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[00:00]
Advertisement Voice
Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out. In dashboard confessions.
[00:10]
Keenan Kamwanahali
I remember telling my boss, it'll be
[00:12]
Alison Stewart
good for the brand when leads were slow.
[00:15]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, it it wasn't.
[00:17]
Advertisement Voice
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[00:40]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Three pointers, dunk contests and high flying superstars. All these things are what make the NBA games exciting. But that was not always the case. In the 50s and 60s, the games were slow, boring and overwhelmingly white. Then a new competitor challenged the NBA's hold on professional basketball. One that was more athletic, a lot more physical, and with significantly more black players on the court. The American Basketball Association. The ABA only lasted nine seasons, but it birthed a new generation of superstars like Dr. J and George the Iceman Girvan. The league also created a style of play that eventually influenced the mainstream culture of the NBA and its popularity. A new docu series tells the complete story of the ABA from its founding in 1967 until its eventual merger with the NBA in 76. It's called Soul Power, the Legend of the American Basketball Association. It's streaming on Prime Video. It was such an exciting documentary. My producer loved watching me watch it in my office. He laughed every time I went swish go when a piece of archival footage played or one of those great players appeared on screen. And I just had to share this with director Kenan Kamwanahali.
[02:13]
Keenan Kamwanahali
It's funny because we have a story that is what some would consider an older story, 1975. But the people we had working on it were purposefully young. Oh, he brought in 20something editors to capture their energy and their curiosity. They got so into the topic that they had heard of.
[02:30]
Alison Stewart
They have. They have a good sense of humor too, your editors, by the way. Yeah, I want to say that. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. The ABA was founded in 1967. What were the circumstances that led to its founding?
[02:43]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, the circumstances were that there was a soft market for basketball. The NBA had not taken the foothold that we experience today. Know the NBA of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird. This was way before that, when the NBA was a distant, distant, tiny little cousin compared to baseball and football. And for that reason the few guys got together who were hopefuls to be sports owners, and they thought, you know what? We could potentially challenge the NBA because they're not that strong and their product is not that good. And their whole intention was, you know what? Let's create a league that is a little bit better than their league and force them to merge with us. It should only take about a year or two. That's what they thought at the time when they started the league.
[03:24]
Alison Stewart
I want to focus on the year 1967 and 68, because the country was in such turmoil those years. How did the circumstances in the country in those early years affect the ABA in its infancy?
[03:39]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, one of the most interesting quotes I got that at the beginning when I was first being brought this project and I was considering whether to say yes to it or not, was from the head coach, George Carl, who's known. Known in basketball circles as the head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics for the series that they played against Michael Jordan, the Bulls. But before that, he was an ABA player. And in talking about the project, he said, kenny, what you don't realize about this project is that the ABA was the first integrated workplace in America. And when he said that, Alison just blew me away. I was like, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Give me some verification, coach. And he started to explain to me that in 1967, there were places that had integrated in. In. In title or in officially, because they had one or two black people at different news outlets, different companies. But he said, we were 50, 50 in our locker room. There was no. And that's not by design. So they started recruiting the best player. They started taking the best player without any quotas that were previously employed by the NBA. And in doing so, it made our locker room full of guys who had never been around each other before. And it's hilarious to watch these guys talk about. To go back to being 20 years old and talk about how hard a time they had at the beginning, understanding each other's jokes or even the way they spoke to each other. They said it was going to a brand new world. And they talk about the process over those seven years of the ABA's existence of gradually becoming friends and then gradually becoming family. They became brothers because of what they had to face in terms of the Goliath they were trying to take down in the NBA.
[05:02]
Alison Stewart
Before founding the aba, there was this sort of. It was an informal race quota in the NBA. To be honest, only a few black players were allowed on each team. What were the stereotypes that coaches held about black players.
[05:18]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, it's interesting. We hear them now and it feels like what. They're also archaic. It's hard to hear them now. It's kind of mind blowing to hear the theory when you know of Steph Curry and LeBron James and all the Michael Jordans of the world, that you can't win with black players. Yes, they look spectacular, yes, they have incredible ability, but you can't actually win with. They're not winning players. They are players who play for themselves. They don't play for the greater good of the team. That was the stigma in 1967.
[05:45]
Alison Stewart
You see my editor, my engineer in my in our box going, what you're saying you can't have them be good players.
[05:52]
Keenan Kamwanahali
It's funny because in exploring this story, we find ourselves face to face. And this is what sports does for us. It puts us face to face with our own American beliefs, prejudices, understandings, things that we assume to be true, that are necessarily true in sports. I love doing sports stories. One, because I was an athlete, a football player, played football in college at Duke. But because sports has a scoreboard, it's unlike anything else in our lives. Everything else is very undefined as far as who is succeeding, who's not succeeding. Well, if you walk into an accounting firm, it's very difficult to really say for sure who's succeeding, who's not succeeding. If you walk into a general business, a bakery, well, who's the best baker? Very subjective. But the NBA in basketball, ABA and basketball, it's not subjective at all. There's a scoreboard. And so when you say black players, you can't win with them. And then in the first and second year of the aba, you have two black players lead their team to the championship, it starts to throw a monkey wrench in our prejudices.
[06:45]
Alison Stewart
This is a four series documentary and you get into how it changed the culture.
[06:51]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, we do. It's such an astute observation. I appreciate that observation because when you see not just the way that the players are succeeding, but it's the, it's the manner in which they are carrying themselves on the court like a Dr. J with the way he wore his fro and full blown dynamic afro. He didn't have the biggest afro in the aba, but he was second biggest thanks to Darnell Hillman of Indiana. But do you see the players being able to express themselves in the way they play on the court and the way they dress off the court? That was the first time that was happening. If you look back in the 60s and I started my career at NFL Films. If you watch those players get off the bus in the 60s, they're all saying, gray suit, black tie. Gray suit, black tie. Gray suit, black tie. That was the case across all professional sports until the ABA came into existence. So the idea of what we see now with players strolling into the arena and you see them all got their different fits on, it's a competition to see who can be more uniquely provocative in their outfits. That all began with the pioneers of the aba.
[07:47]
Alison Stewart
I love fit. Check when it happens. How did a player end up in the ABA versus the NBA when they were first starting?
[07:53]
Keenan Kamwanahali
That's an interesting question. I think at the beginning, it was almost a fallback league for players like Roger Brown and Connie Hawkins who've been banned from the NBA. These are players who were caught up in scandals that they didn't get very much due process. But because there's only one, one game in town, a monopoly on the business of professional basketball, these people who ran the leagues at the time could say, nah, you know what? We don't. We don't like it. Your name has been sullied. You're not coming in. So there were great players. It's funny because David just said James Jones. And he's interviewed in the documentary series. There's a number of great players like James Jones, Matt Calvin, who, who people don't know about, who are incredible players. And we were able to interview them. Thank God we were able to catch a number of them before. A number of the folks we interviewed and sat down with have passed away in the times of production, in the time since it's Coming to Light and being broadcast and premiered today. But the players in the ABA really arrived through. At first, they were people who had passed that didn't allow them to get in, or they were a little undersized. But eventually the players wisened up and you'll see the players started to realize that when I come out of college, I can negotiate now with these two teams against each other. And so it really changed the landscape of professional sports and that the players entered with leverage for the first time ever.
[09:06]
Alison Stewart
I wanted to ask you. There've been a lot. There's been a lot written about the aba. What were you trying to correct with this documentary?
[09:14]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, first, you know, you got to look at movies like Semi Pro, right, which is a hilarious movie. Will Ferrell and those guys. But it's aba and it makes them look a lot of times like they are more clownish, more less than second second class. Basketball and what we were able to show and what the players showed to me first. They demonstrated to me, like they told me things like we actually played against the NBA head to head in exhibition games. And I was blown away. I was like, us, I never heard that before the ABA teams played NBA teams like, yes, but you got to understand that we won. And I'm like, wait a minute, let me look at the statistics. And their, their statistics are accurate. When the two teams started playing, the NBA had an advantage in the exhibition games. And by the last three years, the ABA won the majority of the games over the NBA. So you have teams like the Kentucky Colonels who are beating the New York Knicks, teams like the Indiana Pacers of the ABA who are beating the Lakers consistently. And so I think there's a validation that I hope the players of the ABA get to experience with this documentary series and that they were much better, much more innovative than they've ever gotten credit for. And I hope that we're able to shine a light on the respect that they deserve.
[10:24]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're discussing the history of the aba, the American Basketball Association. My guest is director Keenan Kamwana Holly. I want to ask about the three pointer rule. The ABA was the first league to adopt it. It's arguably the most important shot in the NBA today. Why did the ABA add this rule?
[10:48]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Entertainment, entertainment factor. They needed something to make them stand apart from the establishment. So the NBA, who they wanted to challenge, they had a very staged, slow way of playing. Allison, A very considerate way of playing. Think of it like there's a conductor and the head coach who would constantly be orchestrating and controlling the players. The ABA wanted the opposite. They wanted to play more. And if you think of Miles playing along with Miles Davis playing along with John Coltrane, they wanted to let these players flow. And a great way of doing that is to create a three point line. So it was exciting for the crowd, but it also opened up gameplay as you see in the NBA today. It draws people away from the basket and allows smaller players to succeed, faster players to succeed. And so for the entertainment value, they decided, okay, we'll try something. We'll try this, this notion of a three point line. And as we see today, it really, really worked.
[11:39]
Alison Stewart
I want to talk a little bit about Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He was Lou Alcindor at the time. Both the NBA wanted him and the ABA were desperate to sign him. How did the NBA end up with Kareem signing for the Milwaukee Bucks. This is a really interesting story.
[11:57]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, a very interesting story. And the answer is the ABA blew it.
[12:02]
Advertisement Voice
It.
[12:02]
Keenan Kamwanahali
The ABA blew it. They had him. People don't realize this story in sports, even people real basketball story. And so realize the ABA had luau cinder soon to become Preem Abdul Jabbar. They had him. He was ready to sign. He wanted to play with the aba. The ABA had an advantage that they were willing to allow him to play in New York, where of course he's from. And he loved that he wanted to play in New York. He was not at all interested in playing in Milwaukee. He said, in New York is my home. I want to play there. I'll sign with you guys, but I'm going to take one offer. One offer from the NBA and one offer from the ABA and one offer only. And so the ABA had a plan that we're bolder. What we have on our side, we're more bold than the NBA. We're going to put in this young man's hand a check on the day that we sit down to negotiate for $1 million, a cashier's check for $1 million in his hand. And that was their plot of how they were going to win Lu Alcinder. And I won't tell more. I'll leave it at that for you all to watch the series. But the way that that check gets handled. Oh my goodness. The handling of this one of paper changed the history of basketball and changed the history of the ABA forever.
[13:07]
Alison Stewart
What criteria was used to decide which ABA teams would be allowed to merge with the NBA?
[13:16]
Keenan Kamwanahali
That's a good question. Yeah. So the criteria we really went. We leaned into this. This is the final episode, episode four. You'll see this feature my filmmaking partners and I, the producer, Todd Lieberman, who's an incredible scripted producer, and Brett Goldberg, an incredible producer I've known for 30 years. We actually made TV shows together in college. We really leaned into this question about how do we handle this final episode in the merger. The merger is so complex in that it's not really a merger. They're really kind of assuming these teams. The teams have to pay to get in. You would think it'd be the other way around where if you acquired all this talent, all this valuable ip, that they would you shower them with an offer and they decide. But the teams had to pay to get in. So that was the biggest criteria. That's a great question was who was financially soluble enough to stay to be able to pay the fee to get into the league. And it turns out the only teams who were were the New York Nets, the Indiana Pacers, the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs. And some of the teams who were great, who were lost, particularly the Kentucky Colonels, who have an incredible story, have incredible fan support, but did not have the support of their owner, John Y. Brown, who actually started, who actually owned Kentucky France, the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. He started Kentucky Fried Chicken. He did not want to pay the money. And so for that reason, his team didn't make it in. And it was a very sad day that's still felt by the people of Louisville that we recognized. We went to go film there. They still wish their Kentucky Colonels were part of the NBA today.
[14:44]
Alison Stewart
What happened to the players who didn't make it into the NBA after the 1976 merger?
[14:49]
Keenan Kamwanahali
That's one of the toughest stories, Allison, is that a lot of the players, because the league started in 1967, the ones who have been with us from the beginning, including James Jones, who was mentioned earlier, Matt Calvin, they had really run the race by the time that the ABA ended. They were no longer the players they once were. You know, how the. How NBA or a professional basketball season can take a pounding on your body. And they were really done. And there was no consideration for these people. There was no consideration financially. There's no consideration as far as pensions. And they were kind of left out in the cold. And so a lot of the players, the majority of the players, did not make the transition over to the NBA. And many of them have had very difficult lives since they finished their basketball careers.
[15:29]
Alison Stewart
There's a whole series of young Hoopers who don't know that much about the aba. What do you hope they understand about it after watching your series?
[15:40]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Hope they understand that a lot of the things they love about basketball right now, from the style to the speed to shooting from deep, which allows, you know, a lot of younger, smaller kids to participate in the game and be effective. That while you may not recognize the young ones like the forefathers of what you're enjoying on the game right now are people like Rick Barry, Spencer Haywood, George Gervin, Dr. J. Julius Irvin. They are the forefathers to what you're enjoying now. These men were able to revolutionize the game and using nothing but the power of their own individual expression and their willingness to link together and bond together in community. And that's really what took them over the top. And so I want them to realize that two things. One, that the forefathers of what you love about basketball were gentlemen from something called the American Basketball Association. That's the first thing. And the second thing is to realize and recognize what these men were able to accomplish. Most of them only 22, 23 years old, they took on great institutions, not only professional basketball, Goliath, the NBA, but also professional sports. And the way that it was run, as far as the way power dynamics were set up, with players having very little autonomy, they change that forever. And so I want them to realize how much can be accomplished when you have a willingness to lean into your individual expression and also willingness to do it in the form of community. I think that's something that the younger athletes, I notice a lot of them come to me for mentorship, athletes particularly, who want to be filmmakers, who want to transition into that. And they say we lack community, we lack a togetherness right now. And I think what you'll see from the players at the ABA was that community, that togetherness, that what they call their brotherhood is what changed the face of basketball and changed sports history forever.
[17:16]
Alison Stewart
That was my conversation with Kennen Kamwanahali, the director of the docuseries the Legend of the American Basketball Association. It's now streaming on Prime Video. We continue our conversations about institutions and artists who shaped American culture with the back story of piano man Billy Joel. Susan Lacey directed the documentary film Billy Joel and so it goes. That's next.
[17:55]
Advertisement Voice
Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great til the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.
[18:05]
Keenan Kamwanahali
I remember telling my boss, it'll be
[18:07]
Alison Stewart
good for the brand when leads were slow.
[18:11]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, it wasn't.
[18:12]
Advertisement Voice
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Summary6 min read

Podcast Episode Summary

How the ABA Changed the NBA

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart
Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guest: Keenan Kamwanahali (Director of "Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association")
Release Date: August 10, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the transformative legacy of the American Basketball Association (ABA) and its enduring impact on the NBA and broader basketball culture. Through conversation with Keenan Kamwanahali, director of the new Prime Video docuseries "Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association," host Alison Stewart explores the ABA’s origins, innovations, cultural shifts, impact on race in sports, and its role in shaping the modern game.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Roots and Spirit of the ABA

Origins and Context (02:13–03:23)
- The ABA was founded in 1967 when basketball's popularity lagged far behind baseball and football.
- A group of hopeful sports owners saw an opportunity to challenge the NBA, believing they could create a better league and force a merger within a couple of years.
- Quote:
  "The NBA was a distant, distant, tiny little cousin compared to baseball and football." – Keenan Kamwanahali (02:42)
National Turmoil and Integration (03:23–05:02)
- In the tumultuous years of 1967–68, the ABA became a groundbreaking integrated workspace, as described by George Karl.
- Quote:
  "The ABA was the first integrated workplace in America... we were 50, 50 in our locker room." – George Karl, as recounted by Keenan Kamwanahali (03:38)
- The ABA recruited players based on talent alone, without the unofficial race quotas of the NBA.

Breaking Race Barriers in Pro Basketball

NBA’s Informal Quotas and Stereotypes (05:02–06:44)
- Before the ABA, the NBA had informal limits on Black players per team, driven by prejudiced stereotypes about their style and teamwork.
- Quote:
  "You can't win with black players... They play for themselves. They don’t play for the greater good of the team." – Keenan Kamwanahali (05:17)
Sports as a Mirror to Society
- The ABA, with its clear scoreboard, challenged these discriminatory beliefs as Black stars led teams to championships and upended lazy assumptions.
- Quote:
  "Sports puts us face to face with our own American beliefs, prejudices, understandings... In basketball, it's not subjective at all. There's a scoreboard." – Keenan Kamwanahali (05:52)

Culture, Style, and Innovation

Transforming Sports Fashion and Expression (06:44–07:53)
- Beyond basketball, the ABA allowed for unprecedented individual expression—on the court (afros, style of play) and off (personalized fashion).
- The ‘fit check’ culture now seen in the NBA began in the ABA era.
- Quote:
  "That was the case across all professional sports until the ABA came into existence... what we see now with players strolling into the arena... began with the pioneers of the ABA." – Keenan Kamwanahali (06:50)
Who Joined the ABA? (07:53–09:05)
- The league became a haven for talented players barred from the NBA due to scandals or being “undersized”—but soon, players leveraged both leagues for better contracts.

The Real Basketball: Correcting the Narrative

Challenging the ‘Clownish’ Image (09:05–10:24)
- The docuseries seeks to correct the one-dimensional, “clownish” portrayal of ABA basketball (as in movies like “Semi Pro”).
- Head-to-head exhibition games between the leagues (a little-known fact) showed that by the league’s final years, ABA teams often beat NBA teams.
- Quote:
  "By the last three years, the ABA won the majority of the games over the NBA." – Keenan Kamwanahali (09:13)
- Kamwanahali wants the world to recognize the ABA’s real quality, innovation, and influence.

Basketball’s Evolution: The 3-pointer & Play Style

The Three-Point Revolution (10:24–11:39)
- The ABA introduced the three-pointer for both entertainment value and to distinguish itself from the NBA’s slower, more controlled play.
- This innovation allowed for new tactical approaches and greater opportunities for smaller, faster players.
- Quote:
  "If you think of Miles Davis playing along with John Coltrane, they wanted to let these players flow. A great way of doing that is to create a three point line." – Keenan Kamwanahali (10:48)

The Missed Kareem Opportunity

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—The Deal That Wasn’t (11:39–13:07)
- The ABA nearly signed Kareem (then Lew Alcindor), who was eager to play in New York rather than Milwaukee, but mishandling a million-dollar offer check cost them the chance.
- Quote:
  "The ABA blew it... The handling of this one piece of paper changed the history of basketball." – Keenan Kamwanahali (12:01)

The Merger and Its Fallout

Who Got In and Why? (13:07–14:44)
- The 1976 NBA-ABA merger was complex, not a true merger, but an absorption of select teams based on their financial solvency.
- Four ABA teams joined: New York Nets, Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs.
- Fan favorites like the Kentucky Colonels missed out due to ownership decisions.
- Quote:
  "The biggest criteria... who was financially soluble enough to pay the fee to get into the league." – Keenan Kamwanahali (13:15)
What Happened to the Rest? (14:44–15:29)
- Most non-merged players, especially older veterans, did not join the NBA and received no transitional support or pension, often facing hardship post-career.

Legacy and Message for Today’s Young Players

Influences on Modern Basketball (15:29–17:16)
- The docuseries aims to educate young fans about the ABA's massive influence—on style, speed, and inclusion in basketball.
- Quote:
  "The forefathers of what you love about basketball were gentlemen from something called the American Basketball Association." – Keenan Kamwanahali (15:39)
- Kamwanahali emphasizes the ABA’s spirit of community and expresses hope that today's athletes recognize the power of unity and individual expression.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Integration:
"The ABA was the first integrated workplace in America... we were 50, 50 in our locker room." – George Karl, via Keenan Kamwanahali (03:38)
On Stereotypes:
"You can't win with black players... They play for themselves. They don’t play for the greater good of the team." – Keenan Kamwanahali (05:17)
On Basketball as a Proving Ground:
"In basketball, it's not subjective at all. There's a scoreboard." – Keenan Kamwanahali (05:52)
On Influence of ABA Culture:
"That all began with the pioneers of the ABA." – Keenan Kamwanahali (06:50)
On the Three-Point Line:
"If you think of Miles Davis playing along with John Coltrane, they wanted to let these players flow." – Keenan Kamwanahali (10:48)
On Missed Opportunities:
"The ABA blew it... The handling of this one piece of paper changed the history of basketball." – Keenan Kamwanahali (12:01)
On Community:
"Their brotherhood is what changed the face of basketball and changed sports history forever." – Keenan Kamwanahali (17:16)

Timestamps for Key Segments

Opening and ABA context: 00:39–02:42
Integration and race in the ABA: 03:23–05:02
Stereotypes and sports as society's mirror: 05:02–06:44
Culture and style innovations: 06:44–07:53
ABA as a haven for talent: 07:53–09:05
Correcting the ABA image: 09:05–10:24
Three-point shot legacy: 10:24–11:39
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the lost contract: 11:39–13:07
ABA-NBA merger: 13:07–14:44
Aftermath for non-merged players: 14:44–15:29
ABA's legacy for young players: 15:29–17:16

Summary

Through insightful storytelling and personal anecdotes, this episode recounts how the short-lived ABA revolutionized professional basketball—challenging racial barriers, introducing innovations like the three-point shot, upending conservative sports culture, and ultimately leaving an indelible mark on the NBA and sports at large. Director Keenan Kamwanahali’s work not only honors overlooked trailblazers but encourages today’s fans and players to recognize the foundational role of the ABA in everything they love about modern basketball.

Loading summary

Transcript39 lines

[00:00]
Advertisement Voice
Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out. In dashboard confessions.
[00:10]
Keenan Kamwanahali
I remember telling my boss, it'll be
[00:12]
Alison Stewart
good for the brand when leads were slow.
[00:15]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, it it wasn't.
[00:17]
Advertisement Voice
Cut the bull. Spend LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply.
[00:40]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Three pointers, dunk contests and high flying superstars. All these things are what make the NBA games exciting. But that was not always the case. In the 50s and 60s, the games were slow, boring and overwhelmingly white. Then a new competitor challenged the NBA's hold on professional basketball. One that was more athletic, a lot more physical, and with significantly more black players on the court. The American Basketball Association. The ABA only lasted nine seasons, but it birthed a new generation of superstars like Dr. J and George the Iceman Girvan. The league also created a style of play that eventually influenced the mainstream culture of the NBA and its popularity. A new docu series tells the complete story of the ABA from its founding in 1967 until its eventual merger with the NBA in 76. It's called Soul Power, the Legend of the American Basketball Association. It's streaming on Prime Video. It was such an exciting documentary. My producer loved watching me watch it in my office. He laughed every time I went swish go when a piece of archival footage played or one of those great players appeared on screen. And I just had to share this with director Kenan Kamwanahali.
[02:13]
Keenan Kamwanahali
It's funny because we have a story that is what some would consider an older story, 1975. But the people we had working on it were purposefully young. Oh, he brought in 20something editors to capture their energy and their curiosity. They got so into the topic that they had heard of.
[02:30]
Alison Stewart
They have. They have a good sense of humor too, your editors, by the way. Yeah, I want to say that. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. The ABA was founded in 1967. What were the circumstances that led to its founding?
[02:43]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, the circumstances were that there was a soft market for basketball. The NBA had not taken the foothold that we experience today. Know the NBA of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird. This was way before that, when the NBA was a distant, distant, tiny little cousin compared to baseball and football. And for that reason the few guys got together who were hopefuls to be sports owners, and they thought, you know what? We could potentially challenge the NBA because they're not that strong and their product is not that good. And their whole intention was, you know what? Let's create a league that is a little bit better than their league and force them to merge with us. It should only take about a year or two. That's what they thought at the time when they started the league.
[03:24]
Alison Stewart
I want to focus on the year 1967 and 68, because the country was in such turmoil those years. How did the circumstances in the country in those early years affect the ABA in its infancy?
[03:39]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, one of the most interesting quotes I got that at the beginning when I was first being brought this project and I was considering whether to say yes to it or not, was from the head coach, George Carl, who's known. Known in basketball circles as the head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics for the series that they played against Michael Jordan, the Bulls. But before that, he was an ABA player. And in talking about the project, he said, kenny, what you don't realize about this project is that the ABA was the first integrated workplace in America. And when he said that, Alison just blew me away. I was like, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Give me some verification, coach. And he started to explain to me that in 1967, there were places that had integrated in. In. In title or in officially, because they had one or two black people at different news outlets, different companies. But he said, we were 50, 50 in our locker room. There was no. And that's not by design. So they started recruiting the best player. They started taking the best player without any quotas that were previously employed by the NBA. And in doing so, it made our locker room full of guys who had never been around each other before. And it's hilarious to watch these guys talk about. To go back to being 20 years old and talk about how hard a time they had at the beginning, understanding each other's jokes or even the way they spoke to each other. They said it was going to a brand new world. And they talk about the process over those seven years of the ABA's existence of gradually becoming friends and then gradually becoming family. They became brothers because of what they had to face in terms of the Goliath they were trying to take down in the NBA.
[05:02]
Alison Stewart
Before founding the aba, there was this sort of. It was an informal race quota in the NBA. To be honest, only a few black players were allowed on each team. What were the stereotypes that coaches held about black players.
[05:18]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, it's interesting. We hear them now and it feels like what. They're also archaic. It's hard to hear them now. It's kind of mind blowing to hear the theory when you know of Steph Curry and LeBron James and all the Michael Jordans of the world, that you can't win with black players. Yes, they look spectacular, yes, they have incredible ability, but you can't actually win with. They're not winning players. They are players who play for themselves. They don't play for the greater good of the team. That was the stigma in 1967.
[05:45]
Alison Stewart
You see my editor, my engineer in my in our box going, what you're saying you can't have them be good players.
[05:52]
Keenan Kamwanahali
It's funny because in exploring this story, we find ourselves face to face. And this is what sports does for us. It puts us face to face with our own American beliefs, prejudices, understandings, things that we assume to be true, that are necessarily true in sports. I love doing sports stories. One, because I was an athlete, a football player, played football in college at Duke. But because sports has a scoreboard, it's unlike anything else in our lives. Everything else is very undefined as far as who is succeeding, who's not succeeding. Well, if you walk into an accounting firm, it's very difficult to really say for sure who's succeeding, who's not succeeding. If you walk into a general business, a bakery, well, who's the best baker? Very subjective. But the NBA in basketball, ABA and basketball, it's not subjective at all. There's a scoreboard. And so when you say black players, you can't win with them. And then in the first and second year of the aba, you have two black players lead their team to the championship, it starts to throw a monkey wrench in our prejudices.
[06:45]
Alison Stewart
This is a four series documentary and you get into how it changed the culture.
[06:51]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, we do. It's such an astute observation. I appreciate that observation because when you see not just the way that the players are succeeding, but it's the, it's the manner in which they are carrying themselves on the court like a Dr. J with the way he wore his fro and full blown dynamic afro. He didn't have the biggest afro in the aba, but he was second biggest thanks to Darnell Hillman of Indiana. But do you see the players being able to express themselves in the way they play on the court and the way they dress off the court? That was the first time that was happening. If you look back in the 60s and I started my career at NFL Films. If you watch those players get off the bus in the 60s, they're all saying, gray suit, black tie. Gray suit, black tie. Gray suit, black tie. That was the case across all professional sports until the ABA came into existence. So the idea of what we see now with players strolling into the arena and you see them all got their different fits on, it's a competition to see who can be more uniquely provocative in their outfits. That all began with the pioneers of the aba.
[07:47]
Alison Stewart
I love fit. Check when it happens. How did a player end up in the ABA versus the NBA when they were first starting?
[07:53]
Keenan Kamwanahali
That's an interesting question. I think at the beginning, it was almost a fallback league for players like Roger Brown and Connie Hawkins who've been banned from the NBA. These are players who were caught up in scandals that they didn't get very much due process. But because there's only one, one game in town, a monopoly on the business of professional basketball, these people who ran the leagues at the time could say, nah, you know what? We don't. We don't like it. Your name has been sullied. You're not coming in. So there were great players. It's funny because David just said James Jones. And he's interviewed in the documentary series. There's a number of great players like James Jones, Matt Calvin, who, who people don't know about, who are incredible players. And we were able to interview them. Thank God we were able to catch a number of them before. A number of the folks we interviewed and sat down with have passed away in the times of production, in the time since it's Coming to Light and being broadcast and premiered today. But the players in the ABA really arrived through. At first, they were people who had passed that didn't allow them to get in, or they were a little undersized. But eventually the players wisened up and you'll see the players started to realize that when I come out of college, I can negotiate now with these two teams against each other. And so it really changed the landscape of professional sports and that the players entered with leverage for the first time ever.
[09:06]
Alison Stewart
I wanted to ask you. There've been a lot. There's been a lot written about the aba. What were you trying to correct with this documentary?
[09:14]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Well, first, you know, you got to look at movies like Semi Pro, right, which is a hilarious movie. Will Ferrell and those guys. But it's aba and it makes them look a lot of times like they are more clownish, more less than second second class. Basketball and what we were able to show and what the players showed to me first. They demonstrated to me, like they told me things like we actually played against the NBA head to head in exhibition games. And I was blown away. I was like, us, I never heard that before the ABA teams played NBA teams like, yes, but you got to understand that we won. And I'm like, wait a minute, let me look at the statistics. And their, their statistics are accurate. When the two teams started playing, the NBA had an advantage in the exhibition games. And by the last three years, the ABA won the majority of the games over the NBA. So you have teams like the Kentucky Colonels who are beating the New York Knicks, teams like the Indiana Pacers of the ABA who are beating the Lakers consistently. And so I think there's a validation that I hope the players of the ABA get to experience with this documentary series and that they were much better, much more innovative than they've ever gotten credit for. And I hope that we're able to shine a light on the respect that they deserve.
[10:24]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're discussing the history of the aba, the American Basketball Association. My guest is director Keenan Kamwana Holly. I want to ask about the three pointer rule. The ABA was the first league to adopt it. It's arguably the most important shot in the NBA today. Why did the ABA add this rule?
[10:48]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Entertainment, entertainment factor. They needed something to make them stand apart from the establishment. So the NBA, who they wanted to challenge, they had a very staged, slow way of playing. Allison, A very considerate way of playing. Think of it like there's a conductor and the head coach who would constantly be orchestrating and controlling the players. The ABA wanted the opposite. They wanted to play more. And if you think of Miles playing along with Miles Davis playing along with John Coltrane, they wanted to let these players flow. And a great way of doing that is to create a three point line. So it was exciting for the crowd, but it also opened up gameplay as you see in the NBA today. It draws people away from the basket and allows smaller players to succeed, faster players to succeed. And so for the entertainment value, they decided, okay, we'll try something. We'll try this, this notion of a three point line. And as we see today, it really, really worked.
[11:39]
Alison Stewart
I want to talk a little bit about Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He was Lou Alcindor at the time. Both the NBA wanted him and the ABA were desperate to sign him. How did the NBA end up with Kareem signing for the Milwaukee Bucks. This is a really interesting story.
[11:57]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, a very interesting story. And the answer is the ABA blew it.
[12:02]
Advertisement Voice
It.
[12:02]
Keenan Kamwanahali
The ABA blew it. They had him. People don't realize this story in sports, even people real basketball story. And so realize the ABA had luau cinder soon to become Preem Abdul Jabbar. They had him. He was ready to sign. He wanted to play with the aba. The ABA had an advantage that they were willing to allow him to play in New York, where of course he's from. And he loved that he wanted to play in New York. He was not at all interested in playing in Milwaukee. He said, in New York is my home. I want to play there. I'll sign with you guys, but I'm going to take one offer. One offer from the NBA and one offer from the ABA and one offer only. And so the ABA had a plan that we're bolder. What we have on our side, we're more bold than the NBA. We're going to put in this young man's hand a check on the day that we sit down to negotiate for $1 million, a cashier's check for $1 million in his hand. And that was their plot of how they were going to win Lu Alcinder. And I won't tell more. I'll leave it at that for you all to watch the series. But the way that that check gets handled. Oh my goodness. The handling of this one of paper changed the history of basketball and changed the history of the ABA forever.
[13:07]
Alison Stewart
What criteria was used to decide which ABA teams would be allowed to merge with the NBA?
[13:16]
Keenan Kamwanahali
That's a good question. Yeah. So the criteria we really went. We leaned into this. This is the final episode, episode four. You'll see this feature my filmmaking partners and I, the producer, Todd Lieberman, who's an incredible scripted producer, and Brett Goldberg, an incredible producer I've known for 30 years. We actually made TV shows together in college. We really leaned into this question about how do we handle this final episode in the merger. The merger is so complex in that it's not really a merger. They're really kind of assuming these teams. The teams have to pay to get in. You would think it'd be the other way around where if you acquired all this talent, all this valuable ip, that they would you shower them with an offer and they decide. But the teams had to pay to get in. So that was the biggest criteria. That's a great question was who was financially soluble enough to stay to be able to pay the fee to get into the league. And it turns out the only teams who were were the New York Nets, the Indiana Pacers, the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs. And some of the teams who were great, who were lost, particularly the Kentucky Colonels, who have an incredible story, have incredible fan support, but did not have the support of their owner, John Y. Brown, who actually started, who actually owned Kentucky France, the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. He started Kentucky Fried Chicken. He did not want to pay the money. And so for that reason, his team didn't make it in. And it was a very sad day that's still felt by the people of Louisville that we recognized. We went to go film there. They still wish their Kentucky Colonels were part of the NBA today.
[14:44]
Alison Stewart
What happened to the players who didn't make it into the NBA after the 1976 merger?
[14:49]
Keenan Kamwanahali
That's one of the toughest stories, Allison, is that a lot of the players, because the league started in 1967, the ones who have been with us from the beginning, including James Jones, who was mentioned earlier, Matt Calvin, they had really run the race by the time that the ABA ended. They were no longer the players they once were. You know, how the. How NBA or a professional basketball season can take a pounding on your body. And they were really done. And there was no consideration for these people. There was no consideration financially. There's no consideration as far as pensions. And they were kind of left out in the cold. And so a lot of the players, the majority of the players, did not make the transition over to the NBA. And many of them have had very difficult lives since they finished their basketball careers.
[15:29]
Alison Stewart
There's a whole series of young Hoopers who don't know that much about the aba. What do you hope they understand about it after watching your series?
[15:40]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Hope they understand that a lot of the things they love about basketball right now, from the style to the speed to shooting from deep, which allows, you know, a lot of younger, smaller kids to participate in the game and be effective. That while you may not recognize the young ones like the forefathers of what you're enjoying on the game right now are people like Rick Barry, Spencer Haywood, George Gervin, Dr. J. Julius Irvin. They are the forefathers to what you're enjoying now. These men were able to revolutionize the game and using nothing but the power of their own individual expression and their willingness to link together and bond together in community. And that's really what took them over the top. And so I want them to realize that two things. One, that the forefathers of what you love about basketball were gentlemen from something called the American Basketball Association. That's the first thing. And the second thing is to realize and recognize what these men were able to accomplish. Most of them only 22, 23 years old, they took on great institutions, not only professional basketball, Goliath, the NBA, but also professional sports. And the way that it was run, as far as the way power dynamics were set up, with players having very little autonomy, they change that forever. And so I want them to realize how much can be accomplished when you have a willingness to lean into your individual expression and also willingness to do it in the form of community. I think that's something that the younger athletes, I notice a lot of them come to me for mentorship, athletes particularly, who want to be filmmakers, who want to transition into that. And they say we lack community, we lack a togetherness right now. And I think what you'll see from the players at the ABA was that community, that togetherness, that what they call their brotherhood is what changed the face of basketball and changed sports history forever.
[17:16]
Alison Stewart
That was my conversation with Kennen Kamwanahali, the director of the docuseries the Legend of the American Basketball Association. It's now streaming on Prime Video. We continue our conversations about institutions and artists who shaped American culture with the back story of piano man Billy Joel. Susan Lacey directed the documentary film Billy Joel and so it goes. That's next.
[17:55]
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[18:05]
Keenan Kamwanahali
I remember telling my boss, it'll be
[18:07]
Alison Stewart
good for the brand when leads were slow.
[18:11]
Keenan Kamwanahali
Yeah, it wasn't.
[18:12]
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