130. Swen Nater and the ABA/NBA Merger

Bowie Kuhn landed on the cover of the June 28, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated because he had just done something nobody in baseball had done quite so boldly — voided three of the biggest player sales in the history of the sport. When Charlie Finley sold Vida Blue to the Yankees and Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox all in a single afternoon, Kuhn stepped in and nullified every transaction, invoking his power to act in baseball's "best interests." Finley called him the village idiot, Billy Martin joked about pitching him, and the entire baseball world stopped to ask one question — just how much power does a commissioner actually have? That was enough to put Bowie Kuhn on the cover of Sports Illustrated. That same week two other seismic sports stories were playing out inside that June 28th issue. In boxing, George Foreman demolished Joe Frazier in five rounds, knocking him down twice before the referee stopped it — and Smokin' Joe announced his retirement on the spot with a perfect line: "It's time to put it on the wall and go boogie, boogie, boogie." And in basketball, after years of financial chaos and a 44-minute vote, the ABA officially ceased to exist — four franchises surviving into the NBA while the rest quietly disappeared, ending a nine-year experiment that gave the world Julius Erving, the three-point line, and a red, white and blue ball nobody took seriously until it was too late. Swen Nater's journey is one of the most unlikely in sports history. He grew up in the Netherlands, never played a high school game, and arrived at UCLA with almost no formal experience — spending two seasons as Bill Walton's practice player on back-to-back undefeated championship teams without ever starting. Yet the Milwaukee Bucks drafted him in the first round in 1973, making him the only player ever drafted that high without a college start. He chose the ABA instead, and after the Virginia Squires sold him off he landed with San Antonio and won ABA Rookie of the Year. When the merger came, Nater transitioned seamlessly, eventually becoming the only player in history to lead both the ABA and NBA in rebounding. Swen tells us what it was like to backup Walton, how Kareem kept him from signing with Milwaukee, and how Wilt Chamberlain taught him to become a ferocious rebounder. He tells us how John Wooden prepared him for the pros, how Don Nelson made him a better shooter, and the story of the time he and Lonnie Shelton got into it — and his wife's 80-year-old grandmother came onto the court to give him some assistance. It's the end of the ABA and the beginning of a great era in the NBA, and Swen Nater was in the center of it all. Listen and download the latest Past Our Prime wherever you get your podcasts. Have your grandkids show you how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices