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San Diego Conquistadors
The San Diego Conquistadors (known as the San Diego Sails in their final, partial season) were a professional basketball team based in San Diego, California, that competed in the American Basketball Association (ABA). The "Q's", as they were popularly known, played from 1972 to 1975. As the Sails, they played an incomplete season only, beginning the 1975–1976 season but folding after only 11 games with 3 wins and 8 losses.
The franchise was founded by Leonard Bloom in 1972 as the ABA's first — and as it turned out, only — expansion team. They would unintentionally replace both The Floridians and Pittsburgh Condors franchises, who folded earlier that same year, since both teams initially sought after San Diego as a potential relocation site for survival before ultimately folding operations on their ends. On August 7, 1972, Bloom announced the team would be named the Conquistadors, complete with a profile of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who had landed on the San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542.
The new team was slated to play at the San Diego Sports Arena, but a feud between Bloom and Peter Graham, the operator and lease-holder of the city-owned 14,400-seat arena, led Graham to lock the newborn team out of the facility for two years. Graham was reportedly upset about Bloom being awarded the ABA expansion team he had also sought after himself. By the time the conflict was resolved in the fall of 1974, it was too late for a weakened franchise that had been forced to play, in the interim, at bandboxed Peterson Gymnasium (3,200 seats) on the campus of San Diego State University, and Golden Hall, a multipurpose facility in downtown.
After reaching the 1973 ABA playoffs in their inaugural season, the Q's seemingly pulled off a coup by paying center Wilt Chamberlain $600,000 to become their player-coach. But the Los Angeles Lakers sued to block their former star from playing for his new team. Relegated to a sideline role, Chamberlain was reduced to an indifferent, 7-foot-1-inch sideshow who once skipped a game in favor of an autograph session for his recently published autobiography. His fill-in, on that and other occasions, was assistant Stan Albeck, who later skippered the Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, and New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Even when Chamberlain was on hand, he mostly left the Q's in Albeck's hands.
Nonetheless, the team again reached the postseason, bowing out in the first round, for the second year in a row, in the 1974 ABA playoffs.
The season, however, was overshadowed by the arena situation. Frustrated with his inability to get a lease for the Sports Arena, Bloom announced plans for a 20,000-seat arena in Chula Vista. However, a referendum on the arena, held just after the season started, failed by only 294 votes. League officials then ordered Bloom to take preliminary steps toward moving to Los Angeles, in hopes of returning to a market abandoned by the Utah Stars four years earlier.
For their third season in 1974–75, the Conquistadors lost Chamberlain, but finally gained a lease in the Sports Arena. But without Chamberlain as a gate attraction, the team was roundly ignored by San Diegans, and placed last in the Western Division, missing the 1975 ABA playoffs.
Bloom sold the franchise during the summer of 1975 to Frank Goldberg and his partner Bud Fischer, who had been involved with co-ownership of the successful Denver Nuggets franchise. Goldberg started anew, renaming the team the San Diego Sails and hiring former University of Minnesota coach Bill Musselman. They hired Iry Kaze as general manager. With a completely different roster, color scheme, set of uniforms, and just about everything else, the re-branded Sails sought to repeat Denver's turnaround a season earlier from mediocrity to championship contender.
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San Diego Conquistadors
The San Diego Conquistadors (known as the San Diego Sails in their final, partial season) were a professional basketball team based in San Diego, California, that competed in the American Basketball Association (ABA). The "Q's", as they were popularly known, played from 1972 to 1975. As the Sails, they played an incomplete season only, beginning the 1975–1976 season but folding after only 11 games with 3 wins and 8 losses.
The franchise was founded by Leonard Bloom in 1972 as the ABA's first — and as it turned out, only — expansion team. They would unintentionally replace both The Floridians and Pittsburgh Condors franchises, who folded earlier that same year, since both teams initially sought after San Diego as a potential relocation site for survival before ultimately folding operations on their ends. On August 7, 1972, Bloom announced the team would be named the Conquistadors, complete with a profile of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who had landed on the San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542.
The new team was slated to play at the San Diego Sports Arena, but a feud between Bloom and Peter Graham, the operator and lease-holder of the city-owned 14,400-seat arena, led Graham to lock the newborn team out of the facility for two years. Graham was reportedly upset about Bloom being awarded the ABA expansion team he had also sought after himself. By the time the conflict was resolved in the fall of 1974, it was too late for a weakened franchise that had been forced to play, in the interim, at bandboxed Peterson Gymnasium (3,200 seats) on the campus of San Diego State University, and Golden Hall, a multipurpose facility in downtown.
After reaching the 1973 ABA playoffs in their inaugural season, the Q's seemingly pulled off a coup by paying center Wilt Chamberlain $600,000 to become their player-coach. But the Los Angeles Lakers sued to block their former star from playing for his new team. Relegated to a sideline role, Chamberlain was reduced to an indifferent, 7-foot-1-inch sideshow who once skipped a game in favor of an autograph session for his recently published autobiography. His fill-in, on that and other occasions, was assistant Stan Albeck, who later skippered the Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, and New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Even when Chamberlain was on hand, he mostly left the Q's in Albeck's hands.
Nonetheless, the team again reached the postseason, bowing out in the first round, for the second year in a row, in the 1974 ABA playoffs.
The season, however, was overshadowed by the arena situation. Frustrated with his inability to get a lease for the Sports Arena, Bloom announced plans for a 20,000-seat arena in Chula Vista. However, a referendum on the arena, held just after the season started, failed by only 294 votes. League officials then ordered Bloom to take preliminary steps toward moving to Los Angeles, in hopes of returning to a market abandoned by the Utah Stars four years earlier.
For their third season in 1974–75, the Conquistadors lost Chamberlain, but finally gained a lease in the Sports Arena. But without Chamberlain as a gate attraction, the team was roundly ignored by San Diegans, and placed last in the Western Division, missing the 1975 ABA playoffs.
Bloom sold the franchise during the summer of 1975 to Frank Goldberg and his partner Bud Fischer, who had been involved with co-ownership of the successful Denver Nuggets franchise. Goldberg started anew, renaming the team the San Diego Sails and hiring former University of Minnesota coach Bill Musselman. They hired Iry Kaze as general manager. With a completely different roster, color scheme, set of uniforms, and just about everything else, the re-branded Sails sought to repeat Denver's turnaround a season earlier from mediocrity to championship contender.