Spurs-Magic 1997 NBA preseason game honored American Basketball Association (2024)

When The Athletic reached out to Nick Anderson and asked what it was like to play an NBA game with a red, white and blue American Basketball Association ball in 1997, he jokingly said he didn’t remember doing so.

“It was so long ago!” the former Orlando Magic shooting guard said through a team spokesperson Thursday afternoon.

But when asked about the contributions of the now-defunct league to the NBA, Anderson, the community ambassador with the Magic, said it changed the course of the NBA.

“The ABA marriage with the NBA: You go back and think of Dr. J (Julius Erving) — he was the ABA, what he did for the ABA — and then they merged,” Anderson said. “That was outstanding, Dr. J is Dr. J. The best players coming from the ABA and joining the NBA, that was a big hit for everybody and, obviously, changed the trajectory of the league today.”

The ABA was once perceived as gimmicky by purveyors of the NBA. The league played its first game on Oct. 13, 1967, with a 3-point line and a red, white and blue basketball.

Almost 30 years to the day after the ABA launched its inaugural season, NBA commissioner David Stern gave the ABA its flowers and recognition in a preseason matchup between the Magic and the San Antonio Spurs on Oct. 14, 1997. Not only did the NBA celebrate ABA/NBA legends like Erving, then an executive vice president for the Magic, and George “Iceman” Gervin at halftime, but Stern also chose to use the ABA’s trademark multicolored ball for the first time in an NBA game.

It was the first of several preseason games in 1997 featuring teams playing with the red, white and blue ball. On Oct. 21, the Denver Nuggets welcomed a Los Angeles Lakers team that featured Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and others. Three days after that, a Shawn Kemp-led Cleveland Cavaliers squad ventured to New Jersey to play the Nets, who were coached by John Calipari and had Keith Van Horn and Sam Cassell as leading scorers.

I was referring to the three games played with an ABA ball and inexplicably tweeted as one. I have:

10-14-97 Spurs at Magic
10-21-97 Lakers at Nuggets
10-24-97 Cavs at Nets

Would love to see a picture of Kobe or Duncan with the ABA ball. pic.twitter.com/6zqqKnYWqR

— Todd Spehr (@toddspehr35) March 15, 2020

Back in 1967, ABA commissioner George Mikan knew gaining the respect of the NBA was always about playing the long game. More than anything, the basketball legend nicknamed “Mr. Basketball” wanted the league he presided over to receive its respect for its multitude of contributions. The Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets and San Antonio Spurs were the four ABA teams that survived as part of the NBA-ABA merger in 1976.

The Spurs-Magic game didn’t have an overabundance of offense, but as the ABA celebrated its 30th birthday, San Antonio fans were given a defensive chess match in the Spurs’ 88-87, come-from-behind win on the road.

“We were part of a wonderful league,” Gervin, then working community relations with the Spurs, told the Orlando Sentinel on Oct. 15, 1997. “We (the leagues) both did some incredible things on the floor. I’m not sure the young guys today really know the history of the ABA. They hardly even know the history of the NBA.”

At the end of the first half, Erving and Gervin — former Virginia Squires teammates in the ABA — made their way to center court where they were joined by Magic star guard Penny Hardaway and Spurs All-NBA center David Robinson. Hardaway, then entering his fifth year in the NBA, and Robinson, in his ninth season, presented each legend with an ABA ball that had signatures from every player on the competing teams, which included a young rookie and the 1997 NBA Draft No. 1 pick in future five-time champion Tim Duncan. All while second-year Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and first-year Magic coach Chuck Daly, who won back-to-back NBA titles coaching the Detroit Pistons in 1989 and 1990, looked on and applauded.

“I see the stadiums now as being a three-ring circus. It was almost as if the game was secondary to the whole show,” Erving told the Tampa Tribune on Oct. 15. “The mascots, dancers, music, (and) fireworks … all the things they do to excite a crowd. George and I had the experience in the ABA where we truly were the show.”

If anyone knew the various challenges the ABA faced to reach this historic point, it was those two men packing the sideline. They could recall when the ABA reintroduced the 3-point line, originally brought to pro basketball in 1961 by the now-defunct American Basketball League. The NBA didn’t adopt the 3-point line until 1979 — and even then, it was on a one-year trial basis because there were questions of whether it would stick.

In the ABA’s 1976 slam-dunk contest, Erving, then a member of the Nets, took flight and soared much to the delight of spectators at the league’s All-Star Game that season. Even after the NBA and ABA merged, the NBA wouldn’t incorporate that competition into its All-Star Game for nearly a decade. Larry Nance etched his name into the history books in 1984 as the NBA’s first slam-dunk champion.

The red, white and blue ball — probably the gaudiest and biggest trademark of the ABA — finally would have its day in basketball’s supreme league two years after Nance won the slam-dunk title. Larry Bird won the NBA’s first 3-point contest at the 1986 All-Star Game. Could there have been a better person to help ensure the multicolored ball — or moneyball — would stick?

Bird, a three-time 3-point champion, was one of the league’s most popular players and made the idea of the 3-point line and red, white and blue ball even hotter, walking onto the court once after asking who would take second place behind him in the competition.

To Gervin’s point that October 1997 day in Orlando Arena, at every possible turn, the ABA had to fight for every little thing it added to the NBA. Often, the NBA dragged its feet on elements of the sport that eventually revolutionized or became fan favorites of the game. And more than the ABA feeling like it had to prove itself, so too did Erving, who explained he constantly sought out ways of conquering new territory during his 16-year pro career.

“The whole idea of climbing a mountain and then going and climbing another one, to some people, that’s not important because once you climb one mountain in life, it’s like, ‘I’ve done it, so now I need to just chill and rest on my laurels,'” Erving, a 16-time All-Star (11 with the NBA, five with the ABA) and 1983 NBA champion, told the Akron Beacon-Journal on Oct. 9, 1997. “I can’t chill and live off my laurels. I can’t sit back and spend the rest of my life having people tell me how good I used to be.

“I wanted to be more respected than popular. And I always felt that respect would outlast popularity.”

With nine minutes left in the game, the Magic had a 12-point lead on a Spurs team without Duncan’s services for almost two quarters. Duncan took an elbow to the face while defending a pass, resulting in a cut that required stitches.

“It was more bloody than painful,” Duncan, who played 13 minutes, told the Sentinel. “It didn’t hurt much at all.”

With the rookie unavailable until the third quarter, Robinson put the Spurs on his back with 14 points in only 24 minutes. The Spurs completed the comeback when Malik Rose hit a bank shot to give the team an 88-87 lead with 15.4 seconds left.

Related reading

Rhiannon Walker: When the ABA added the 3-point line and multicolored ball

(Photo of Penny Hardaway, Julius Erving, George Gervin and David Robinson: Scott Cunningham / NBAE via Getty Images)