Washington Post Article could spell ABA death

[South Atlantic]

After reading the article this morning, I really feel that this could be an ending to the ABA as we currently know it. I understand that being called out by a newspaper doesnt demand immediate changes but the paper damn near called out every team owner/staff and even Joe himself!

I personally do not like the talk about expansion. Expanding because McDonalds, Wal-Mart, etc are all over the place covering a certain market does not need to be where a respected league should be looking. I agree keep them closer for travel purposes and budget restraints but not on every street corner.

Most owners background have some shade to it (bankruptcy, civil suits, fraud) and for Joe to admit he does his background checking on the phone during the conversation doesnt bode well for new groups looking to break into the scene. To get an ABA team you need to be a well-spoken, half glass full, optimistic person. Jeesh.

As a person who sits back and enjoys teaching and watching the game of basketball, please get your act together.

[Sam Hill]

Classic:


Such flux has surrounded several ABA teams. In August, the Gwinnett (Ga.) Gwizzlies -- so named because of a typo -- saw their head and assistant coach resign and be hired by a different ABA franchise; the league announced the moves on the same day. Later, a new Gwinnett head coach was hired and then resigned, the league office awarded the team to a different ownership group, the franchise changed its name to the Atlanta Mustangs and the second coach returned, according to a team spokeswoman.

Teams were awarded to a 29-year-old independent pop singer in Nashville; a group headed by a minister in Ontario, Calif.; a California distributor of the Western Outlaw Cowboy Hard Hat and devices that make it easier for women to urinate while standing up; and a community activist in Georgia who has run and lost races for five political offices. An all-Native American expansion franchise was launched and then scrapped; and a Vancouver franchise, which said it would use primarily Chinese players, named Jim Harrick head coach, although Harrick quickly told reporters that announcement was incorrect.

Prospective Little Rock owner Dwan Andre Brown was convicted on six counts of wire fraud in February, according to news reports. He was removed from ABA consideration when league officials learned of the legal troubles, Newman said. Mary Liss, the founder of the Portland Reign, has filed for bankruptcy twice in the last two and a half years, records show. A Pittsburgh franchise folded before it played a game, leaving employees who told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette they were owed money; that franchise was immediately replaced by a different western Pennsylvania franchise.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the ABA in a nutshell. Newman checks you out on the phone and if you sound good, you're an owner.

I applaud the Washington Post for doing the in-depth story on this league that should have been done years ago.

And now, out of nowhere, Baton Rouge replaces Oklahoma City (I guess Baton Rouge's owners give good phone). And so it goes.

[Houston Caldwell]

Do any of you have a link to this Washington Post article?

[meyes]

OSC has it on the ABA page.