Category: Sports

In 1976, I was a teenager and got my heart broken. Was it a girl? No. It was the Denver Nuggets. 1976 was the final year for the ABA. The NBA was going to take a few teams, the ABA was folding, the NBA was taking 4 teams from it and we all knew it before the season was even over. And yet here we were in the final ABA finals, Denver Nuggets vs. The New York Nets. David Thompson vs. Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving.

But my love affair with the team and with basketball started way before 1976. I remember as a child going to the Denver Coliseum to watch the Rockets. Coach Stan Albeck had Byron Beck, Ralph Simpson, Julian Hammond and Larry Brown among others. They were fun to watch but didn’t go anywhere in the playoffs.

The Rockets had no choice but to change to a different name. The NBA had informed the ABA that if they were to absorb a few teams one of them would be the one on Denver. But the NBA said ‘ahem… Denver, we already have a Rockets team in Houston. Pick another name… and you won’t be shooting with that red, white and blue striped ball anymore either when you get here.” As such, the Nuggets were born in 1974, two years before the “merger” which wasn’t so much a merger than it was a takeover. The NBA absorbed the Nuggets, Nets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs.

But that was the way it was for the Rockets, then the Nuggets… until 1976. No respect, but they didn’t earn it either. And here I was in 1976, a 14-year-old glued to the radio listening to Game 6 of the ABA final (it was not on TV until a delayed telecast much later). The Nuggets had them, they had Dr. J on the ropes. They were down 3 games to 2 and it was back at Nassau Coliseum for Game 6 and they were up. Starting the 4^th quarter the Thompson-led Nuggets had the Nets by 14 points, so I went to sleep. Woke up to find out they lost 112 to 106. Series ended and just crushed me as the Nets won 4 games to 2.

They never got back to the finals. Oh, they made the Western Conference Finals.