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<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>BY CHRIS SHERIDAN</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>
<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://foxsports.lycos.com/content/view?contentId=1430996">Associated Press</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
May. 30, 2003 1:20 p.m.<br>
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SAN ANTONIO (AP)— <br>
If the NBA wants to take the retro craze to the next level, they'll let the Spurs and Nets play with a red, white and blue ball. <br>
The NBA Finals don't begin until Wednesday night, providing plenty of time to look back on what happened long ago. <br>
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New Jersey and San Antonio weren't even part of the NBA three decades ago. They were in the ABA, which used that tri-colored ball. <br>
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Although the Nets and Spurs have been in the finals before, this will be the first time that two former ABA teams will meet in the NBA Finals. The Spurs defeated the New York Knicks in 1999; the Nets were swept by the Los Angeles Lakers a year ago. <br>
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The last time the teams played each other in the postseason was 1976, when Julius Erving's Nets defeated George Gervin's Spurs in seven games in the ABA semifinals. Game 7 was played on April 24, 1976. <br>
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The next day, Tim Duncan was born. <br>
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The Nets went on to defeat the Denver Nuggets to win the title that season, which was the last for the ABA. The Nets, Spurs, Nuggets and Indiana Pacers were absorbed into the NBA the following summer. <br>
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Michael Goldberg, director of the National Basketball Coaches Association, was the lead attorney for ABA commissioner Dave DeBusschere during those merger talks. <br>
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He recalled that the ABA owners went to the NBA's league meetings in Hyannis, Mass., expecting to stay for one day but ending up staying for four. As part of the merger, two ABA franchises - the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis - were dissolved. <br>
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"After a full night of negotiations we had the press conference, and then we just sort of looked at each other weary-eyed and walked away. There was no champagne, no violins, no big embraces. We were pooped and exhausted - almost shell-shocked that we got into the NBA," Goldberg said Friday. <br>
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Before the Spurs even were the Spurs, they were known as the Dallas Chaparrals - entering the ABA as an expansion franchise in 1967. One of their first draft picks was Pat Riley. <br>
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The Chaparrals played their final game on March 26, 1973, a 122-120 victory over the Carolina Cougars in front of a paid crowd of 134, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. <br>
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A group led by San Antonio businessmen Angelo Drossos and Red McCombs leased the Chaparrals for $1 for the 1973-74 season, then purchased the franchise for $725,000 from a group headed by future Dallas mayor Bob Folsom. <br>
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Local lore includes the tale of how country singer Willie Nelson sang the national anthem at the 1975 ABA All-Star Game in San Antonio. <br>
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The Spurs made the biggest acquisition in franchise history on Jan. 30, 1974, purchasing George Gervin from the Virginia Squires for $300,000. <br>
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The Nets fleeced the Squires, too, a year earlier when they sent George Carter, the rights to Kermit Washington and cash to Virginia for Erving, who was the MVP of the ABA in that league's final three seasons. <br>
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But the Nets, needing cash to pay indemnity fees to the New York Knicks, sold Erving to the Philadelphia 76ers following the merger. <br>
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"The ABA, I always felt, turned the NBA into what it is today - the excitement, the slam-and-jam, the 3-point shot, so this is kind of redemption right now to have two ABA teams playing for the title," Goldberg said. "The NBA looked down its nose at the ABA. The merger allowed them to get rid of a nuisance." <br>
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The Nets moved from New York to New Jersey following the merger and endured 2 decades of insignificance before reaching the finals last season, where they were again somewhat insignificant. <br>
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"We were just happy to be there. I saw it on my players' faces at the Staples center before Game 1," New Jersey coach Byron Scott said. <br>
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Ever since knocking off the Detroit Pistons in four games to win the Eastern Conference title, the Nets have been vowing to approach this year's finals with a different attitude. <br>
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They will not have to contend with the likes of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant as they did a year ago, but they'll have their hands full trying to contain Duncan. <br>
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New Jersey will enter the finals with a 10-game winning streak, their last loss coming April 26 in the first round against Milwaukee. <br>
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That might seem like ancient history, unless it's judged against these teams' actual ancient history. <br>
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Just ask anyone who can recall the ABA roots that the Spurs and Nets share. <br>
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"The red, white and blue ball, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Artis Gilmore</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> and the afro, Dr. J with his afro," recalled Scott, who was a freshman in high school when the ABA and NBA merged. <br>
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Did he draw any inspiration from what he saw in ABA? <br>
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"With the afro I did in the high school days. I got it cut off when I got to college. That's where the hot pants came from," Scott said. <br>
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