| 1974–75 ABA season | |
|---|---|
| League | American Basketball Association |
| Sport | Basketball |
| Duration | October 18, 1974 – May 22, 1975 |
| Games | 84 |
| Teams | 10 |
| Regular season | |
| Top seed | Denver Nuggets |
| SeasonMVP | Julius Erving (New York) andGeorge McGinnis, (Indiana) |
| Top scorer | George McGinnis (Indiana) |
| Finals | |
| Champions | Kentucky Colonels |
| Runners-up | Indiana Pacers |
| ABA seasons | |
The1974–75 ABA season was the eighth season of theAmerican Basketball Association. TheKentucky Colonels won the1975 ABA Championship after winning the Eastern Division; theDenver Nuggets won the Western Division.Julius Erving andGeorge McGinnis shared the league's MVP award.
Prior to the start of the season the Eastern Division changed as theMemphis Tams gave way to theMemphis Sounds and theCarolina Cougars were bought byOzzie and Daniel Silna and relocated and became theSpirits of St. Louis. The Western Division remained unchanged save for theDenver Rockets renaming themselves theDenver Nuggets.
The ABA and NBA continued playing preseason exhibition games between their teams. The ABA won 16 of the 23 games, to 7 wins for the NBA.[1] Among those games was the Pacers' first game inMarket Square Arena in which they defeated theMilwaukee Bucks 118–115 before a standing room only crowd of 17,287;Bob Dandridge had 46 points andKareem Abdul-Jabbar 26 for the Bucks.[1]
On February 14, 1975, Julius Erving of theNew York Nets scored a team-record 63 points against theSan Diego Conquistadors in a quadruple-overtime game, which was both the longest game in league history at three hours and the highest-scoring game that resulted in San Diego prevailing 176–166.[2] The 176–166 final score that the Conquistadors and Nets had would have been considered the newest record for thelist of highest-scoring NBA games had this game occurred in theNBA at the time, with it remaining the record for the highest-scoring game in professional basketball history until December 13, 1983 when theDetroit Pistons (the team that won the lowest-scoring game in the NBA's history back when they were theFort Wayne Pistons) defeated theDenver Nuggets (another team that has its roots in the ABA) 186–184 in triple-overtime out in the NBA. The 166 points the Nets scored that night would still be the franchise's highest mark for points scored in one game as of 2025, with its NBA record occurring on December 7, 2006 when the since-rebrandedNew Jersey Nets (now known as theBrooklyn Nets) would lose to thePhoenix Suns 161–157 in double-overtime.[3]
The 8th ABA All-Star Game was played on January 28, 1975, inSan Antonio, Texas. 10,449 attended. The East was coached byKevin Loughery of theNew York Nets and the West was coached byLarry Brown of the Denver Nuggets. The East won 151–124;Freddie Lewis of the Spirits of St. Louis was the game's MVP after scoring 26 points.[4]
The Denver Nuggets posted the ABA's best record of the season, winning the Western Division with a record of 65–19 (.774). That record was second best in ABA history, behind only the 1971–72 Kentucky Colonels' mark of 68–16 (.810).[5] The 1974–75 Nuggets also finished second in ABA history behind the 1971–72 Colonels for team scoring difference, outscoring their opponents by an average of 8.40 points per game to the 1971–72 Colonels' 8.98 points.[5]
In the Eastern Division the Kentucky Colonels won 22 of their last 25 regular season games to tie the New York Nets for first place in the Eastern Division at 58–26 (.690).
| Team | W | L | PCT. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kentucky Colonels * | 58 | 26 | .690 | — |
| New York Nets * | 58 | 26 | .690 | — |
| Spirits of St. Louis * | 32 | 52 | .381 | 26 |
| Memphis Sounds * | 27 | 57 | .321 | 31 |
| Virginia Squires | 15 | 69 | .179 | 43 |
| Team | W | L | PCT. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denver Nuggets * | 65 | 19 | .774 | — |
| San Antonio Spurs * | 51 | 33 | .607 | 14 |
| Indiana Pacers * | 45 | 39 | .536 | 20 |
| Utah Stars * | 38 | 46 | .452 | 27 |
| San Diego Conquistadors | 31 | 53 | .369 | 34 |
Asterisk (*) denotes playoff team
Bold – ABA champions
The1975 ABA Playoffs began with a one-game series between the Kentucky Colonels and New York Nets for first place in the Eastern Division. The game was played on April 4, 1975, atFreedom Hall inLouisville, Kentucky. The Colonels won, 108 to 99.
The Colonels then defeated the Memphis Sounds 4 games to 1 in the Eastern Division semifinals, while the Nets lost to the Spirits of St. Louis in the other Eastern Division semifinal, 4 games to 1. The Colonels then defeated the Spirits in the Eastern Division finals 4 games to 1.
In the Western Division the first place Denver Nuggets won their semifinal round against the Utah Stars, 4 games to 2, and the third seeded Indiana Pacers upset the #2 seed San Antonio Spurs 4 games to 2 in the other Western Division semifinal. The Pacers pulled another upset in the Western Division finals, upending the Nuggets 4 games to 3.
In the 1975 ABA Finals the Colonels defeated the Pacers 4 games to 1 to claim the league championship.
| Division Semifinals | Division Finals | ABA Finals | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Denver Nuggets | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Utah Stars | 2 | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Denver Nuggets | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Western Division | ||||||||||||||
| 3 | Indiana Pacers | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 3 | Indiana Pacers | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 2 | San Antonio Spurs | 2 | ||||||||||||
| W3 | Indiana Pacers | 1 | ||||||||||||
| E1 | Kentucky Colonels | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Kentucky Colonels | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Memphis Sounds | 1 | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Kentucky Colonels | 4 | ||||||||||||
| Eastern Division | ||||||||||||||
| 3 | Spirits of St. Louis | 1 | ||||||||||||
| 3 | Spirits of St. Louis | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 2 | New York Nets | 1 | ||||||||||||
On April 7, 1975, the league's MVP award for the 1974–75 season was awarded jointly toJulius Erving of the New York Nets andGeorge McGinnis of the Indiana Pacers. Both players had received 11 votes in the balloting by sports writers and broadcasters (three from each of the ten cities in the league), with the remaining votes going toMack Calvin (six) andBobby Jones (two) of the Denver Nuggets.[6][7]
McGinnis was also the league's leading scorer at 29.78 points per game (2,353 points in 79 games).[5] Erving was second at 27.89 points per game.[5]
Swen Nater of the San Antonio Spurs led the league in rebounding, averaging 16.40 per game.Artis Gilmore of the Kentucky Colonels was second with 16.20 per game, down from 18.31 the season before.[5]
Mack Calvin of the Denver Nuggets set second best ABA record for free throw percentage, hitting 475 of 530 attempts for an 89.622% average.[5]
Artis Gilmore was namedMost Valuable Player of the 1975 ABA Playoffs. Gilmore scored 28 points and grabbed 31 rebounds in the final game of the Finals and in Game 3 in Indianapolis Gilmore scored 41 points and nabbed 28 rebounds.[7]
