![]() “We really felt like we had we had a score to settle for that, to show that the ABA teams were good.” “We had more of a chip on our shoulder than most of the teams in the NBA because we had come from the ABA,” said Bobby Jones, the Nuggets’ defensive specialist in the 1970s who would go on to win an NBA title with a Philadelphia 76ers team led by Dr. Any title or deep trip through the playoffs by any of those teams has always been met with excitement among that prideful group of ABA alumni. Of the teams, only the Spurs have won it all - five times, to be exact. Until this season, all but the Nuggets have played in at least one NBA Finals. The ABA took in the teams in San Antonio, New York, Indiana and Denver. The next season, the ABA and NBA agreed to a merger of sorts. He is such a fan of the modern-day Nuggets that a signed Nikola Jokic jersey is a coveted keepsake in his trophy room, which includes one of those multicolored basketballs, signature shoes with “DT” on them, along with some memorabilia of Thompson’s national title run with North Carolina State in 1974. Thompson’s career with the Nuggets straddled their ABA and NBA days. I want them to finish the job that we didn’t quite get done.” “This Nuggets team, we’re pulling for them. “The new NBA is like the old ABA,” David Thompson, ‘The Skywalker,’ told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the nicest compliments those old ABA Nuggets can pay to today’s group: These Nuggets remind them of them. Denver hosts Miami in Game 1 on Thursday. Nearly 50 years after the breakup of the old, renegade league, with its red-white-and-blue basketballs and the 3-point arc that has redefined the modern game, the Nuggets finally broke through to become the last of the four ABA teams - Spurs, Pacers, Nets and Nuggets - who survived the 1976 merger to make the NBA Finals. DENVER (AP) - Gone, but never forgotten, the ABA is enjoying a curtain call this season - all thanks to the Denver Nuggets.
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