Denver, Colorado Sports News

DENVER (CBS4) ― Will Ferrell scored a slam-dunk at the box office with his new movie, "Semi-Pro." It landed in the No. 1 spot the weekend it opened, earning $15.3 million dollars.

The movie is a spoof of the old American Basketball Association. The Denver Nuggets were actually one of the four teams of the ABA who merged with the National Basketball Association at the end of the 1976 season.

Current Nuggets assistant Doug Moe played in the league and was also a coach on the Denver ABA team and he told CBS4's Vic Lombardi he was looking forward to the movie.

"I'm sure it will be a little bit of a take-off on it with some of the wild things that happened early in the ABA," Moe said. "I'm sure that they will probably have some exaggeration in the movie, but it's probably pretty accurate."

Moe recounted some of those wild things, including "owners having fights with coaches, actual fist fights."

"I wish I had written them (all) down because I can't remember them very much, but, you know, there were some good funny times."

Another Nuggets coach knows a thing or two about the ABA as well -- head coach George Karl called played in the league. Moe recalls Karl as a real ladies' man.

"George was actually a good looking guy back when he was playing," Moe said. "He was in demand with the women."

That look included sporting a bit more hair than Karl boasts now.

"I had a lot of hair," Karl said. "I don't know why. I was probably a better ladies' man than a basketball player."

Karl said he didn't care so much about how accurate the movie is, pointing out that if Ferrell is involved, he would not expect accuracy.

"I think it's good. I've always said the history of the ABA doesn't get a lot of love and it should get more love," Karl said.

And he said he'd like to see some aspects of the ABA come back.

"I really think the red, white and blue ball should come back. I think when we play in Denver, we should play with blue and white and teams would have their home colors."

"The colored ball was great, and the three point line of course. I'm not sure I'm as in love with the three point line as I was then," he said. "The game has definitely changed; a lot of the game has changed because of ABA basketball."

But what about that film title? Semi-Pro? The ABA was a legitimate league. The ABA teams even played the NBA teams in the pre-season and had a good record against them.

Former ABA player Julian Hammond does admit that even then, the ABA wasn't treated with quite the same respect.

"I think they viewed us as not being quite on par with the NBA, but we started playing them in preseason games and we were winning most of those games," said Hammond, who is now a security guard at Pepsi Center. He used to play with the Denver Rockets, the team which would eventually become the Denver Nuggets. He puts the ABA performance above the NBA.

"I think we played at a fast pace," he told CBS4. "We started up three point shots ... we played at a faster pace. They were supposed to be good but to me, they weren't that good. They were kind of slow as a matter of fact."

Moe said one of the greatest disappointments of his life was actually making it in the NBA when the leagues merged. "I finally got to the NBA to find out how boring it was and it wasn't run very well."

The Denver Rockets played at the Auditorium Arena, which was downtown at the time, and at the Denver Coliseum site -- if games could be scheduled around the National Western Stock Show.

Hammond played against Moe. "Doug was great," he said. "He cried a lot to the officials, 'He fouled me. He pushed me.' But Doug had a lot of stuff he did to you, like jab you in the stomach on your shots, pull your shorts, pull the hair on your legs. Doug did a lot of little crazy stuff then he complained all the time."

Karl also recalled some bad behavior on the court. "I think probably my most memorable moment was when I took five charges on George McGinness in one game and the last time he tried to step on my head ... and he told me he was going to do it."

"There was a lot of trash talking going on then," Karl said. "I remember my last year in the ABA. There was a fight and I was the guy who started the fight. I didn't get thrown out of the game. I got fined $1,500, which I never paid because the ABA would fold and they would have to take it out of my next check, which they never did."

One thing that might have been Semi-Pro-ish about the ABA was the finances.

"We weren't sure the paychecks were going to make it every two weeks," said Karl. "It was always interesting on payday how many guys didn't stay after practice. Everybody was in their car and running to the bank making sure their check made it through."

Moe said he never had any problems with his paychecks, but he knew other teams were having financial problems, especially that final year (1976).

"There was one part of the year where I think Virginia had run out of money and the Squires were about to fold," Moe said. "They came out here and we must have played them 10 times. They just stayed out here."

And then there was the fashion of the ABA. In addition to the big hair and that red, white and blue ball, there were the uniforms, bright colors, retro jerseys and short shorts.

"We thought they looked nice," Hammond said. "You got a chance to show off your legs a little bit. When they came out with the big baggy stuff, we thought, 'What's the deal?'"

Karl said he believes mascots for basketball teams were actually born in the ABA.

Denver's group of ABA "pros" say they can see why Will Ferrell would turn his comic stylings to the ABA.

"I know what the ABA was," said Moe. "I know how it finished and how strong it was when it came in, but I also know there was a lot of funny and goofy things that happened. I can certainly see doing a takeoff on the ABA and having it as a really good comedy."

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)