1967–68 ABA season

The 1967–68 ABA season was the first season for the American Basketball Association. The ABA was challenging the National Basketball Association. The ABA introduced a red, white and blue basketball. They also used a 30-second shot clock as opposed to the NBA's 24 second shot clock. The ABA also used the three-point shot. There were 11 teams playing in the first season of the league, with each team playing a 78-game schedule.

The American Basketball Association (ABA) was founded in 1967 by Dennis Murphy, former mayor of Buena Park, California, and Gary Davidson, an attorney from Orange County, California. George Mikan, a former National Basketball Association star best known for his career with the Minneapolis Lakers, was named as the league's first commissioner, saying that the ABA would avoid raiding the players from the NBA as the upstart league as it wanted to avoid legal issues relating to the reserve clause and hoped to avoid creating a bidding war for talent that would make player salaries unaffordable. Despite that, The New York Times reported that tentative offers had been made to Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain, who was offered a contract that would pay him $50,000 (half of what he was making with the Philadelphia 76ers) along with a 20% share of the team that started play as the New Jersey Americans.

By April 1967, the league announced that they would begin play for the 1967–68 season with 11 teams in two divisions. The Eastern Division would include teams representing Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, New York City, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, while the Western division would be made up of Anaheim, California, Dallas, Denver, Houston, New Orleans and Oakland. Each team owner made a commitment that they would have the resources to run for at least three years on annual budgets of $500,000 and would be able to absorb any financial losses during that period.

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