Fifty years after the NBA absorbed four ABA franchises, the league is leaning hard into the anniversary with a fresh batch of classic edition uniforms and courts for the Spurs, Pacers, Nuggets and Nets.
The timing fits neatly with the upcoming season-long celebration of the merger, which brought San Antonio, Indiana, New York and Denver into the NBA in 1976. The Kentucky Colonels and Spirits of St.
Louis were left out as the remaining ABA teams folded, and their players were sent into a dispersal draft. Half a century later, the four surviving franchises are still here, and now they’ve all unveiled new looks built around that shared history.
The best of the bunch might be Brooklyn’s, even if calling them the Brooklyn Nets in this uniform feels a little off. The red, white and blue styling pulls straight from the franchise’s ABA era and gives the whole package a sharp, clean finish. The team even carried the tri-color basketball motif into its current Brooklyn branding across social profiles as part of the reveal, tying the throwback to the present without losing the retro feel.
Indiana is right there with them. The Pacers already have the cleanest historical bridge of the group since the name never changed, and the new classic look hits all the right notes, from the logo to the yellow racing stripe down the jersey.
The court gets a nice touch too, with an outline of the ABA championship trophy at center court honoring the franchise that won the most titles in the defunct league. The Pacers took three ABA crowns overall, including back-to-back championships in 1972 and ’73 in this road look.
San Antonio went a different route, settling on a black, silver and white design that nods more to the Spurs’ current identity than their old ABA origins as the Texas Chaparrals in Dallas. The result is strong, especially with the trim along the jerseys and shorts, and the matching court adds its own personality with a tribute to the floor at the demolished Hemisfair Arena. A Chaparrals look would have been the curveball, but the franchise clearly leaned into the uniform that connects most naturally to its San Antonio era.
Denver’s version is the most striking departure. The Nuggets’ classic uniforms go completely away from the team’s usual palette in favor of a look that honors the franchise’s original name, the Denver Rockets.
That name changed to Nuggets in 1974 ahead of the NBA move because the Houston Rockets already had the name, and this throwback turns that history into a full visual reset. It may not be the flashiest uniform on first glance, but it does the job if the mission is to make the ABA roots impossible to miss.
The result is a strong anniversary slate overall, with each team tapping into a different piece of its past. And if nothing else, these jerseys should create a few memories down the road - the kind where fans look back and remember when Nikola Jokić wore an orange jersey, or when the old ABA look made its way back onto NBA courts for a season.
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