Kareem Abdul Jabbar was one of the greatest basketball players ever and had probably the most perfect basketball career of all time as he dominated in high school and college before joining the NBA in 1969 and having a 20 year career in the league winning 6 MVP’s and 6 Championships along with many other accolades but instead of Kareem joining the NBA and eventually playing with Magic Johnson what if he signed with the ABA in 1969 and more specifically for the New York Nets.
This is something that actually could have happened as has been told in Terry Pluto’s oral history of the ABA titled Loose Balls which is a great and inciting read. As Mike Storen who was the GM of the Indiana Pacers at the time tells it in Pluto’s book the ABA put together a psychological profile on Abdul Jabbar who was known as Lew Alcindor at the time which they spent around $10,000 to create this profile and got 2 clear things about how Alcindor would make his decision
To provide some context on how big a signing Alcindor would have been for the 3 year old league he would have been their undisputed star and probably would have fast tracked a merger with the NBA as on the list of sure things to enter the NBA contain the following names Wilt, Oscar, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Sampson, Hakeem, Jordan, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Duncan, LeBron, Durant, Davis and Zion as 10 of them are hall of famers and 2 of them are guaranteed to be inducted once there careers are over that is a pretty good list.
In 1969 Alcindor was the undisputed no 1 prospect to who was leaving college as he had dominated in college winning 3 consecutive national titles with UCLA and losing only 2 games in the 3 years that he played at UCLA. Both leagues also needed him desperately as for the NBA he would be the biggest star to join the league since Oscar Robertson in 1960 and for the ABA he would have made their league legitimate and given them a national TV contract and fast tracked an eventual merger with the NBA
And to add a sweetener to the ABA’s plan to sign Alcindor the team he would have joined were the New York Nets who had earned the rights to Alcindor by being the worst team in the league and as Alcindor was from New York the ABA thought that coming home would appeal to him in addition to being near family and it having a Muslim population with him having just converted to Islam which lead to him changing his name in 1971 and the ABA also thought that New York would be a better place for him to play in than Milwaukee who had his NBA rights which they were right about because he ended up leaving Milwaukee after 6 seasons and went to Los Angeles where he would spend the remainder of his career.
With all of that it sounded like the ABA had the better chance of obtaining Alcindor and to ensure that Alcindor signed with them they wrote up a $1 million dollar check which they were to give to Alcindor as part of their offer. The reasons for this were twofold firstly it would show that the ABA were in good financial shape and it would also make Alcindor an instant millionaire if he signed with the ABA which from doing their research the ABA knew that Alcindor would like that and it would help them to obtain Alcindor’s signature.
So Lew tells both the NBA and ABA that he would be in New York on a certain date and that he would take an offer from each team and would make a decision and that they were to give him one offer and he would make his decision based on that.
The problem comes in here as the then commissioner of the ABA George Mikan who was the first great NBA player leading the Minneapolis Lakers to 5 NBA titles in 6 years wanted to be in on the signing as did Arthur Brown who was the then owner of the Nets the team that had Alcindor’s rights and it was decided that it would be only these 2 who would be presenting the ABA’s offer. Why having Mikan in on the signing be a problem became apparent when he and Brown returned to Mike Storen having presented the ABA’s offer to Alcindor when Storen asked ‘’ That check got us where we wanted to go right’’? “Mikan said, ‘We decided that it wasn’t necessary to give him our best offer. We figure when he comes back to us, then we’ll use the check for the second round of talks.’
“Storen screamed, ‘You did what?’
“Mikan said, ‘Don’t panic, we know that he’s coming back. He’s going to get the NBA’s offer and he’ll come back to us.’
“Storen said, ‘Is that what he said he would do?’
“Mikan said, ‘Not exactly. The kid did say that he would make the decision.’
The ABA’s offer was $1 million for 4 years while the NBA’s was $1.4 million for 5 years not surprisingly Alcindor chose the NBA and the ABA’s chance to land the best player of the 1970’s was gone just like that and in a stunning surprise George Mikan was fired as commissioner of the ABA.
This is where the divergence comes in as in our scenario Mikan gives Alcindor that check and a mink coat for his mother and Alcindor signs for the ABA with this one decision the next 50 years of professional basketball in the US will look very different than in our timeline and the destinies of some of the NBA's greatest players look very different
This is something that actually could have happened as has been told in Terry Pluto’s oral history of the ABA titled Loose Balls which is a great and inciting read. As Mike Storen who was the GM of the Indiana Pacers at the time tells it in Pluto’s book the ABA put together a psychological profile on Abdul Jabbar who was known as Lew Alcindor at the time which they spent around $10,000 to create this profile and got 2 clear things about how Alcindor would make his decision
- Alcindor would make the decision himself. It wouldn’t be (UCLA booster and Alcindor’s agent) Sam Gilbert. Nor would it be (UCLA coach) John Wooden, or Alcindor’s parents, or a friend. Alcindor had enough confidence in himself to decide himself.
- Once he made that decision, he would stick to it. He had a very strong strain of loyalty and you could place a lot of faith in what he said.
To provide some context on how big a signing Alcindor would have been for the 3 year old league he would have been their undisputed star and probably would have fast tracked a merger with the NBA as on the list of sure things to enter the NBA contain the following names Wilt, Oscar, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Sampson, Hakeem, Jordan, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Duncan, LeBron, Durant, Davis and Zion as 10 of them are hall of famers and 2 of them are guaranteed to be inducted once there careers are over that is a pretty good list.
In 1969 Alcindor was the undisputed no 1 prospect to who was leaving college as he had dominated in college winning 3 consecutive national titles with UCLA and losing only 2 games in the 3 years that he played at UCLA. Both leagues also needed him desperately as for the NBA he would be the biggest star to join the league since Oscar Robertson in 1960 and for the ABA he would have made their league legitimate and given them a national TV contract and fast tracked an eventual merger with the NBA
And to add a sweetener to the ABA’s plan to sign Alcindor the team he would have joined were the New York Nets who had earned the rights to Alcindor by being the worst team in the league and as Alcindor was from New York the ABA thought that coming home would appeal to him in addition to being near family and it having a Muslim population with him having just converted to Islam which lead to him changing his name in 1971 and the ABA also thought that New York would be a better place for him to play in than Milwaukee who had his NBA rights which they were right about because he ended up leaving Milwaukee after 6 seasons and went to Los Angeles where he would spend the remainder of his career.
With all of that it sounded like the ABA had the better chance of obtaining Alcindor and to ensure that Alcindor signed with them they wrote up a $1 million dollar check which they were to give to Alcindor as part of their offer. The reasons for this were twofold firstly it would show that the ABA were in good financial shape and it would also make Alcindor an instant millionaire if he signed with the ABA which from doing their research the ABA knew that Alcindor would like that and it would help them to obtain Alcindor’s signature.
So Lew tells both the NBA and ABA that he would be in New York on a certain date and that he would take an offer from each team and would make a decision and that they were to give him one offer and he would make his decision based on that.
The problem comes in here as the then commissioner of the ABA George Mikan who was the first great NBA player leading the Minneapolis Lakers to 5 NBA titles in 6 years wanted to be in on the signing as did Arthur Brown who was the then owner of the Nets the team that had Alcindor’s rights and it was decided that it would be only these 2 who would be presenting the ABA’s offer. Why having Mikan in on the signing be a problem became apparent when he and Brown returned to Mike Storen having presented the ABA’s offer to Alcindor when Storen asked ‘’ That check got us where we wanted to go right’’? “Mikan said, ‘We decided that it wasn’t necessary to give him our best offer. We figure when he comes back to us, then we’ll use the check for the second round of talks.’
“Storen screamed, ‘You did what?’
“Mikan said, ‘Don’t panic, we know that he’s coming back. He’s going to get the NBA’s offer and he’ll come back to us.’
“Storen said, ‘Is that what he said he would do?’
“Mikan said, ‘Not exactly. The kid did say that he would make the decision.’
The ABA’s offer was $1 million for 4 years while the NBA’s was $1.4 million for 5 years not surprisingly Alcindor chose the NBA and the ABA’s chance to land the best player of the 1970’s was gone just like that and in a stunning surprise George Mikan was fired as commissioner of the ABA.
This is where the divergence comes in as in our scenario Mikan gives Alcindor that check and a mink coat for his mother and Alcindor signs for the ABA with this one decision the next 50 years of professional basketball in the US will look very different than in our timeline and the destinies of some of the NBA's greatest players look very different
