team included four ABA veterans: Julius Erving, George Gervin, George McGinnis, and David Thompson.

But that actually undersells the ABA. Five ABA veterans ranked among the top 10 in NBA MVP voting: Erving, Moses Malone, Thompson, Maurice Lucas, and Artis Gilmore.

The ABA also produced All Stars Rick Barry, Dan Issel, Bobby Jones, and Billy Knight. Barry, in his 12th professional season, averaged 22 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals, and shot 92% on free throws. Issel averaged 22 points and 9 rebounds and was among the league leaders in true shooting percentage. Jones had an even higher shooting percentage, and was among the league leaders in both steals and blocks. He was named first-team All-Defensive and would have been a serious DPOY contender if the award had existed. Knight was 2nd in the NBA in points per game (26.6) and averaged more than 7 rebounds as a small forward.

That doesn't even include Pacers guard Don Buse, who led the NBA in assists and steals and made first-team All-Defensive. It doesn't include Spurs forward Larry Kenon, who averaged a 20-point double-double and more than two steals per game. It doesn't include Bucks center Swen Nater, who led the NBA in rebounds per minute. The ABA had a lot of major contributors.

1978

In the second season after the merger, players with ABA experience were even more dominant. Three of the five first-team All-NBA players were ABA vets: Erving, Gervin, and Thompson. They were joined by second-team All-NBA Maurice Lucas. Gervin finished 2nd in MVP voting, and Thompson finished 3rd. They were joined in the top 10 by Lucas, Gilmore, and Erving.

So for the second year in a row, five of the top 10 in NBA MVP voting are players who came over from the ABA. The ABA was a smaller league than the NBA! It accounts for under 50% of NBA rosters, but half of all MVP candidates! This was, by 1975 and '76, a potent and important league.

Barry, Erving, Gervin, Gilmore, Jones, Lucas, Kenon, Knight, Malone, and Thompson were All-Stars. Buse, Jones, and Lucas were all first-team All-Defensive. Gervin led the NBA in points and points per game. Jones led in field goal percentage. Barry led in free throw percentage. Malone led in every offensive rebounding statistic.

ABA players significantly boosted the quality of play in the NBA in the late 1970s, and many were among the league's most successful and most celebrated players.

Later years

ABA vets finished one-two in MVP voting in 1979, with Moses Malone winning and George Gervin the runner-up. In 1980, Julius Erving and Gervin were both top-three in MVP voting, and Indiana's Dan Roundfield joined the list of former ABA players to make an All-NBA team. Roundfield only averaged 15 points, but with almost 11 rebounds, and he was one of the best defensive players in basketball. He eventually made five All-Defensive teams, and probably deserved more.

In 1981, three of the top five in MVP voting had ABA experience. Erving won, with Malone and Gervin also in the top five. As late as 1982 — six seasons after the dissolution of the ABA — three of the five first-team All-NBA selections were players with ABA experience (Erving, Gervin, and Malone again).

Conclusion

Thinking about the best NBA players of the late '70s, about half of them had ABA experience, including multiple NBA MVPs. ABA veterans made numerous All-Star, All-NBA, and All-Defensive teams, and led the post-merger league, at various times, in almost every important statistical category. Without addressing issues of depth, it seems clear that the ABA in its final years offered just as much top-line talent as the senior league. The ABA not only had substantial major league talent, it had substantial All-Star and even MVP level talent.

Individual Players

Let's take a closer look at some of the most successful NBA players who also played in the ABA: Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Bobby Jones, George McGinnis, George Gervin, Rick Barry, Zelmo Beaty, Billy Cunningham, Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel, David Thompson, Connie Hawkins, and Spencer Haywood.

Julius Erving
Small forward
ABA experience: five seasons (1972-76)

Dr. J is the ABA's crown jewel, the player everyone cites who succeeded in both leagues. He made 11 NBA All-Star games and 7 All-NBA teams (including 5 first-team selections), and he was top-10 in MVP voting 8 times, including 5 top-fives, 3 top-threes, and an NBA MVP award in 1981.

However, Erving is also sometimes used as an argument against the ABA, because his statistical production dropped off in the first few years after the merger. This point is generally conceded even by Erving's advocates and by ABA fans, but I'm not sure how valid it is.

On the surface, it is certainly true. During his three years with the Nets (1974-76), Erving's averages were substantially higher than his first three years with the 76ers (1977-79):

His stats with Philadelphia are still very good, but clearly a step down from his production in the ABA's final seasons. There are two major factors, though, that are seldom discussed — actually, one of them I've never seen commented on:

1. Switching not only leagues, but teams
2. The three-point line

The Sixers were a very good team — they made the Finals in '77, Erving's first year with the franchise — but the roster composition obscured some of Erving's talents. The team's other superstar was power forward George McGinnis (a fellow ABA vet). In '77, McGinnis averaged 21 ppg with 12 rpg and was second-team All-NBA. But Erving and McGinnis were similar players who wanted to occupy near-identical roles on the team, so neither was able to maximize his talents. Erving's scoring and rebounding averages dropped by about a third, because the team's second-best player was hanging out in the same spots as Erving. The Sixers also featured a pair of shoot-first guards who each averaged 30 minutes a game. No one on the team averaged 5 assists per game.

I think it is extremely probable that some of Erving's statistical decline was due to a significantly suboptimal team composition, rather than to a more challenging league environment in the NBA.

But here's the other thing, the one I've never seen commented on. The NBA instituted the three-point line beginning in the 1979-80 season. And Erving's box stats from 1980-82 are fantastic. Let's add this to the chart:

That's still not quite his ABA peak, but Erving was 29-32 years old by this time. His shooting efficiency is higher than it was in the offense-oriented ABA. It's not really true that Erving was significantly less productive in the NBA than the ABA. He was significantly less productive in the three years the NBA didn't have a three-point line, and as soon as it put in a three-point shot, he immediately returned to MVP level. The ABA, as you probably know, always had a three-point line.

Here's my theory: the spacing created by the three-point arc led to more opportunities for Dr. J, even though he wasn't a big three-point shooter himself. When he switched to the NBA, there was no three-point line, and he was crowding the lane with McGinnis and Steve Mix and Caldwell Jones, and there just wasn't room for the Doctor to operate.

But then McGinnis gets traded for Bobby Jones, World B. Free goes to the Clippers, the Sixers draft Mo Cheeks, and the NBA establishes a three-point line — and you've once again got an MVP-caliber player. Erving was 2nd in MVP voting in 1980, 1st in '81, 3rd in '82, 5th in '83, 6th in '84. He didn't fall apart in the NBA, or anything close to it: he was still a perennial MVP contender, and rightfully so. His stats clearly dipped in the late '70s, but:

1. The same thing didn't apply to other ABA stars, so it's weird and misleading to use only Dr. J's stats and apply them to the whole league
2. There are other, probably more important reasons for his statistical decline, besides the quality of competition
3. He's one of the five really elite players of the early '80s (along with Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird), so whatever decline he experienced was clearly temporary, and probably better accounted for by transitory factors like team composition and the absence of the three-point line

It is definitely true that Erving's stats declined when he initially joined the NBA, but the idea that his decline was primarily because of the caliber of competition, I think is pretty easily debunked. Upon scrutiny, I just don't think it holds up at all.

Moses Malone
Center
ABA experience: two seasons (1975-76)