The Jim Ard Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Monday, May 2nd, 2005
Following college, you found yourself coveted by two leagues: The Sonics
drafted you with the sixth overall selection in the 1970 NBA Draft, while the
fledgling ABA also made its intentions known. What led you to spurn the NBA in
favor of the league with the red, white and blue ball?
Basically,
I think I may have gotten to the same place either way – playing basketball in
the NBA – even though I knew I wasn’t going to play for Seattle. My agent and
the owner of the Sonics were not on the best of terms, and that led to some hard
negotiations with Seattle. The fact that another league was involved in the
bidding process helped financially, because it drove up the dollar amount that
the [ABA] New York Nets were willing to pay.
I think we finished just under .500 during my first year with the Nets. We had
some characters on that team – a young Rick Barry, and Bill Melchionni, who had
gone to Villanova and won an NBA championship with Wilt Chamberlain in
Philadelphia. My rookie year in the ABA was definitely an eye-opening
experience. The travel, the accommodations, the facilities – none of that was
on par with what was being offered in the NBA.
The ABA
was able to compete for players because of something known as the "Dolgoff
Plan". What role did this plan play in luring top talent to the ABA, and
what impact did it have on player salaries?
Well,
first I’ll tell you about the lure of the Dolgoff Plan, and then I’ll tell
you about the reality of that arrangement. The lure was that it made the
value of the ABA contract far larger than what the NBA was offering. The
face value of the contract with the Nets was $1.4 million, and that’s what
was reported in the news, but the actual dollar value was nowhere near that
dollar amount. It worked out to be $250,000 over four years. The Nets also
agreed to put $8,000 a year for 10 years in a Dolgoff Plan, which was an
annuity that I would collect starting at age 41. That sounded all well and
good, given the financial forecasts at the time of my signing, but the stock
market took a horrible turn almost immediately after the ink had dried. The
money was locked into some really bad investments – so bad that the plan was
worthless by the time I was old enough to begin collecting. I went to court
over the way the plan was constructed, and eventually received a small
settlement. It was nowhere near the $1.4 million face value of the
contract.
The Dolgoff Plan was a valuable tool in the ABA’s battle to attract talent
that would have otherwise gone to the NBA. The deferred payments allowed
the ABA to offer contracts that, on paper at least, were far greater than
those in the National Basketball Association. But that was only on paper.
The ABA used it to sign guys like Spencer Haywood, Billy Cunningham, and Dan
Issel. But in each case, the plan just didn’t pay off as expected.
While
with the Nets, you were coached by a young Lou Carnesecca. What was it like
to play for Lou?
Very
intense. He was a very demanding coach, detail-oriented, and also very
focused. Those are the traits that made him so successful wherever he
coached. He was also a very good teacher. He could watch you do something
once, and then tell you exactly what you were doing wrong – and how to fix
it.
Lou was just a great, great coach. He led the Nets to the ABA Finals, and
he had all of those great teams with St. John’s University. He was the Big
East Coach of the Year, and the National Coach of the Year. He’s in the
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. You look at what he’s
accomplished in his career, and it just doesn’t get much better than that.
