October 13, 1967: The American Basketball Association plays its 1st game, at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (now known as the Oracle Arena). The host Oakland Oaks defeat the Anaheim Amigos, 134-129.
For the Oaks: Andrew Anderson scored 33 points, Levern Tart 23, Jim Hadnot 20, Willie Porter 18, Mel Peterson 16, Ronald Franz 12, Steve "Snapper" Jones 6, Gene Wiley 4, Wesley Bialosuknia 2, and Al Salvadori played without scoring.
For the Amigos: John Fairchild scored 30, Stephen Chubin 21, Steven Kramer 14, Randy Stoll 14, Lester Selvage 14, Ben Warley 12, Jeffrey Congdon 9, Larry Bunce 7, Bill Garner 5, Bob Bedell 3, and Harry Dinnel played without scoring.
Like its failed 1961-62 predecessor, the American Basketball League, the ABA used the 3-point field goal, which the NBA would not adopt until the 1979-80 season. Its most memorable feature was its red, white and blue ball, as opposed to the NBA's traditional orange ball.
When the season ended, the Pittsburgh Pipers, led by Connie Hawkins, won the title, defeating the New Orleans Buccaneers. In 1968-69, with his contract situation settled, the Oaks would be led to the title by former San Francisco (and future Golden State) Warriors star Rick Barry. The Pipers folded in 1972. The Oaks moved to Washington after their title, becoming the Caps; then to Norfolk in 1971, becoming the Virginia Squires.
The Indiana Pacers won the title in 1970, 1972 and 1973, and these were the only major league titles won by an Indiana sports team between the 1944 and '45 Fort Wayne Pistons and the 2006-07 Indianapolis Colts.
The Amigos moved to Los Angeles and became the Stars, losing the 1970 ABA Finals to the Pistons. They immediately moved to Salt Lake City, becoming the Utah Stars, and won the ABA title in 1971, and it would be the only major league title won by a Utah sports team until Real Salt Lake won the 2009 MLS Cup.
The Kentucky Colonels, based at Freedom Hall in Louisville, won the title in 1975. They remain the only major league team, in any sport, ever to call the Bluegrass State "My Old Kentucky Home."
And the team that began in the ABA in 1967-68 as the New Jersey Americans moved to Long Island the next season, becoming the New Jersey Nets. They won the ABA Championship in 1974 and 1976, and these remain the last two professional basketball league titles won by any team in the New York Tri-State Area. (The Knicks last won in 1973, and are 0-2 in NBA Finals since. The New York Liberty are 0-4 in WNBA Finals.)
The ABA lasted 9 seasons, and 4 of its franchises were absorbed into the NBA in 1976: The Nets (who moved to New Jersey in 1977 and Brooklyn in 2012), the Pacers, the Denver Nuggets (who lost to the Nets in the last ABA Finals) and the San Antonio Spurs (who began in 1967 as the Dallas Chaparrals, moved to San Antonio in 1973, and never won anything in the ABA, but have been consistently successful in the NBA, winning 5 titles).
There are 15 men who played in the ABA who were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame: Hawkins, Barry, Roger Brown, Billy Cunningham, Mel Daniels, George "the Iceman" Gervin, Artis Gilmore, Spencer Haywood, Dan Issel, Bobby Jones, Maurice Lucas, Moses Malone, Charlie Scott, David Thompson, and the man perhaps most identified with the ABA, Squires and Nets star Julius Erving, a.k.a. Doctor J; plus coaches Larry Brown and Hubie Brown (no relation to each other, or to Roger, and Hubie was elected as a broadcaster).
I'll let Doug Moe, who both played and coached in the ABA, before coaching the Nuggets in the NBA, have the last word on a league so often derided as minor league, or a joke. He said it was the other way around:
One of the biggest disappointments in my life was going into the NBA after the merger. The NBA was a rinky-dink league. Listen, I'm very serious about this. The league was run like garbage.
There was no camaraderie. A lot of the NBA guys were aloof, and thought they were too good to practice or play hard. The NBA All-Star Games were nothing: Guys didn't even want to play in them, and the fans could care less about the games.
It wasn't until the 1980s, when David Stern became Commissioner, that the NBA figured out what the hell they were doing, and what they did was a lot of stuff we had in the ABA, from the 3-point shot to All-Star Weekend to the show biz stuff. Now the NBA is like the old ABA. Guys play hard, they show their enthusiasm, and there is a closeness in the league. Hell, the ABA might have lost the battle, but we won the war. The NBA now plays our kind of basketball.
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October 13, 1967 was a Friday. The opener in Oakland was the only game played in the ABA that day. But there was also a game played in the NBA, and it was the debut of the Seattle SuperSonics. Walt Hazzard scored 30 points, but they lost 144-116 to the San Francisco Warriors, at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City, California.
The Sonics recovered from a bad 1st season, and became a perennial contender, winning the 1979 NBA Championship, and reaching the Finals in 1978, 1979 and 1996, before being moved in 2008, becoming the Oklahoma City Thunder. From March 1917 to February 2014, they were the only Seattle team to win a World Championship in any sport.
It was midweek, so there was no football played that day. And the baseball season ended the day before, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-2 at Fenway Park, in Game 7 of the World Series.
There was 1 NHL game played that day, between 2 of the new expansion teams: The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the St. Louis Arena.