INTRODUCTION From The Sports Time Traveler™
The Nets are the only pro basketball team which have lost at least 30 games in every year of their existence in the NBA (not including the COVID shortened seasons).
Sadly this was the team that I started to root for in 1977 when they moved from Long Island to “my backyard” in central New Jersey.
I had been a committed Knicks fan for as long as I could remember. The Knicks were in their heyday in the early 1970s, having won 2 titles and coming within a basket of making 4 straight trips to the NBA Finals.
But I just had to become a Nets fan in 1977 because it was the first time we ever had a major professional sports team in New Jersey. And they were playing right near my home in the New Brunswick area.
In the New Jersey Nets first 4 seasons from 1977 - 1981, my dad and I went to 162 of the 164 home games. After I went to college, my mom & dad continued to go to most of the games, even after they moved farther away to the Meadowlands.
During their entire 35 year stay in New Jersey they never won a title and only reached the Conference Finals and NBA Finals twice in 2002 and 2003 during the Jason Kidd era.
But their legacy in the old ABA was a little different.
In the final 3 years of the league from 1973 - 1976, the Nets were an elite team with one of the most breathtaking players in history - Dr. J, Julius Erving.
But I missed it almost entirely, as did many New York area hoops fans, because we were still basking in the afterglow of the Knicks title teams with their lock down “Dee-fense,” their “find the open man” style of team play, and the coolness of “Clyde” - all-star guard Walt Frazier.
That makes this trip back in time 50 years, to experience the Nets first season with Dr. J an extra special and personally fulfilling trip for The Sports Time Traveler.
And it’s also a story I’m dedicating to my dad, who has never experienced the Nets win a championship.
BACKGROUND
On Wednesday, August 1, 1973 the New York Times had an atypically tiny page 1 story.
The article consisted of just one sentence: “The New York Nets, in the most significant trade in their six-year history, have acquired Julius Erving, the American Basketball Association’s leading scorer, from the Virginia Squires.”
That same day Julius Erving, a Long Island native, made an appearance at the fabled Rucker basketball tournament in Manhattan which was documented in the August 2, 1973 New York Daily News. Phil Pepe’s article was titled, “Doctor J… He Really Operates,” and it captures the legend that Julius Erving had already become before he played his first professional game for the New York Nets.
In the article Pepe quotes basketball afficionado, Peter Vecsey, who covered the Rucker, “It was an amazing thing. Here was Doctor J, out of shape, he hadn’t played a game in months, and for five solid minutes he went into his act and put on the greatest show you’ve ever seen.”
Pepe then follows that up with more superlatives about Dr. J, “When Doctor J goes into his act it is like nothing else in the world. He has all the moves ever invented and a lot that were never invented.
“He rebounds the ball with his back to the hoop and in one motion stuffs the ball backwards.
“Then there is the flying dunk, starting from the foul line, soaring in the air and jamming the ball in the hoop.
“Also the up in the air switching the ball from one hand to another through his legs and other moves that defy description simply because they defy gravity and belief.”
Later in the article Phil Pepe writes, “Dr. J is coming.”
It seemingly couldn’t be more exciting for New York basketball. The Knicks had just been crowned NBA World Champions a few months earlier defeating Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and the Los Angeles Lakers in just 5 games in the Finals.
And now 23 year old Dr. J, Julius Erving, was coming back home to New York.
Erving had left home 5 years earlier in the fall of 1968 to play basketball at the University of Massachusetts. In his junior year he led UMASS to a 23 - 4 record, while averaging 27 points and 20 rebounds per game.
Instead of returning for his senior year, he turned pro and signed with the ABA’s Virginia Squires. In the 1972-73 season he led the Squires and the entire ABA in scoring at 31.9 points per game.
Now he would return to New York to show off his electrifying style of play for the Nets, whose home was in Long Island, near where Erving grew up.
How good was Julius Erving? It was not easy to judge since he played in the ABA, the upstart junior league of pro basketball. But there were many indications that Erving was deserving of the “best player on the planet” label.
A few days after the deal to the Nets, Erving played in a summer pro all-star game in Los Angeles against UCLA alumni. The game included Kareem Abdul Jabbar on the UCLA team, and many other stars.
Erving led all scorers with 31 and his team won it by 38.
The August 6, 1973 Los Angeles Times noted that Erving, “poured in 31 points with an assortment of dazzling moves.”
The Long Beach Press-Telegram headline on the game read, “Erving steals show.” The article on the game included this passage, “The biggest standing ovation came with 57 seconds left to play when the New York Nets’ “Dr. J” capped his performance with an acrobatic left-handed hook.”
The Nets Build a Strong Team Around Erving
6 weeks later the Nets made another move when they traded for rookie forward Larry Kenon. Like Erving, Kenon had left college after his junior year. He had recently led Memphis to the NCAA title game by averaging 20 points and 17 rebounds.
And like Erving, 21 year old Larry Kenon could sky with the basketball.
The Nets weren’t done re-making their team. In training camp they brought in yet another player who had left college early. Super John Williamson had averaged a nation leading 39 points a game in his senior year in high school in 1970. He left New Mexico State after just 2 years, averaging 27 points per game in 1973.
The team also had a servicable center in Billy Paultz, a 4th year player coming off an ABA all-star season. And they had a bevvy of point guards including 1973 ABA Rookie of the Year Brian Taylor.
The Nets brought in a rookie coach as well. Kevin Loughery had just retired after a successful 11 year NBA career. He had starred as a guard on the Baltimore Bullets team that went to the NBA Finals in 1971.
Now Loughery had the job of guiding the most spectacular player in the game and making all these new parts around him work together. The team was talented and young - very young, the average age of their starting 5 was under 23.
It had all the makings of something big.
But it didn’t start out that way.
In the first game of the season, Erving was brilliant scoring 42 points on 19 for 36 shooting, grabbing 18 rebounds and blocking 4 shots. And Kenon had a double-double (18 & 11) in his first pro game.
But the Nets lost by 19 points at Indiana.
Then there was an early season 9 game losing streak, which included 3 losses to the premier team in the ABA, the Kentucky Colonels, a team that had gone 124 - 44 over the prior 2 seasons. That sank the Nets to a 4 - 10 record on November 10, 1973, while the Colonels led the ABA at 12 - 2.
The losing contributed to an odd reception to the Nets superstar in Long Island. A December 4, 1973 New York Times article displayed the lagging attendance figures for the Nets at the 16,000 seat Nassau Coliseum. The team had not cracked the 10,000 ticket mark for any game of the new season thus far.
But the Nets began to show signs of life when they reeled off 9 straight wins beginning the end of November.
In the 2nd game of the streak, rookie guard John Williamson, newly inserted into the starting lineup, showed his potential when he shot 11 for 15 for 26 points.
The streak also included a 15 point victory at Kentucky in which rookie Larry Kenon had 18 points & 15 rebounds while holding all-star forward Dan Issel, who had averaged at least 27 points per game in the 3 prior seasons to just 16 points on 6 for 18 shooting.
From that point on the Nets were stellar, never losing more than 3 times in a row the remainder of the year.
In mid-January the Nets reached the pinnacle. A 5 game winning streak gave the Nets a 30 - 17 record, tops in the ABA.
Still, less than 10,000 fans came out on a Friday night, January 11, 1974, to see the 5th consecutive win, a 109 - 106 thriller over Indiana in which Super John scored 35 to overcome a 29 point / 25 rebound performance by the Pacers’ George McGinnes.
But their latest winning streak did catapult Julius Erving to the cover Sports Illustrated for the first time.
You can see Erving’s SI cover here:
Julius Erving on cover of Sports Illustrated - January 14, 1974
Notice Mr. K, Larry Kenon, just to the left of Dr. J in the cover shot.
After that attendance started regularly topping 10,000.
The Nets closed the season with another 5 game winning streak and finished with a record of 55 - 29 good for the best record in the ABA. Following the 4 - 10 start, the Nets had gone 51 - 19 to close the season.
No other team in the ABA or NBA had a winning percentage that high over the final 70 games of the 1974 season.
Aside from Dr. J’s other worldly play, team defense was their biggest asset as they led the league in blocked shots and overall defensive rating and were 2nd in the league in steals. In addition, all 3 members of the Nets frontcourt finished in the top 10 in the league rebounding.
The Nets starting 5 had meshed together into a force. Here were their stats:
Points Rebounds Assists Steals Blocks 2 point FG 3 point FG Player Name
27.4 10.7 5.2 2.3 2.4 52% 40% Julius Erving (F)
16.4 10.2 2.2 0.8 1.9 49% N/A Billy Paultz (C)
15.9 11.5 1.3 0.9 0.2 46% N/A Larry Kenon (F)
14.5 2.8 3.2 1.1 0.4 49% 18% John Williamson (G)
11.1 2.9 4.5 2.1 0.3 48% 28% Brian Taylor (G)
The stats on Julius Erving are particularly noteworthy.
He became the only player ever in the ABA or NBA to have a season in which he averaged:
25+ points
10+ rebounds
5+ assists
2+ steals
2+ blocks
No one else in the annals of the ABA or NBA comes close to matching those stats for a single season.
Compared to his ABA competition Erving was dominant:
1st in scoring
7th in rebounding
4th in assists
3rd in steals
3rd in blocks
9th in FG%
1st in 3FG% (for all players with at least 40 attempts)
There is a strong case to be made for Dr. J as having had the greatest individual season in American professional basketball history in 1974.
Needless to say, Julius Erving won the ABA’s MVP award.
Larry Kenon and John Williamson finished 3rd and 4th in Rookie of the Year voting.
Near the end of the regular season the New York Times celebrated the great season by Dr. J. In an article on March 21, 1974, The Times’ Dave Anderson wrote a piece titled, “Dr. J. is Leaping to Greatness.”
In the article, Anderson describes an overtime game that had take place a few days earlier on March 16, 1974 at Kentucky in which Erving scored 11 of the Nets final 13 points. With 13 seconds to play in OT and the score tied, Nets coach Kevin Loughery told his team, “Everybody clear out and let Doc go one on one.” Erving ran the clock down to 1 second, took a 15 foot jump shot and won the game at the buzzer.
Dr. J told Anderson, “That’s the part of the game I really loved as a kid. That challenge of daring to be great.”
The Playoffs Begin
In the first round of the playoffs the Nets easily disposed of Erving’s old team, the Virginia Squires 4 games to 1. All 4 Nets victories were by double digits.
In the only loss, the Nets rallied from a 10 point deficit with 2:30 to play to cut the Squires lead to 1 point with 23 seconds left. Then they got the ball back with 8 seconds left. Brian Taylor passed to Erving on the baseline. He drove for a game winning layup and missed giving the Squires their lone series victory.
Erving gave no excuses for the miss according to Doug Smith in the April 5, 1974 edition of Newsday.
It was proof for many Nets fans that Dr. J was in fact human.
The series win over Virginia set up a showdown between the New York Nets and the Kentucky Colonels for the Eastern Division Championship.
The Kentucky Colonels, held the best record in the ABA over the prior 3 seasons.
They featured a core of 3 future hall of famers, who had played together for 3 seasons and were all in their prime.
2 of them made up one of the greatest ever power forward-center combinations. Artis Gilmore is the #5 all-time rebounder in pro basketball and Dan Issel is the #13 all-time scorer in pro basketball.
In addition, Colonels’ shooting guard Louie Dampier was the ABA’s all-time leading scorer.
This series would define the season for the Nets.
Were they contenders or pretenders?
Could they be the best team in the ABA or were they really a year or two away, not mature enough to win the big games against the best teams when it really counted.
Naturally, as The Sports Time Traveler I just had to go back and experience the Nets vs. Colonels series. I had to see “my Nets” playing in one of the biggest playoff series in franchise history. And one that I didn’t pay attention to when I was a kid because the Knicks were playing the Celtics in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals at the same time after they had defeated the Capital Bullets in a thrilling 7 game series.
This virtual trip began last month. Game 1 was on Saturday, April 13, 1974.
Here are my reports from my recent sports time travels:
New York Nets vs. Kentucky Colonels - GAME 1
UNIONDALE, LONG ISLAND - April 14, 1974
Last night I was at the Nassau Coliseum, virtually, to experience game 1 of the Eastern Division Finals between the Nets and the Colonels.
You can experience the game as I did by watching this YouTube video:
Here’s my commentary with the time stamps from the video:
0:00 - The video begins with highlights of Dr. J’s play during the season. If you watch nothing else, check out the first 50 seconds of the tape. This is Julius Erving at the height of his athletic ability, before his knees caused him to play more cautious and with less pizzazz later on during his NBA career in Philadelphia.
3:33 - The opening tip of game 1
8:52 - Erving hits a mid-range bank shot over Dan Issel. Early in his career, Erving had a deadly mid-range jump shot.
10:57 - Artis Gilmore, one of the great centers of all-time, hits a turn around jumper off the glass over the top of Nets’ center Billy Paultz.
11:10 - Paultz immediately returns the favor hitting a tough jumper in the lane over the 7’2” Gilmore.
14:25 - Louie Dampier tosses in a rare 3 pointer. Dampier led the league in 3FG% in 1974, but only attempted 1.5 3FGs per game.
16:00 - After Artis Gilmore misses on an old style sweeping hook shot, Dan Issel demonstrates his toughness snaring the rebound and hitting on a fallaway jumper all in one motion.
40:32 - Super John Williamson gets the ball on the far side of the court. He battles with Louie Dampier and finds a way to get just enough space to hit a tough double pump jump shot.
40:55 - Dan Issel takes the opening tip of the 4th quarter and drives to the hoop.
50:12 - Paultz throws an alley-oop pass to Erving for a tip in.
52:00 - Dr. J skies for a baseline jumper while being double teamed.
53:08 - Mr. K, Larry Kenon, grabs an offensive rebound and stuffs it.
The Nets won the game 119 - 106 as Erving scored 23 of his 35 points in the 2nd half.
Kenon had 20 points and 15 boards.
Super John had 17 on 7 for 12 shooting.
Nets vs. Colonels - Game 2 - April 15, 1974
The Nets also won game 2 by an even wider margin 99 - 80. The Nets did it by holding Issel and Gilmore to a combined 9 for 31 shooting. While Erving went 12 for 23 for 27 points to lead all scorers, and Kenon registered another double-double.
Nets vs. Colonels - Game 3 - April 17, 1974
This set up a crucial game 3 in Kentucky for the Colonels.
On their homecourt Kentucky raced out to a 15 point 1st quarter lead. They led 54 - 45 halftime and had a 10 point lead at 81 - 71 early in the 4th quarter. But the Nets came back and the game was tied at 87 with 17 seconds to play.
It was Nets ball coming out of a timeout. And everyone in the building and in the entire state of Kentucky knew who the Nets were giving that ball to.
Doug Smith of Newsday wrote about Julius Erving, “There was no telephone booth handy so he couldn’t change into the man of steel, yet that seems to be what Julius Erving does each time Kevin Loughery calls his ‘please-pull-us-out-of-this-one-Dr. J-play.’”
When the play started, Erving got the ball, and stood near midcourt until there were 4 seconds remaining. Then he began to surgically thrust through the Colonels defense. Smith wrote, “Erving dribbled past Bradley, manuevered around Gilmore, and went up on a running jumper that swished through the strings at the buzzer.”
The Nets won it 89 - 87.
Erving’s buzzer beater gave him an even 30 for the game.
Kenon had 21 points and 9 rebounds, missing his 3rd straight double-double by one board.
The Nets had won it despite Issel and Gilmore combining for 41 points and 45 rebounds.
It was a crushing loss for Kentucky.
After the game, Dr. J told Smith, “That’s what I’m getting paid for. Artis came out after me and I think he figured I was going to shoot from the top of the key. He came out real hard and committed himself. Then I was gone.”
Smith continued in his article writing, “Gone too may be the Colonels hopes of winning the series.”
Smith titled his article, “The Old Last-Gasp Trick,” because he had seen it from Dr. J so many times.
Nets vs. Colonels - Game 4 - April 20, 1974
Game 4 turned into a laugher for the Nets. The Nets forged an 18 point lead at 61 - 43 and led 64 - 49 at halftime. They were never threatened in the 2nd half. The Nets ran up the lead to 76 - 53 in the 3rd quarter and won it 103 - 90.
Erving led all scorers with 27 on 13 for 22 shooting.
Artis Gilmore had a great game for Kentucky with 20 points and 20 rebounds on 9 for 13 shooting. But his frontcourt mate Dan Issel was held to just 5 for 15 shooting by Larry Kenon.
The Nets had swept the Kentucky Colonels.
It was a magnificent achievement for the young Nets team.
The 1974 ABA FINALS - New York Nets vs. Utah Stars - April 30, 1974
The Nets now had 10 days until the start of the ABA Finals against the Utah Stars on April 30th.
On Sunday, April 28, 1974, Dr. J took the time to lead 20,000 schoolchildren on a 20 mile walkathon to benefit the March of Dimes. He was building a legend.
The walk must have warmed up Erving just perfectly because 2 days later on April 30th, Dr. J poured in 47 of the Nets 89 points and the Nets beat the Stars 89 - 85 in game 1 of the ABA championship.
Erving was at his best hitting 19 of 29 for his highest scoring performance of the entire 1974 season.
It was also one of the few times in history that a single player scored over 50% of his team’s points in an ABA or NBA playoff game.
Larry Kenon was sharp as well, hitting 9 of 15 for 20 points and 18 rebounds. The rest of the team shot just 11 for 44, with Super John connecting on just 2 of 12 shots.
In the New York Times, Dave Anderson described a novel play by Dr. J as part of his 47 point performance, “on 45 of those points his teammates reacted casually. They had seen all the shots before - the slam dunks, the floating layups, the twisting jump shots. But the other 2 points were something special.
“Dr. J was loping around the left corner in front of the Nets’ bench when he started to drive the baseline. But he was being angled out of bounds by Bruce Seals, the 6 foot 9 inch forward guarding him. Although far behind the plane of the backboard, Dr. J sprang high, reached out with the ball in his right hand and flicked it over Seals outstretched hand, past the side of the backboard and through the orange rim.
On the bench his stunned teammates snapped their heads from side to side. Some even shrieked, ‘whooo, whooo,’ the way small boys might. His teammates hadn’t seen that move before.
‘It was just a one-hand shot,’ Dr. J explained later.”
The Iconic Baseline Scoop
I interrupt this article for a minute to share a story about a similar move by Dr. J.
There is no video of Dr. J’s move in game 1 of the 1974 ABA Finals, that was described above by Dave Anderson in the New York Times. But it reminds me of the greatest play I’ve ever seen in pro basketball - a play by Dr. J 8 years later during the 1982 NBA Finals. You can watch that one in this video:
My favorite part of the video is Magic Johnson (who played in the game) describing his reaction at the time it happened. You can see that at the 1:10 mark on the tape when Johnson says, “Should we ask him to do it again? We’ve never seen anything like that before!”
Now back to the 1974 ABA Finals.
1974 ABA Finals - Game 2 - May 4, 1974
In game 2 Erving was brilliant again. The Nets took a 61 - 37 lead at halftime and won it 118 - 94.
Erving scored 32 on 12 for 19 shooting.
1974 ABA Finals - Game 3 - May 6, 1974
In game 3 in Utah the Nets were on their way to a double digit win, when the Stars, playing at home, climbed back from 15 points down with 8 minutes to play to take a 3 point lead. Then Brian Taylor sank a 3 point shot at the buzzer to send the game to overtime tied at 94.
In the overtime the Nets took a 100 - 98 lead when according to Leonard Koppett of The New York Times, “Erving took over. He cleared a key defensive rebound, followed his own missed shot for a spectacular rebound basket, got another rebound and sank a free throw that made the score 103 - 98 with 8 seconds left.”
The Nets were up 3 games to 0 in the championship.
1974 ABA Finals - Game 4 - May 8, 1974
Utah avoided being swept on their homecourt with a 97 - 89 win.
That enabled the Nets to come back home and win the championship in front of their own fans.
1974 ABA Finals - Game 5 - May 10, 1974
Game 5 was tight for 3 quarters and then the Nets broke it open and won 111 - 100.
The scoring was more evenly distribute with all 5 starters scoring at least 15 points. And for the first time since the opening round of the playoffs, Erving was not the leading scorer. Dr. J was held to 21 points on 7 for 13 shooting, while Mr. K had 25 points and 11 boards as he went 10 for 16 from the field. And Super John had 21 on 7 for 14 shooting.
It was a team win.
And it was an ABA title for the New York Nets.
It portended the possibility that this could be the start of a “DyNETSy” if you will. After all Erving had signed an 8 year contract with the Nets and none of the starters was older than 25.
The champagne flowed freely in the locker room according to Doug Smith of Newsday, “They gulped down champagne in big swallows and poured the rest of it on each other and anyone else within range… The victory was the culmination of an extraordinary season for the youngest basketball team ever to win a professional basketball title. And at the same time it could be the beginning of another New York dynasty, replacing the aging Knickerbockers.”
The next day, May 11, 1974, a giant banner headline was plastered on the back of the New York Daily News which read, “NETS CHAMPS.”
The Sports Time Traveler finally got to experience the Nets winning a championship.
POSTSCRIPT
There was no “Super Bowl of Basketball” in 1974.
That begged the question could the 1974 ABA Champion New York Nets have beaten the 1974 NBA Champion Boston Celtics?
The question was actually debated 50 years ago this week in a fascinating Newsday article, by Pete Alfano, that appeared on May 14, 1974.
Alfano posed the question to several NBA and ABA head coaches.
Johnny Egan, head coach of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, and K.C. Jones, head coach of the NBA’s Capital Bullets (and a guard on many of the past Celtics title teams) both felt the Nets would have no chance against the Celtics.
Jones provided that assessment despite the fact that the Nets had beaten the Bullets in the pre-season.
Gene Shue, head coach of the Sixers, was a little less protective of the NBA’s position. He felt the Nets could compete with the top teams in the NBA as he said, “Looking at the Nets, they have the personnel, speed and quickness… there isn’t any reason why they couldn’t.”
But Tom Nissalke, head coach of the ABA’s San Antonio Spurs thought Boston would beat the Nets, “because they are a better all around team which has played together for a while and blended well… although I would take Erving over any Celtics player.”
Al Bianchi, head coach of the ABA’s Virginia Squires, was the biggest proponent of the Nets chances to beat the Celtics. He said, “I don’t see why not… They beat Kentucky four straight… They can play pressure defense, too. Everyone talks about Boston’s pressure, but they’re pressuring Oscar Robertson (whom the Celtics beat in the NBA Finals), a 35 year-old man. That’s not pressure.”
Bianchi then summed up the consensus view of how the Nets would fare against the Celtics, “The Nets wouldn’t be embarrassed. Maybe you’d call it a surprise.”
Two days later on May 16, 1974, Celtics great John Havlicek and Julius Erving were both posed the question of which team would win in a head-to-head match up. The 2 star players were together at the Plaza Hotel in New York to receive the Sport Magazine Finals MVP awards for their respective leagues.
In an article in the The New York Times article, by Sam Goldaper, both players preferred to avoid the question. Havlicek’s initial reaction was, “Games like that don’t prove anything.” Loathe to be required to play yet another series, pitting the NBA winners vs. the ABA winner, Havlicek lamented that, “the season is just too long. We’d be better off with a shorter season.”
Goldaper reported that, “Neither star was eager to do any more playing. They suggested that Kevin Loughery, the Nets coach, and Tom Heinsohn, the Celtics coach, could meet in a game of one-on-one.”
And so the question of who had the very best team in the world of pro basketball will have to wait until the ABA and NBA finally merge.
But it is interesting to note that prior to the start of the 1974 season, back in September and October of 1973, there were 25 exhibition games played between ABA and NBA teams. ABA teams won 15 of the 25 games. Included in that was one game in which the Nets beat the defending champion New York Knicks.
You can read about that game in an article I published last year:
Nets Defeat NBA Champion Knicks in Pre-Season Game
The Sports Time Traveler will continuing following The New York Nets for the remainder of their time in the ABA.
Thanks for reading.
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