Happy Soul Power Day! 2/12/26 Today celebrates the premiere date of the definitive story of the American Basketball League. It especially honors the men and women 50 years ago who fought a giant and changed the sport of basketball, and American culture, forever! 🙏❤️🤍💙

Spencer Haywood grew up in Silver City, Mississippi, the youngest of ten kids. His mother raised them alone and picked cotton to do it. At 19 he led the United States to a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics. At 20 he averaged 32 points and 21 rebounds a game for the Detroit Titans at the University of Detroit, second in the country in both. And then he had to stop, because his family had no money and college does not pay. The NBA had a rule at the time. You could not play in the league until four years after your high school class graduated. It did not matter if you were ready. It did not matter if your family was broke. So in 1969 Haywood went to the ABA instead and signed with the Denver Rockets. In one season he won Rookie of the Year, the scoring title and the MVP. All three. Same year. Then Seattle SuperSonics owner Sam Schulman did something nobody had done. In 1970 he signed Haywood to a six year deal worth $1.5 million, straight through the middle of the NBA's rule. The league came after both of them. They threatened to void the contract and punish the Sonics. So Haywood sued the NBA. And here is what that actually cost him. He got booed in every single arena in America except one. Seattle was the only building where they cheered. He got threats. Opposing players put elbows in his jaw on purpose. The Cincinnati Royals threw him out of their own arena and into the snow. The Chicago Bulls filed a complaint for $600,000 claiming that Haywood simply being allowed to play was hurting their playoff chances. He understood exactly what they were doing. "People would try to entice me to fight because if I punched somebody, the whole case would blow over." So he never swung. Not once. On March 1, 1971, the Supreme Court sided with him. Justice William O. Douglas ruled that keeping him out was an illegal restraint of trade under antitrust law. The NBA settled. Haywood stayed in Seattle. Now think about what came through that door. Moses Malone. Magic Johnson. Michael Jordan, who left North Carolina after three years. Kevin Garnett. Kobe Bryant. LeBron James. Every single player who has entered the NBA before his class graduated got in because a 21 year old from a cotton field let an entire league scream at him for a year and refused to give them a reason to stop. Haywood went into the Hall of Fame in 2015. That was 44 years after the ruling. He has said more than once that he does not think people know what he did for them. They mostly do not. He is the reason the door is open. He is also the only one who had to stand in it. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap

Two Hall of Famers who became hall of famers on their ABA careers, yet their stats aren't included by the NBA.

Connie Hawkins and GM Gabe Rubin as Connie signs a contract with the Pittsburgh Pipers on April 27, 1967.

In 1975, The Kentucky Colonels won the ABA championship and become the best team on the planet with Hubie Brown as a Coach ! Happy 93rd Birthday Coach Hubie 🎂

Happy 93rd birthday to Hubie Brown. 🙏🙌 Reshare this if you agree Coach Brown is a living legend!

93 years young today! Happy Birthday, Legendary Coach Hubie Brown! 🏆 🏀 1975 ABA Champion

Happy 93rd Birthday Hubert Jude Brown Aka Hubie Brown 🎂 📽️ : @5starbasketball

Reshare this if you agree the NBA should include ABA stats in its official records

One of the great "What ifs?" in sports history: What if Julius Erving had been allowed to stay in Atlanta in 1972? Or what if Erving had gone to the Milwaukee Bucks, which drafted him that same year? Here's what I wrote about that in "Moses and the Doctor":

Before Michael Jordan became the image of basketball in flight, there was Julius Erving. And before Erving, there was Elgin Baylor. That is how basketball history works. Nobody arrives from nowhere. Baylor was the first great above-the-rim wing, the man who made the air itself part of the court. He showed that a forward could hang, twist, improvise and finish in ways the game had barely imagined. Then came Dr. J. Erving took that idea and turned it into theater. The afro. The long arms. The enormous hands. The calm expression while everybody else in the building was losing their minds. He did not simply dunk the basketball. He seemed to carry it somewhere nobody else was allowed to go. Before Jordan made the foul line famous, Erving was taking off from there. Before Jordan turned the reverse layup into mythology, Erving was floating behind the backboard in the 1980 Finals. Before every superstar became a brand, Julius Erving had already become something larger than a player. That is why you cannot really explain Jordan without explaining Dr. J, just as you cannot fully explain Dr. J without Elgin Baylor. Jordan became the standard. Erving helped create the language. For a generation of basketball fans, Julius Erving was the first player who made you believe gravity was merely a suggestion.

If you haven’t seen @abathrowbacks [SOUL POWER] yet, you’re missing out. Directed by @KenanKHolley and featuring plenty of ABA legends. 🎧 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

This is Louie Dampier, ABA legend In 1968-69 he shot 36.1% on 7.1 3PA/G and averaged 24.8 PPG In 1969-70 he shot 36.1% on 6.7 3PA/G and averaged 26.0 PPG He made 397/1100 from deep over a two-season span more than a decade before the NBA adopted the three-point line (the ABA had it since its inception in 1967-68) Talk about ahead of his time!

At 22, Artis Gilmore went head to head with 35-year-old Wilt Chamberlain in the 1972 NBA vs. ABA Supergame. Gilmore scored 14, Wilt had 6, and the footage shows just how physical the matchup was. Young giant vs. old giant, captured on film. with the courtesy of 70sFan

Who are these two dunk masters from the ABA?

Bringing in Julius and Walter as mentors was a big part of Gary and Shawn’s growth 35 years ago! I’ve always loved Doc and Walter is Gary’s cousin so that one was easy!! @GaryPayton @sk40_reignman

September 21, 1971: Milwaukee’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scores 32 PTS to lead the Bucks to a 106-103 win over the ABA’s Dallas Chaparrals in the first exhibition game between NBA & ABA teams. 🎥 @SMUJonesFilm

Happy 77th birthday to Artis Gilmore. On May 25, 1972, basketball gave us a true young giant vs. old giant showdown. The rival NBA and ABA staged an unofficial interleague Supergame at Nassau Coliseum, bringing 35-year-old Wilt Chamberlain face to face with 22-year-old Artis Gilmore. Wilt had just led the 69-win Lakers to an NBA championship and earned Finals MVP. Gilmore had just finished one of the greatest rookie seasons ever, winning both ABA Rookie of the Year and league MVP. And they actually guarded each other. Gilmore finished with 14 points while Wilt scored 6, with Artis making seven field goals to Wilt’s two. The NBA won the game 106-104, but the young A-Train showed that he belonged on the same floor as the most imposing center basketball had ever seen. Surviving footage also shows Wilt having his moments against Gilmore, using the strength and experience that made him such a nightmare to deal with. That connection between the two giants went beyond one game. Bob Love recalled Gilmore being regarded as the second-strongest man in basketball behind Chamberlain. Hubie Brown also spoke of Wilt and Artis as two men with extraordinary strength, while emphasizing that neither used that power with the intention of hurting opponents. Years later, Shaquille O’Neal added to the legend. Shaq said that of all the old-school greats whose hands he had shaken, Artis Gilmore had the strongest handshake. Bill Russell had a strong one. Wilt did too. But according to Shaq, Artis was the strongest.

RT @OJPhilly: Perfect to watch or rewatch as the NBA season nears.