If I told you the best professional basketball team in the world played in St. Louis for one season, would you believe me?
While the St. Louis Hawks won the 1958 NBA title with Bob Pettit, this super St. Louis team was probably better. There was no championship for this team, and it ceased to exist a year later.
But based on what individual players accomplished in the NBA (multiple NBA titles, All-Star Games), had it stayed together and merged into the NBA it would have been an immediate playoff contender and probably would have won a title
Say hello to the 1975-76 St. Louis Spirits.
Last week’s death of Moses Malone, a Basketball Hall of Fame member who is recognized as the NBA’s all-time best offensive rebounder, reminds us how talented the Spirits were. Just a year out of high school, Malone was already demonstrating that he would be one of the game’s best in the future. Malone would win the 1983 NBA Championship with the Philadelphia 76ers and closed his career averaging 20.6 points and 12.2 rebounds per game. This includes an astonishing 7.1 offensive rebounds per game.
Malone would not be the first former Spirit to win the NBA title.
The late Maurice Lucas would accomplish that feat in 1977 with the Portland Trailblazers. While Bill Walton was the NBA Finals MVP that season, Lucas contributed 21.2 points and 10 rebounds during the playoff run. Playing power forward, he helped defeat Julius Erving and the 76ers in a six-game series. He averaged 14.4 points and 8.8 rebounds during his 12-year NBA career.
One of Lucas’ teammate on the ‘75-76 Spirits, Caldwell Jones, was the starting center for those 1977 Sixers. Jones averaged six points and 8.1 rebounds per game and would play in three NBA Finals, losing twice to Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980 and 1982. Jones started at center for the Spirits, and not the youthful Malone.
Of course, the team featured the late and flamboyant “Marvelous” Marvin Barnes. He also was called “Bad News” for off-court troubles that began as a youth when he and several other youths attempted to rob a bus. He attacked a teammate at Providence with a tire iron. He also was one of America’s best basketball players. In ‘75-76 with the Spirits, Barnes compiled 24.1 points, 10.8 rebounds, two blocks and 1.9 steals per game.
Drugs and a concealed weapons charge that landed him in jail hindered his NBA career. But he still managed to average 15.2 points and 9.2 rebounds for four teams. Barnes died two years ago at age 62.
Don Chaney had played seven seasons with the Boston Celtics before he jumped to the ABA and signed with the Spirits. While a Celtic, Chaney won the NBA title in 1969 and 1974. He returned to the NBA with the Lakers for two seasons before closing out his career with a three-year stint with the Celtics, the team that drafted him first in 1968.
Small forward M.L. Carr opted to sign with the Spirits as a rookie in 1975 after being drafted by the NBA’s Kansas City-Omaha Kings. After three seasons with the Detroit Pistons, Carr joined the Celtics where he would team with Larry Bird and other stars to win the 1984 and 1986 NBA titles. In nine NBA seasons Carr averaged 9.7 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.
Ron Boone, a guard, was drafted in the 13th round by the Phoenix Suns and failed to make the team. He played for Dallas and Utah in the NBA before joining the Spirits for the 75-76 season. By this time, Boone was a crafty veteran who averaged 21 points and five assists for St. Louis. He caught the eye of Kansas City where he signed after the Spirits folded and averaged 22.2 points and 4.1 assists per game. He closed his NBA career with 13.9 points and 4.3 assist averages.
Gus Gerard was a Spirit for a season and a half and later pieced together a five-year NBA career with several franchises. For St. Louis he averaged 15.7 and 10.3 points in those two seasons, although he was traded during the final season. In the NBA he averaged 16.4 and 7.3 rebounds.
Freddie Lewis played guard for the NBA’s Cincinnati Royals for one season before signing with Indiana of the ABA for the 1968-69 season. After he joined the Spirits in 1974, Lewis resurrected his career by averaging 22.6 points and 5.5 assists in 1974-75. The next season he averaged 14.8 points and four assists. He returned to the NBA for his final year with the Indiana Pacers of the NBA, where he averaged seven points and 1.6 assists.
Don Adams was a rarity in that he only played part of the 1975-76 with the Spirits. He would join Bob McAdoo and the Buffalo Braves of the NBA after 20 games, and reached the playoffs. The Braves almost upset the favored Celtics in the NBA Eastern Finals. Before joining the Spirits, Adams had played five seasons in the NBA, averaging 8.8 points and 5.6 rebounds.
After one year with the Spirits in 75-76, Steve Green was signed by the Pacers and played three seasons. He averaged 5.8 points and 2.4 rebounds.
Power forward Rudy Hackett rarely played for the Spirits, but did make a NBA roster the following year. He played for the Pacers for the New Jersey Nets for one game and the Pacers for five.
After two seasons as a backup guard for the Spirits, Mike Barr played one season with Kansas City, where he averaged 3.8 points per game.
Backup center Rudy Denton played one season in the NBA after the Spirits dissolved, averaging five points in just 45 games in 1976-77.
Harry Rogers, a Sumner graduate and former Saint Louis University player, played only one year of pro basketball with the Spirits and did not play in the NBA.
Center Paul Ruffner and guard Barry Parkhill were the other players that did not reach the NBA.
As documented in the ESPN “30 for 30” documentary “Free Spirits,” the New Jersey-based owners of the franchise Ozzie and Dan Silna struck a deal with the NBA when their franchise was not accepted into the NBA. In fact, had the ABA survived the Spirits were headed to Salt Lake City, Utah as the Rockies. The Silnas’ deal guaranteed them 1/7 of TV revenue of the teams that merged into the NBA (the Nets, Pacers, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs) in perpetuity. By 2012, the New York Times reported that the Silnas had pocketed $255 million. In 2014, the NBA convinced the brothers to take a one-time $500 million payoff to end the deal.
The Spirits are one of the greatest “what if” stories in the history of sport. One thing for certain is that the team featured a future NBA player two-deep at every position. Some would become All Stars and one would reach the Hall of Fame. It would have surely been a NBA playoff team and had a tremendous chance to win in the NBA Finals.
My favorite Marvin story
Rod Thorn, who now serves as the NBA’s president of Basketball Operations, was coach of the Spirits during the 1974-75 season, but was fired in December 1975 after the team got off to a slow start. He was replaced by Joe Mullaney and the team did not duplicate its playoff success from the year before.
Years after his season in St. Louis, I heard Thorn tell this story.
One evening the team had finished pre-game warm-ups and Marvin Barnes was nowhere to be found. Thorn had pretty much given up on having his star player that evening when the doors to the locker room burst open. In rushes Barnes, who had on a full-length leather coat and expensive three-piece suit. He had two quarter pounders with cheese, a large order of fries and a drink. As he put his uniform, he woofed down his food and then hit the court with his teammates.
He did not speak a word to anyone before the game. He then went out and scored 30 or more points and the Spirits won. After the game he returned to the locker room, put the coat over his uniform and left into a cold St. Louis night. Again, he spoke to no one.
Along with being “the great NBA team that never was,” the Spirits also featured a youthful radio announcer named Bob Costas.
Alvin A. Reid is a panelist on KETC channel 9’s most-popular show “Donnybrook,” and is also a radio commentator and author.
