1975 ABA draft

The 1975 ABA draft was the ninth and final draft done by the American Basketball Association (ABA), a rivaling professional basketball league to the National Basketball Association (NBA) that they would later merge with as a part of the NBA following the conclusion of the 1975–76 ABA season. This draft period would ultimately be the draft period where the lack of a proper national TV market to compete against the NBA (such as finding a viable alternative to the big three American TV networks, if not working with one of ABC, CBS, or NBC somehow) would finally catch up to the ABA due to a significant number of its teams facing financial struggles and burdens entering this draft period. It also marked the only true time where the ABA draft would truly start after the NBA draft did, which combined with an even lower amount of rounds and draft picks available from the ABA's end (including two bonus picks by the Denver Nuggets and Spirits of St. Louis that related to outside forces beyond their control involving players of their own accord, though only one of them would actually be used in the process) marked early signs that the ABA were about to meet its own end, one way or another. That being said, the ABA would still find a scant few successes from this draft day before their final season concluded and the ABA ended up merging with the NBA with only four total teams still being active to this day (the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, New York Nets (now Brooklyn Nets), and San Antonio Spurs), with two other teams that survived up until the merger (the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis (who planned to move to Utah to become the Utah Rockies at first before merger talks began and the team's owners even contemplated moving the squad out to Hartford, Connecticut at one point), with a third team in the Virginia Squires actually completing the regular season, but not surviving operations before the completion of the 1976 ABA Playoffs) ultimately not making it to the NBA in the end. This draft also marked the only draft that the Denver Nuggets would participate in while still in the ABA under that name, as well as the only draft that both the Memphis Sounds and Spirits of St. Louis would be involved in altogether under those names before things started to fall apart for the ABA in their final season of play.