According to a report in 2021 by Sportico, the NBA is worth $77.5 billion. This is a lot of money, and you wouldn’t think they’d mind paying former players money that’s due to them.
- Three Pacers Fight For Their Money
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Well, maybe they have, as in this case, three players were seeking $35,000 a year. The problem was these three players were former American Basketball Association (ABA) players.
Of course, the NBA merged with the ABA on August 5, 1976, taking in four franchises. These franchises were the Denver Nuggets, the New York (they became the New Jersey) Nets, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Indiana Pacers.
The three players that were fighting for money they believed was owed to them were Mel Daniels, Freddie Lewis, and Bob Netolicky of the Indiana Pacers. Here is their story.
Three Pacers Fight For Their Money
In the 1970s, the ABA challenged the NBA as the most popular basketball league in America. One of the best teams in the ABA’s nine years was the Indiana Pacers.
Mel Daniels and Freddie Lewis were two of the best players on that Pacers squad. The Pacers won three titles in the ABA, and Lewis was named Playoffs MVP in 1972, while Daniels was named league MVP in the 1970-71 season.
Netolicky was a solid player for the Pacers, averaging 20.6 points per game in the 1969-70 season. These players had great ABA careers, and then the ABA merged with the NBA.
Only one of the men, Mel Daniels, ever played in the NBA. He only played in 11 NBA games with the New York Nets. After his playing days, Daniels served as an assistant coach at Indiana State University for a few years and for the Indiana Pacers for eight seasons.
In the 1988-89 season, Daniels got his first and only taste as a head coach after the Pacers fired Jack Ramsay. Daniels only served as interim head coach for two games, and the Pacers lost both.
Freddie Lewis became a coach and a school teacher in Washington, D.C., after retiring from the ABA. Bob Netolicky, on the other hand, worked in the auto auction industry for about 27 years after retiring from basketball.
After the ABA merged with the NBA, the NBA promised to give pensions to the players who were a part of the four teams the NBA took in from the ABA. The problem was that the NBA didn’t pay these pensions.
Daniels, Lewis, and Netolicky were amongst the ABA players who didn’t receive a pension. They also didn’t make much money from their playing days.
This led to the three of them fighting the NBA to get the money they deserve. Daniels was one of the biggest voices of former ABA players pushing the NBA to pay the pensions.
Despite the calls to give the players their pensions, years passed by, and the NBA didn’t pay. Finally, this year, on July 12th, the NBA finally decided to pay the former ABA players.
The total money awarded was $24.5 million, and it covered players who played at least three years in the ABA or three combined years in the ABA and NBA. The NBA called it “recognition payments”, which means it’s not really the promised pensions.
This didn’t sit well with Lewis, as he couldn’t understand why the NBA wouldn’t pay the promised pensions:
“It’s just time. They should have did this thing years ago. The NBA, I just can’t imagine why they wouldn’t give the ABA a pension. They’re calling this ‘recognition’ to keep from giving us a pension,” Lewis said in an interview with IndyStar. “I have 11 years in and they’re only giving me (money) for nine so they are taking two away with this type of plan. It doesn’t set well, but, everything helps. And we are thanking the Lord every day for the time we have here.”
The NBA agreed to pay the former ABA players $3,828 annually for each year they were in the league. So, the longer a player played, the more money they would receive from the NBA. This was great news for two of the three former Indiana Pacers players.
The biggest voice in the fight for their money, Daniels, sadly passed away in 2015, never seeing the money he rightfully earned. This is a sad situation, but luckily the NBA finally decided to act and do what’s right.
Netolicky had this to say about the NBA’s decision to finally pay the former ABA players:
“It’s better than nothing. They gave that one kid at Minnesota $62 million, but they’re giving us a couple grand. They should just give us a million for each year we played. That would be just fine.”
The NBA, the world’s most popular and profitable basketball league, did the former ABA players wrong for so many years. They finally had a chance to make it right, and they only partially answered the call.
But like what Bob Netolicky said, “It’s better than nothing.”
Story credit to Reddit “CommonSenseSavior“
