Top 100 momentsNo. 47
The ABA walks in
Four ABA teams join the NBA. The 3-point line, the dunk contest, and a flashier game come with them. The merger is how the modern NBA starts to look like itself.
The American Basketball Association had red-white-and-blue balls, a 3-point line, and Dr. J in mid-air. In 1976 four of its clubs — Nets, Spurs, Pacers, Nuggets — buy their way into the NBA. The rest of the ABA dies. The ideas do not.
The NBA will adopt the 3-point line. It will steal the dunk contest. Julius Erving will become a league face in Philadelphia. The merger ends a bidding war and imports a style the older league had called a circus.
Without 1976 the NBA of Magic, Bird, and later spacing is a slower, more conservative sport. The ABA did not win the war. It occupied the winner.