1) The Slam Dunk Contest

Down to just seven active teams and with an impending merger with the NBA hanging over its head, the ABA knew it might as well take some chances in the ’75-’76 season. A new All-Star format was adopted, with the league’s top team in the standings, the Denver Nuggets, taking on a roster featuring the other six teams’ best players. To further increase interest in the Denver-based exhibition, the ABA league office also came up with the idea of a Dunk Contest at halftime. It was a brilliant move, as having a bevy of athletic and creative dunkers was one of the few talent advantages the ABA could still claim over the NBA, up until the end. The competitors were Julius Erving, George Gervin, Larry Kenon, Artis Gilmore, and the hometown hero David Thompson, all of whom were exhausted from having participated in the first half of the (surprisingly competitive) All-Star Game. While the “Skywalker” thrilled the home crowd with a thunderous 360, it was the “Doctor” who stole the show, setting off a delirious response with his signature free throw line dunk. Though only about 17,000 fans were in attendance, and the broadcast was televised live in just four cities (Denver, New York, Indianapolis, and San Antonio), the inaugural Dunk Contest became a media sensation, going whatever was the equivalent of “viral” in the ’70s. Many have cited it as one of the main factors in the NBA agreeing to expand the 1976 merger from two teams to four.

2) Morning shoot-arounds

It’s ubiquitous now at every level of basketball and feels like it’s been a staple forever but the concept of the morning shoot-around had to start somewhere with someone. That someone was Bill Sharman, a Hall of Fame player with the Celtics who transitioned into coaching in the early ’60s. In his first gig, as coach of the Cleveland Rebels of the short-lived ABL, he started to toy with the idea of gathering his players on game-day mornings to practice shooting and walking through some set pieces. He opted not to deploy it during his time coaching the Warriors in the late ’60s but revived the idea soon after when he took over for the Los Angeles Stars of the ABA. Sharman soon found that not only did these informal sessions (the specific terminology of “shoot-around” would not actually be applied until the late ’70s) help focus his players and allow him to give them some extra coaching and scouting lessons, but it also let them burn off some energy and come back more relaxed for the actual games. Whatever the reasoning or terminology, the strategy worked, and Sharman was named Coach of the Year in ’69-’70, then led the (then Utah) Stars to the ABA title in ’70-’71. He was soon after hired by the Lakers and brought his informal game-day practices with him. When the Lakers rattled off a record 33 straight wins in ’71-’72 en route to a dominant title victory, the shoot-around started to become common practice around the NBA and soon enough every coach was utilizing the concept in one way or another.

3) Pro basketball in the Southern U.S.

For its first few decades of existence, pro basketball was something of a niche sport regionally, with fan interest limited to the Northeast, Pacific Coast, and pockets of the Midwest and Upstate New York. The NCAA had made incursions with powerhouse schools like Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina, but in 1967 the most Southern pro teams were the Cincinnati Royals and Baltimore Bullets. That all changed with the ABA and its inaugural season that featured the New Orleans Buccaneers, Dallas Chaparrals, Houston Mavericks, and Kentucky Colonels. Soon enough, the ABA would spread franchises to Miami, Greensboro, San Antonio, Memphis, and Norfolk. The success of these teams varied, as did the size of their fan bases, but the NBA owners obviously took notice. The St. Louis Hawks moved to Atlanta in 1968, becoming the first NBA team in the traditional South. They were soon followed by the New Orleans Jazz (an expansion franchise) and Houston Rockets (moved from San Diego), setting the stage eventually for the Orlando Magic, Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Pelicans, and Memphis Grizzlies.

4) The three-pointer

Long before Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, or Stephen Curry, the king of three-pointers was Les Selvage. The pride of Kirksville State Teachers College (now called Truman State) in Northern Missouri, Selvage quit his job as a shipping clerk to try out for the Anaheim Amigos and made their roster for the inaugural ’67-’68 ABA season. He wasn’t much of an all-around player, certainly not nearly talented enough for the NBA, but one thing Selvage could do well was shoot from long distance, and he took full advantage of the ABA implementation of the three-pointer. Though it was first experimented with in NCAA exhibitions, followed by brief official use in the ABL and CBA, the three-pointer truly came to prominence with the ABA. Not that you would know from checking league stats from ’67-’68, as most players shied away from the high-risk, high-reward attempts. But Selvage shot it from all over the court, leading the league in both three-point field goals and attempts that season, his only full year of pro basketball. It soon became a signature of the ABA, almost as much as the slam dunk and the red, white, and blue ball, with star players like Louie Dampier, George McGinnis, Julius Erving, and Don Buse eventually incorporating the three-pointer into their offensive arsenal. With disdain for the supposed “trick shot” slowly melting away thanks to the ABA, the three-pointer was finally implemented in the NBA in ’79-’80, and it’s now hard to imagine the league without it.

5) Leaving college early for the pros

Taking its cue from the NBA, the ABA initially had a draft and free agency eligibility rule where players had to be four years removed from high school. This was challenged in 1969 by Spencer Haywood, who had graduated high school just two years prior but was weary with playing college ball for no pay. As opposed to the NBA, whose response to matters like this was to set off a legal battle, the ABA ownership met and instituted a “hardship clause” in their regulations. Essentially, any player previously ineligible for the league based on age could be granted a clause if they were able to prove financial hardship and the subsequent need for professional pay. It was a sharp decision by the ABA owners, who likely sensed an opportunity to usurp on NBA-level talent that wasn’t willing to wait four years to turn pro. The gambit soon paid off, with a 20-year-old Haywood taking the league by storm, winning MVP in his rookie season, followed by stars like Julius Erving, George Gervin, Moses Malone, and George McGinnis forgoing college eligibility to join the ABA. Based in large part on a lawsuit by Haywood, the NBA soon instituted its own hardship clause, then struck age eligibility from its regulations altogether in 1976, after merging with the ABA.

6) Bob Costas

Not only did the ABA jump-start the careers of future NBA legends Julius Erving, Moses Malone, and George Gervin, amongst others, it also gave a young Costas his start. Immediately after his graduation from Syracuse, Costas packed up and moved to St. Louis, where he took a radio play-by-play gig for the Spirits of St. Louis on KMOX radio. Having started life as the Houston Mavericks, an ABA charter member, and then having spent five years in Carolina as the Cougars, the Spirits were one of two active ABA teams that missed the merger but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The owners pulled out all the stops in building their roster (essentially from scratch, as the Cougars owners were tanking before selling), adding colorful characters like Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and James “Fly” Williams, and potential phenoms like a young Malone. The results on the court were mixed but the radio call was entertaining, with the young Costas honing his skills on-air. After the Spirits folded, he remained in the St. Louis area for several years, calling broadcasts for Missouri basketball and Blues hockey before taking a job for NBA on NBC in 1980, eventually calling TV play-by-play for several NBA Finals.