Who am I? My name is Shawn Lucas. I’m 50 years old and I teach math at the local high school. My wife (of 25 years) and I have three sons. Two are in college. The other started as a freshman in high school this year. After starting and playing through one of my other pet projects, USFL Distant Replay, I got the idea for the ABF. Initially, I called it the NABA but that felt like a little too much. After some tweaking, I decided on the ABF and the three tier pyramid structure.

Why the NBA/ABA?

This felt like a natural progression from the “What if the USFL never folded?” Take another beloved league, breathe new life into it, give it a solid foundation with the more established league, and let history be rewritten.

What are the “What Ifs” here?

• What if the leagues merge instead of the ABA being swallowed by the NBA? Furthermore, what if the leagues followed the European model of promotion and relegation. I toyed with this idea in the USFL Distant Replay but it wouldn’t work right over there.
• What if the iconic red, white, and blue ball survived? Everyone who watched the ABA remembers the ball. That ball comes with an idea of high flying and up tempo offenses at a time way before the three ball of today’s modern NBA.
• What if the ABA teams didn’t fold? What if, instead, some relocated and another tier of the league gave them a chance to continue to develop players and get another shot at the big leagues? The ABF Founder’s Cup was born.
• What if the league follows a different path of expansion? Exploring new cities earlier or old cities in a different context or era gives me an opportunity to write and rewrite the league’s history.

Similar to the USFL Distant Replay, I use Dave Koch’s Action PC Sports Basketball to simulate each league and season and collect the statistics.