[The headline above tells the story. In 1976, Philadelphia reporter Bill Livingston pulled aside George McGinnis and asked for this thoughts, post-merger, on which ABA players would shine in the NBA. McGinnis offers a few surprises. He also omits a few names, most notably for me: Snake Silas, Brian Taylor, and Louie Dampier. Livingston’s article appeared in the magazine Pro Basketball Extra, 1976-77.]
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For four years, he was one of the bulwarks of the American Basketball Association. If Julius Erving was the biggest star of the league with the funny ball and the folding franchises, George McGinnis also blazed brightly in its constellation.
Last season, McGinnis bought out his contract with the Indiana Pacers and, after a fierce bidding war between Philadelphia and New York, he signed with the 76ers. He led them to the playoffs, the first time in five seasons the Sixers had participated in the National Basketball Association’s postseason tournament.
Now, four teams from the old ABA—the Pacers, Denver Nuggets, New York Nets, and San Antonio Spurs—have been merged with the NBA. From the vantage point of his experience in both leagues, George McGinnis discusses the top teams and top players from the ABA, who make their debut this season in the new expanded league.
“The player everyone will want to see,” says McGinnis, “is Julius Erving. He’s a very, very exciting player. He’s not a real great shooter, but when he drives to the hoop and gets to it, that’s when he does the fabulous, fabulous things. The only thing you can do to keep Julius at bay is to make him shoot the outside jump shot. If he’s missing that, you can play him. If he’s hitting, you come out on him, and he goes around you.”
McGinnis, however, said Erving will probably not bring up the surreal scoring totals that he is accustomed to in the NBA. “The ABA,” he explained, “is a forwards league. Rick Barry, Billy Cunningham, Julius, and myself . . . it just seemed like things were tailored for us.
“In the ABA, we could do just about anything we wanted. One out of every eight nights, you might drive and see an Artis Gilmore in the lane, and you’d pull up and take the jumper. In this league (the NBA), night in and night out, you have to think ‘jump shot.’”
McGinnis said he was in no way implying that the fabulous Doctor was overrated. “All I’m saying,” he noted, “is that a forward can’t carry a team. Not in this league. In this league, you’re never going to win unless you have the big man in there, swatting down shots, rebounding. Look at us. We had a great year in Philadelphia and made the playoffs, but we just had a center (Harvey Catchings) who only had one actual year of experience. It caught us in the playoffs.
“You know, I think the ABA has a lot of tremendous players, but I’m really glad I got out of there. I felt I never got my due and that a lot of other players were cheated too. It was because of the tremendously great amount of publicity that comes out of New York. They can take an average player and convince people he’s great. A great player becomes a superstar. And, hey, Julius is legitimately great. But the New York press always said he was the savior of the league. There was much more in the league besides Julius.”
So now, the “much more.” The second most-impressive player, said McGinnis, was Maurice Lucas, a burly center-forward who played with the Spirits of St. Louis and who was taken by Portland in the dispersal draft. “He’s going to be tremendously effective,” George said. “He’s big and strong, and he’ll fit in with the physical style of play.”
The other ABA centers rated highly were Artis Gilmore, Caldwell Jones, and Moses Malone. Of Gilmore, he said: I think Gilmore is going to have a decent year (with the Chicago Bulls).
“The thing is, he’s going to have to work every night. In the ABA, he’d play another top center once every five or 10 games. Now he’ll really have to put out. And Artis is such a passive person. You might say he’s almost too nice a guy. You sit and talk with Artis for five minutes, and he strikes you as the nicest person you’ve ever met. You love the guy. He’s sure the nicest, gentlest man I’ve ever seen. But the new Bulls coach, Ed Badger, will get the best out of Artis. I toured Europe with Ed Badger once. He’s a disciplinarian, but he’ll have a lot better rapport with his players than Dick Motta did.”
Caldwell Jones, who has been signed this year by the 76ers, was the best shot-rejector in the league, McGinnis claimed. “Everybody said Caldwell had a bad year last season, but he played with three different teams. San Diego folded on him. He was out there night after night playing in front of 200 people. The guy just didn’t know where he was going. In the NBA, he’ll have a stable situation.
“And Malone is another very talented player. I heard someone said Moses will love Portland (which took him in the dispersal draft) because it rains so much. He won’t have to get out and talk to people. Anyway, he goes to the ball about the hardest I’ve seen. He’s the guy who benefited tremendously from being able to play night after night. Really quick and aggressive.”
The glamour position, as McGinnis says, is forward. Outside of Dr. J, there are still a number of cornermen who are going to make a strong, immediate impression on NBA observers. The best of them:
GEORGE GERVIN, San Antonio—“They call him ‘The Iceman,’” said McGinnis. “He’s really tremendously skinny. But the guy can plain play. He’s total finesse, smooth. Just another one of the guys that people haven’t heard of who’s gonna surprise them. You heard a lot about Larry Kenon when he was with the Nets. He’s at San Antonio now, and he’s a good player. But he can’t do the thing Gervin can do.”
BOBBY JONES, Denver—“I never saw David Thompson, except on TV,” said McGinnis. “But Bobby Jones is one of the most hard-nosed kids that I’ve ever seen in my life. He gives 120 percent every game. He’ll play only the top forwards on defense . . . Erving, me, Barry. And he’ll do a pretty good job. He’s got great jumping ability, and he’s always hanging around the hoop. He follows the shot, and he’s just great filling the lanes on the break. Every now and then, he’ll take the eight or nine-footer, but mostly he’s just tough around the hoop.
DAN ISSEL, Denver—“He’s got great range, deadly from 22 feet in. But he’s strictly a shooter. He’s gonna have a lot of problems if they play him in the middle in this league. A LOT of problems.
MARVIN BARNES, St. Louis, now with Detroit—“Barnes is so talented, so much talent you wouldn’t believe it. He has all the tools to become one of the great forwards. The thing he has to do is get his head together. I don’t know why he was always hacked off in St. Louis, but he’s gonna have to improve his mental approach. Otherwise, he’s going to waste his whole career. I’d hate for him to say, ‘The hell with it.’ But that’s what he’s doing.”
BILLY KNIGHT AND DARNELL HILLMAN, Indiana—“Billy is a good, solid player. Will get the job done every night. He’s one of my best friends. And Darnell is just a super-tough rebounder. He plays like Quinn Buckner. I mean, he’s the worst shooter in the world until the last couple of minutes. That’s when he’ll take the big shot for you and hit it.”
As for guards, McGinnis acknowledged the ABA was short there, just like in dominant centers. “Overall, you look at the guards in the ABA, and they weren’t the types you found in the NBA, guys like Phil Smith, Doug Collins, Jo Jo White, who can take charge of the game. One guy I’d really watch, though is Don Buse (Indiana). I think he could make the all-defensive team. He’s one of the really good defensive guards I’ve seen.
“The other top guards were Ron Boone, Jimmy Jones, John Williamson, Steve Jones, and Mack Calvin was a good little guard, too. But the best I maybe saw was Donnie Freeman, before he started slowing down.”
McGinnis’ evaluation of the teams? “The one I know will do well is Denver. They play together and win every year. If Marvin Webster is back, they’ll be really strong. The others don’t have the dominating big man.
“I really think,” McGinnis concludes, “this is going to be a very exciting year in basketball. People want to find out about these (ABA) guys. You know, if I had stayed my whole career with the ABA, that was something they’d always say about me. It probably would have been on my mind, too. You know, people would say, ‘Well, he was good, but he never really played in the NBA.’”
This year, everyone plays in the NBA. And we shall find out how good each player truly is.
From Way Downtown 