As originally aired on The Rochester Press Box
Remember the Denver Larks? That’s ok. Nobody does. They were briefly a team in the old American Basketball Association. Not actually a team I guess because they never played. When the ABA was born in 1967, a team was supposed to be located in Kansas City. That didn’t work out. Moved to Denver and became the Larks. In honor of the Colorado state bird. They couldn’t afford to take the court, were subsequently sold and rebranded the Rockets and became a cornerstone franchise of the ABA. The Larks wound up a footnote, interesting only because no other team was ever so named. Unless you include Hesston College in Kansas.
I like team names and the ABA had some of the best. There were Pipers, Claws, Conquistadors, and Squires. My favorite was the Spirits of St. Louis, named for the airplane Charles Lindberg crossed the Atlantic with. They played just two seasons. The director of operations was a former D&C sports writer, Rudy Martzke. Whose major contribution was giving Bob Costas his first job calling play-by-play.
The American Basketball Association lasted nine seasons and forced a merger with the NBA. The red, white and blue basketball, the three-point basket, the slam dunk contest, and four of the seven teams survived. Of note, the New Jersey Nets were forced to pay territorial rights to the New York Knicks. They offered the Knicks Hall of Famer Julius Erving in lieu of payment. Dr. J. New York took the cash. How things might have changed.Anyway, the Denver Larks who became the Denver Rockets, became the Nuggets in 1974 and this week became the second former ABA team to win the NBA championship. Giving life and recognition, however briefly, to those teams that came before. Like the Anaheim Amigos, the Minnesota Muskies and the Dallas Chaparrals.
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