ABA Numbers Paint a Very Different Picture

Basketball Digest, May, 2001 by David Friedman

DR. J., JULIUS ERVING. RICK Barry. George Gervin, the Iceman. David Thompson. Artis Gilmore. That's a formidable starting five, but there is one way to contain it. Each player spent time in the ABA--and the NBA has put the ultimate defensive clamps on them by acting as if the ABA never existed.

The Official NBA Encyclopedia is more than 900 pages long, with a mere 18 pages dedicated to the ABA. Don't forget, the NBA voted to merge with the ABA in June 1970, with Oscar Robertson's legal action against the NBA, not ABA game action, delaying the merger some six years. And when leagues merge, stats and histories should merge.

Sure, the NBA considers the Doctor one of its scoring leaders, but 11 years (1977-87) and 18,364 points in 836 games (22.0 ppg) does not encompass Erving's career. How do you stop a guy who averages 28.7 points per game? Act as though he never did. Erving's career began in the ABA in 1971, not the NBA in 1976. In his first five years, Erving scored 11,662 points in 407 games (28.7 ppg), but the NBA pretends that those numbers don't count. The same holds true for Barry, Gervin, and the rest.

Dr. J's first five seasons and those of other ABA greats are found only in alternate record books such as The Sporting News NBA Guide. Even then, the numbers aren't "official," but exiled into lists with titles like, "Combined NBA/ABA Career Scoring." Because those combined numbers aren't acknowledged by the NBA, they're almost always ignored in discussions of basketball history.

Karl Malone's climb toward the top of the career scoring list has been well documented. Last year, Malone passed Michael Jordan, and he recently topped Wilt Chamberlain, accomplishments that were justifiably celebrated. What wasn't mentioned is that Erving and Moses Malone should appear between Jordan and Chamberlain on the career scoring list (Moses's first two pro seasons disappear just as Erving's first five years do, so Karl "officially" passed Moses during the 1997-98 season).

What's even worse are the media guides of the four former ABA teams, the New Jersey (then New York) Nets, Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, and San Antonio Spurs. These teams, which have every right to be proud of their ABA heritage and even overstate the importance of their ABA years, instead act as if pre-merger franchise records hardly exist.

This shortchanges players such as Erving and Gilmore by wiping out the first five seasons of their careers. Erring won two titles, three MVPs (sharing one with George McGinnis), two playoff MVPs, and three scoring titles in the ABA while Gilmore notched one title, one MVP, one playoff MVP, and four rebounding titles.

No player's resume would emerge unscathed from such drastic revisions. Do that to Jordan and you erase one MVP, his two highest-scoring seasons, his only Defensive Player of the Year award, two scoring titles, one steals title, and his, playoff single-game scoring record of 63 points. Larry Bird would lose two of his three championships, one MVP, one NBA Finals MVP, and his best single-season totals in rebounds and steals. Magic Johnson would forfeit two of his five titles, two NBA Finals MVPs, two steals titles, one assists title, and his single-season bests in rebounds and steals.

Pacers Roger Brown and Mel Daniels are two Hall of Fame-caliber players whose careers are diminished because their statistics are unrecognized. Brown was a four-time ABA All-Star who won three ABA titles with Indiana, and more than one observer has said Brown was Jordan's true precursor. In the 1970 ABA Finals, Brown averaged 32.7 points, scoring 53, 39, and 45 in the final three games. In the 1972 ABA Finals, Brown led the Pacers to a victory in Game 7 by outscoring future Hall-of-Famer Barry 32-23. Daniels played center on those three title teams, winning two regular-season MVP awards. His 1,608 career playoff rebounds place him 11th in basketball history.

It's important to remember that the ABA wasn't some "patsy" league. It defeated the NBA 79-76 in exhibitions (ironically, two NBA wins came when Erving played for the Atlanta Hawks, before the courts forced him to finish his contract with the Virginia Squires). Because of the fierce rivalry between the two leagues, these games were much more intense than today's exhibitions. In 1977 (the first year after the NBA-ABA merger), five of the 10 All-Star starters and 10 of the 24 All-Star participants had ABA playing experience. ABA vets filled four of the 10 slots on the All-NBA first and second teams, and the ABA was well represented in the NBA Finals by the Philadelphia 76ers' Erving, McGinnis, and Caldwell Jones, and the Portland Trail Blazers' Maurice Lucas and David Twardzik.

The NBA doesn't have to keep statistics this way. The NFL Record & Fact Book features Otto Graham, Len Dawson, and George Blanda, among others, as statistical leaders even though they spent part of their careers in the AAFC or AFL. The section on team histories includes the statistics of players such as Joe Namath, Don Maynard, and Paul Lowe, who set franchise records that date back to the AFL. NFL records show that Joe Namath is the first player to pass for 4,000 yards in a single season (4,007 in 1967); no one suggests that Don Fouts' 4,082-yard performance in 1979 is more valid because it is the first such effort that occurred after the NFL and AFL merged.