The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association are giving an assist to 115 former players of the defunct American Basketball Association where the likes of Julius "Dr. J" Erving and George "Iceman" Gervin played.
In July, the National Basketball Association announced that ABA players who played at least three seasons in the ABA (or ABA and NBA combined and didn't qualify for a benefit from the NBA players' $631.6 million pension plan because they weren't vested) will receive annual payments of $3,828 per year of service from a new joint program of the NBA and the players association.
Only four ABA teams were picked up by the NBA in the basketball associations' 1976 merger.
The details of the plan, including when the payments will begin and whether the widows of the three former ABA players who passed away in 2022 will receive a payment for this year, are still being determined, said John Abrams, a former team ophthalmologist and ball boy for the Indiana Pacers and co-founder of the Dropping Dimes Foundation, which helped negotiate the deal for the ex-ABA players.
Players who qualify will receive the annual payments in what the NBA calls a "recognition benefit," Mr. Abrams said. Those who also played in the NBA and qualify for an NBA pension will not get pension credit for the years they played in the ABA nor will they be eligible to receive the new benefit, Mr. Abrams said.
Dropping Dimes was launched, in part, when a former ABA and later NBA player, the late Melvin Joe Daniels, told Mr. Abrams and Dropping Dimes co-founder Scott Tarter how some former players were destitute, "living under bridges" and being "buried in pauper graves," Mr. Abrams said.
In addition to helping iron out the details of the payments, the foundation has much more to do. "There's no question that we know there will be guys that will still need assistance that don't qualify" for the benefit or who are receiving the benefit and it's not enough, Mr. Abrams said.
One of the financial problems the foundation sees the most are former players having trouble paying medical costs. Many of these players are in their 70s and 80s and medical costs are becoming more and more of an issue, Mr. Abrams said.
