The Pittsburgh Condors were a professional basketball team in the original American Basketball Association (ABA). Originally called the Pittsburgh Pipers , they were a charter franchise of the ABA and captured the first league title. The team played their home games in Pittsburgh's Civic Arena .
48-469: The Pipers were one of the ABA's inaugural franchises in 1967. The team had great success on the court, posting the league's best record during the regular season (54–24, .692) and winning the league's first ABA Championship. The Pipers were led by their star player, ABA MVP and future Hall-of-Famer Connie Hawkins , who led the ABA in scoring at 26.8 ppg. The Pipers swept through the 1968 ABA Playoffs and defeated
96-882: A 57–27 record, which was the best in the ABA. The Cougars beat the New York Nets in their first-round playoff series 4 games to 1, but lost a close series to the Kentucky Colonels 4 games to 3 in the Eastern Division finals. There were many upset and disappointed fans in Greensboro when the Cougars decided to hold game 7 of the series in Charlotte. Of the 42 scheduled regular season home games, 25 were usually scheduled for Greensboro while only 12 were played in Charlotte. With Cougar management having
144-590: A few days before the game—was injured and did not play (the Bucks won anyway, 129–115). Only 8,881 fans showed up, and the Condors "took a bath" on the deal—not a good start for the season. After a 4–6 start, general manager Mark Binstein fired McMahon for unknown reasons and named himself head coach. The move backfired disastrously; the Condors only went 21-50 the rest of the way. As the season progressed, attendance dropped below 1,000 fans per game, fueling speculation
192-457: A scholarship. NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy let it be known that he would not approve any contract for Hawkins to play in the league. At the time, the NBA had a policy barring players who were even remotely involved with point-shaving scandals. As a result, when his class was eligible for the draft in 1964, no team selected him. He went undrafted in 1965 as well before being formally banned from
240-569: The 1973–74 season and having been replaced in the starting lineup by Mike Bantom , Hawkins was traded from the Suns to the Lakers for Keith Erickson and a 1974 second-round selection (31st overall– Fred Saunders ) on October 30. Injuries limited Hawkins' production in the 1974–75 season, and he finished his career after the 1975–76 season, playing for the Atlanta Hawks . Connie Hawkins
288-517: The 1976 ABA dispersal draft . Professional basketball would return to North Carolina in 1988 when the Charlotte Hornets entered the NBA. Carl Scheer , who won Executive of the Year as a member of the Cougars, would later become the first executive of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets. Cougars point guard Gene Littles would become an assistant coach, an executive, and the second head coach of
336-584: The Dallas Chaparrals , and Walt Szczerbiak to the Kentucky Colonels . John Brisker jumped to the Seattle SuperSonics of the NBA . Notes: Note: W = wins, L = losses, % = win–loss % Connie Hawkins Cornelius Lance " Connie " Hawkins (July 17, 1942 – October 6, 2017) was an American professional basketball player. A New York City playground legend, "
384-568: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. The Hawkins' story up to 1971 is documented in the biography, Foul by David Wolf, ISBN 978-0030860218 In a skit for NBC 's Saturday Night Live in 1975, Hawkins played against singer Paul Simon in a one-on-one game accompanied by Simon's song " Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard ." The skit was presented as a schoolyard challenge between
432-623: The New Orleans Buccaneers 4 games to 3 to take the title, with Hawkins earning Finals MVP honors. The ABA title remains Pittsburgh's only pro basketball championship. Coupled with the Philadelphia 76ers ' NBA championship one year earlier , Pennsylvania had two pro basketball champions in as many years. The Pipers shared the Pittsburgh Civic Arena with the city's expansion National Hockey League team,
480-667: The Piedmont Triad and the Triangle – was large enough to support a professional team on its own. With this in mind, Gardner decided to brand the Cougars as a "regional" team. Gardner sold the team after one season to Ted Munchak, who poured significant resources into the team. The Cougars were based in Greensboro and played most of their home games at the Greensboro Coliseum , the state's largest arena at
528-742: The Pittsburgh Penguins . The Pipers attracted fairly respectable gates by ABA standards, averaging 3,200 fans per game. Despite the championship and strong attendance figures in Pittsburgh, the Pipers franchise left Pittsburgh after their 1968 ABA Championship and moved to Minnesota on June 28, 1968, becoming the Minnesota Pipers . Minnesota was left vacant when the Minnesota Muskies had trouble drawing people in
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#1732773389733576-575: The San Francisco Warriors and the Seattle SuperSonics . In 1972–73, the Cougars hired retired ABA players Larry Brown and former Cougar Doug Moe as coaches. The 1972–73 Cougars were fairly talented and featured players Billy Cunningham , Joe Caldwell , and Mack Calvin . All three appeared in the ABA All-Star Game that season, and Cunningham was named the league's Most Valuable Player. Carolina went on to post
624-645: The Western Conference , and in the 1970 NBA playoffs they were knocked out by the Los Angeles Lakers in a seven-game Western Conference Semifinals series in which Hawkins carried the Suns against a team that had future Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain , Elgin Baylor and Jerry West . In Game 2 of the series, on March 29, 1970, Hawkins led the Suns to a 114–101 victory while scoring 34 points, grabbing 20 rebounds, and recording 7 assists. For
672-442: The 1969–70 season, a 34–50 record in 1970–71, and a 35–49 record in 1971–72. The 1969–70 Cougars managed to make the ABA playoffs but lost in the Eastern Division semifinals (first round) to a much stronger Indiana Pacers team. In spite of this, the Cougars had a good fan following, particularly in Greensboro. The 1971–72 team was coached by former NBA All-Star Tom Meschery , who had just retired from 10 years of NBA play with
720-620: The ABA as the Houston Mavericks in 1967. The Mavericks moved to North Carolina in late 1969 after two unsuccessful seasons in Houston at the Sam Houston Coliseum . The Carolina Cougars franchise began when future Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina Jim Gardner bought the Houston Mavericks and moved them to North Carolina in 1969. At the time, none of North Carolina's large metropolitan areas – Charlotte ,
768-556: The Charlotte/Greensboro/Raleigh axis (the Piedmont Crescent or I-85 Corridor ) was beginning an unprecedented period of growth, none of these cities was big enough at the time to support an NBA team on its own. Additionally, several persons quoted in the book Loose Balls by Terry Pluto say the added travel expenses incurred by the regional concept ultimately proved insurmountable. Munchak sold
816-670: The Condors hosted the Colonels again, this time in their last 'home' game, in Tucson , Arizona . John Brisker and George Thompson played in the ABA All-Star Game. The Condors finished in sixth place in the Eastern Division at 25-59 and failed to make the playoffs. They averaged 2,215 fans per home game—a figure that would have been even lower if not for the gates brought in at both Birmingham (an estimated 3,000) and Tucson (reported as 5,000). These were significantly better than
864-605: The Condors would fold before Christmas . While they did manage to survive into the New Year, Haven had finally seen enough and announced the Condors would be playing elsewhere for the 1972–73 season. In the meantime, they began relocating home games, first to other cities in Pennsylvania , and then to farther-away places. On March 24, 1972, the Condors hosted the Kentucky Colonels in Birmingham, Alabama ; four days later,
912-470: The Cougars to a consortium of New York businessmen headed by brothers Ozzie and Daniel Silna , who moved to St. Louis as the Spirits of St. Louis . However, the new owners assembled an almost entirely new team after moving to St. Louis; only a few players from the 1973–74 Cougars suited up for the 1974–75 Spirits. The Spirits were one of two teams that lasted until the very end of the league but not join
960-466: The Eastern Division semifinals 4 games to 0 by the Kentucky Colonels . 1973–74 turned out to be the Cougars' last season in North Carolina. Although they were moderately successful overall and had one of the most loyal fan bases in the ABA, talks toward an ABA–NBA merger were in the final stages, and it had become apparent that a "regional" franchise would not be viable in the NBA. Although
1008-559: The Hawk " was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. Hawkins was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where he attended Boys High School , and played for coach Mickey Fisher . Hawkins soon became a fixture at Rucker Park , a legendary outdoor court where he battled against some of the best players in the world. Hawkins did not play much until his junior year at Boys High. Hawkins
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#17327733897331056-753: The Hornets. Larry Brown , who coached the Cougars for two seasons and won Coach of the Year during his tenure, would eventually become the eighth head coach of Charlotte's NBA franchise. Two teams in other professional sports leagues include Carolina in their branding: the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League , and the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League . The former team
1104-652: The Miami Floridians), the Pipers' attendance settings fared no better than the Muskies and they moved back to Pittsburgh after only one season. In Terry Pluto 's book on the ABA, Loose Balls , Pipers co-owner Gabe Rubin says he returned to the Steel City because he couldn't think of anywhere else to go. Professional basketball returned to Minnesota with the formation of the Timberwolves in 1989. For
1152-409: The NBA elected to settle after the 1968–69 season and admit Hawkins to the league. The league agreed to a $ 1.3M settlement in 1969. The league paid Hawkins a cash settlement of nearly $ 1.3 million (approximately $ 10,800,000 in 2024), and assigned his rights to the expansion Phoenix Suns . He would be assigned to the Suns as a result of them winning a coin toss over the Seattle SuperSonics . Although
1200-525: The NBA, as well as an immediate source of income. Hawkins joined the Pittsburgh Pipers in the inaugural 1967–68 season of the ABA, leading the team to a 54–24 regular season record and the 1968 ABA championship . Hawkins led the ABA in scoring that year and won both the ABA's regular season and playoff MVP awards. The Pipers moved to Minnesota for the 1968–69 season, but injuries and a knee surgery limited Hawkins to 47 games. The Pipers made
1248-713: The NBA; the other was the Kentucky Colonels (the Virginia Squires folded after the final ABA regular season ended but before the ABA–NBA merger due to their inability to meet a league-mandated financial assessment after the season ended.). At the time of the ABA–NBA merger, the Spirits' owners planned to move the team to Salt Lake City, Utah to play as the Utah Rockies ; instead, its players were dealt in
1296-558: The Pipers made a cursory effort to re-sign him, playing in the NBA had been a longtime ambition for Hawkins and he quickly signed with the Suns. In 1969, still recovering from knee surgery in his final ABA season, Hawkins hit the ground running with the Phoenix Suns , when he played 81 games and averaged 24.6 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game. In the final game of his rookie season, Connie had 44 points, 20 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 blocks and 5 steals. The Suns finished third in
1344-501: The Suns until his death from cancer on October 6, 2017, at the age of 75. Hawkins’ story is the topic of a song titled "The Legend of Connie Hawkins" by Dispatch on their 2021 album Break Our Fall . Carolina Cougars The Carolina Cougars were a basketball franchise in the American Basketball Association that existed from 1969 through 1974. The Cougars were originally a charter member of
1392-399: The choice of city to play game 7, it mystified its Greensboro area fans with the choice to play such a pivotal game on a less familiar court. Game 7 was hotly contested but Kentucky prevailed, much to Cougar fans dismay. The 1973–74 Cougars started the season strong, winning 17 of their first 22 games. Despite injuries and internal squabbles, the Cougars posted a 47–37 record but were swept in
1440-439: The conspiracy. Hawkins had borrowed $ 200 ($ 2,000 in current dollar terms) from Molinas for school expenses, which his brother Fred repaid before the scandal broke in 1961. The scandal became known as the 1961 college basketball gambling scandal . Despite the fact that Hawkins could not have been involved in point-shaving (as a freshman, due to NCAA rules of the time, he was ineligible to participate in varsity-level athletics), he
1488-468: The contest, which Pittsburgh lost, 122–116.) Ownership was not amused, and Blake was fired soon after. The most memorable moment of the season came when Charlie "Helicopter" Hentz destroyed two backboards in a game against the Carolina Cougars . For the next season, Haven tried to change the Condors' image, with a new logo and uniforms, plus a slick marketing campaign. In October, they lured
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1536-460: The defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks (and star Lew Alcindor) to Pittsburgh for an exhibition game, guaranteeing the Bucks $ 25,000. A local ad proclaimed "Bring on Alcindor" and that "the ABA-NBA merger is here". (The merger would not actually happen until 1976, and it would not include Pittsburgh.) Unfortunately for the Condors, Alcindor—who had changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar just
1584-516: The first season back in Pittsburgh the team retained the "Pipers" nickname. However, the team failed to match their previous success and fans stayed away. After the season, Haven Industries, maker of the "Jack Frost" brand of sugar products, bought the team and decided a name change was in order. A "name-the-team" contest yielded the nickname "Pittsburgh Pioneers." However, local NAIA school Point Park College (now Point Park University ) already had that nickname and threatened to sue. Ownership resolved
1632-624: The league in 1966. With the major professional basketball league having blackballed him, Hawkins played one season for the Pittsburgh Rens of the American Basketball League (ABL), an aspiring rival to the NBA, and was named the league's most valuable player. After that league folded in the middle of the 1962–63 season, Hawkins spent four years performing with the Harlem Globetrotters . During
1680-555: The league's first season and moved to Miami to become the Miami Floridians . The ABA league office was based in Minneapolis (home of league commissioner George Mikan ), so the Pipers moved when a Minneapolis attorney named Bill Erickson bought a majority share of the team. As with the Muskies, their home arena was Bloomington's Met Center . Despite making the playoffs (but losing in the first round to, coincidentally,
1728-566: The objection by changing the name to "Condors." Jack McMahon took over as coach. John Brisker and Mike Lewis played in the 1971 ABA All-Star Game , but the Condors could only manage a 36–48 record, fifth place in the Eastern Division and out of the playoffs (one game behind The Floridians ). While the Condors had a potent offense (fifth in the 11-team ABA with 119.1 points per game), they were often undone by their defense (fourth-worst, allowing 121.8 ppg). Attendance remained poor, with an announced average of 2,806, though some observers close to
1776-551: The ones in Pittsburgh; the Condors drew only 689 at their final game at the Civic Center. Haven and the league tried to move the Condors to a bigger market. However, they were unable to do so, and on June 13, 1972, the ABA canceled the Condors franchise. The Condors' roster was put into a dispersal draft; George Thompson went to the Memphis Tams , Mike Lewis to the Carolina Cougars , Skeeter Swift and James Silas to
1824-533: The playoffs despite injuries to their top four players, but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Following the playoffs, the Pipers franchise moved back to Pittsburgh. Hawkins' lawyer, Roslyn Litman , and her husband, fellow lawyer S. David Litman, who was the brother of the Rens owner, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA in 1966, arguing that the league and its owners blacklisted Hawkins. The NBA had refused to allow any team to hire Hawkins, who at
1872-417: The series, Hawkins averaged 25 points, 14 rebounds and 7 assists per game. He missed 11 games due to injury during the 1970–71 season , averaging 21 points per game. He matched those stats the next year, and was the top scorer on a per-game basis for the Suns in the 1971–72 season . He averaged a comparatively low 16 points per game for the Suns in the 1972–73 season . Averaging 11.3 points nine games into
1920-489: The team thought the actual average was less than half that. After a slow (4–8) start, general manager Marty Blake decided (in an infamous ABA stunt) to give away every available seat for an early-season game against Florida on November 17. The game attracted the biggest crowd that the team would ever draw under the Condors name as 11,012 tickets were given out; however, only 8,074 (in a 12,300-seat arena) actually showed up. (3,000 season ticket holders didn't even bother to attend
1968-476: The time Hawkins was traveling with the Globetrotters, he filed a $ 6 million lawsuit against the NBA, claiming the league had unfairly banned him from participation and that there was no substantial evidence linking him to gambling activities. Hawkins's lawyers suggested that he participate in the new American Basketball Association (ABA) as a way to establish his talent level as adequate to participate in
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2016-615: The time the Litmans started working with while he was still playing for the Harlem Globetrotters. In the light of several major media pieces, most notably a Life magazine article written by David Wolf, establishing the dubious nature of the evidence connecting Hawkins to gambling, the NBA concluded it was unlikely to successfully defend the lawsuit. Seeking to avoid a defeat in court which might jeopardize its ability to bar players who had actually participated in gambling,
2064-609: The time. Games were also regularly played in Charlotte at the (original) Charlotte Coliseum and in Raleigh at Dorton Arena and Reynolds Coliseum . In early 1972, three regular season games were played in Winston-Salem at the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum , and one game was played at Fort Bragg . Early on, the Cougars were not especially successful on the court, posting a 42–42 record in
2112-659: The two and had Simon winning, despite the disparity in height between the two men (Simon at 5 ft 3 in, Hawkins at 6 ft 8 in). One of Hawkins' nephews is Jim McCoy Jr., who scored a school-record 2,374 career points for the UMass Minutemen basketball team from 1988 to 1992. He was the grandfather of Shawn Hawkins, who played professional basketball internationally and was a two-time scoring champion in Taiwan's Super Basketball League (SBL). Hawkins moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and worked in community relations for
2160-473: Was All-City first team as a junior as Boys went undefeated and won New York's Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) title in 1959. During his senior year he averaged 25.5 points per game, including one game in which he scored 60, and Boys again went undefeated and won the 1960 PSAL title. Hawkins then signed a scholarship offer to play at the University of Iowa . During Hawkins' freshman year at Iowa , he
2208-531: Was a victim of the hysteria surrounding a point-shaving scandal that had started in New York City. Hawkins' name surfaced in an interview conducted with an individual who was involved in the scandal. While some of the conspirators and characters involved were known to or knew Hawkins, none – including the New York attorney at the center of the scandal, Jack Molinas – had ever sought to involve Hawkins in
2256-412: Was kept from seeking legal counsel while being questioned by New York City detectives who were investigating the scandal. As a result of the investigation, during which Hawkins maintained that he had no involvement in the scheme, and despite never being arrested or indicted, Hawkins was expelled from Iowa. He was effectively blackballed from the college ranks as no NCAA or NAIA school would offer him
2304-575: Was named to the ABA's All-Time Team . Due to knee problems, Hawkins played in the NBA for only seven seasons. He was an All-Star from 1970 to 1973 and was named to the All-NBA First Team in the 1969–70 season. His No. 42 jersey was retired by the Suns . Despite being unable to play in the NBA when he was in his prime, Hawkins' performances throughout the ABL, ABA and NBA helped get him inducted into
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