Sixteen years old with a driver's license and $15 bucks in your pocket, enough to get in the game and get something to eat. If you lived in Virginia near the border like I did, you could be in Greensboro or Roanoke in about an hour and see the most exciting basketball in the world at the time. Choose between the Cougars or the Virginia Squires. Did you want to see "Pogo" Joe Caldwell and the Kangaroo Kid or how about the young Dr. J when he could really elevate before his knees went bad? I don't remember all the names, but I saw John Brisker score 56 for Pittsburgh one night in Greensboro. Some others were Willie Wise and Ron Boone for Utah, Mel Daniels and Roger Brown for Indiana; Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore for Kentucky; Rick Barry for Oakland. These guys could have been and many wound up to be superstars in the NBA. Never been so disappointed as the year the Cougars were supposed to play the Boston Celtics in an exhibition in Greensboro. The players -- including the great John Havlicek -- came out to warm up but could not get any traction on the floor because of condensation from the hockey ice underneath. The Hornets and Bobcats might have brought the NBA to North Carolina but there's no way it's as fun as the ABA was. Get a copy of "Loose Balls" by Terry Pluto. It tells some great stories including one on the late Wendell Ladner of the Nets, who once took out a glass water cooler and wound up with a hundred or so stitches. The team was en route to a game and flying over Washington D.C. He looked down at the 550-foot Washington Monument and said, "Oh, that must be the Washington Post."