sad news; NBA owed 3 ABA Pacers $35K a year. Two lived to see it happen. One died fighting for it…….
A point guard, center and power forward played with a red-white-and-blue basketball. They blazed a trail on a shiny hardwood court in a fast-paced league with flashy moves, halftime shenanigans and players made of true grit.
The point guard was Freddie Lewis. The center was Mel Daniels. And the power forward/center was Bob Netolicky.
All three men gave their might, their talent and their careers to the American Basketball Association, most of their seasons with the Indiana Pacers. The ABA lasted nine years. The three gave nearly 27 combined years to the ABA.
When it was over, Lewis became a coach and school teacher in Washington, D.C. Netolicky worked 25 years in the auto auction industry. And Daniels was a coach and NBA front office advisor.
None of the three made millions in basketball. Not even hundreds of thousands. But all three were promised pensions when the NBA merged with the ABA in 1976, absorbing four of its teams.
The pensions didn’t come right away. Years passed. Then decades. The clock kept ticking and all three men, as they waited for the money, were vocal advocates, pushing the NBA for the pensions.
