by Tim Gordon
Youth, Lawsuits, and the Birth of a Superstar
If Episode 1 was the spark, Episode 2 is the burn.
“Growing Pains” shifts the story from rebellion to consequences. The American Basketball Association is no longer a scrappy experiment with a candy striped ball. It’s a threat. And threats invite pressure.
By 1970, the ABA isn’t just trying to entertain. It’s trying to survive.
And survival, the episode argues, means betting on youth.
Spencer Haywood Changes the Rules
The gamble begins with Spencer Haywood, a 19 year old Olympian with legs like springs and something to prove.
At the time, underclassmen entering pro basketball was practically heresy. Conventional wisdom said young players weren’t ready for the physicality or mental grind. The ABA disagreed. Using its hardship rule, the league drafted Haywood after just one year of college.
It felt reckless.
It became revolutionary.
Haywood doesn’t ease into the league. He detonates it.
He drops 59 points in a single game, dominates veterans twice his age, and finishes the season with both Rookie of the Year and MVP honors. Not one award. Both. A teenager walking into a professional league and owning it like he built the place.
Episode 2 frames Haywood less like a prospect and more like proof of concept. The future had arrived early.
Then it gets messy.
Contracts. Legal gray areas. League politics.
Haywood signs a questionable deal with the Denver Rockets, forces his way out, and jumps to the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics. What follows is part sports drama, part courtroom thriller. His case climbs all the way to the Supreme Court, where he wins.
That ruling cracks the door open for generations of underclassmen to follow.
Kobe. LeBron. KG. Every prep to pro leap traces back here.
The ABA may not keep Haywood.
But it changes the system forever.
Enter Dr. J: Basketball Finds Its Poet
With talent slipping away, the ABA needs a star it can’t lose.
Cue lift off.
Enter Julius Erving.
Before the nickname, before the mythology, Erving is just a kid from Rucker Park, gliding through summer league games like gravity is optional. Episode 2 smartly spends time here, showing how playground freedom shaped his style. No chains. No coaching boxes. Just expression.
Where Haywood is force, Erving is art.
After starring at UMass, he signs with the Virginia Squires and instantly gives the ABA credibility. His game doesn’t feel like fundamentals. It feels like choreography. Finger rolls, swoops, takeoffs from impossible angles.
He doesn’t just score.
He performs.
Soon the entire league bends around him.
ABA vs NBA: Respect Earned
One of the episode’s most fascinating moments arrives at the 1971 All Star Game in Houston, an NBA vs ABA showdown.
The ABA loses by five.
But it wins the night.
The older league finally sees it. The talent. The speed. The showmanship. The upstarts weren’t a circus act. They were competition.
And competition sparks poaching.
The NBA begins picking off players. Salaries rise. Loyalties blur. Every contract becomes a tug of war.
Still, Erving keeps torching the league. Paired with Charlie Scott, he turns Virginia into must watch basketball. When Scott leaves for the Celtics, Erving simply doubles down, averaging a jaw dropping 37.7 points in the postseason and dragging the Squires forward almost by will alone.
The league now has a face.
And it smiles midair.
The Pacers Model and Rick Barry’s Exit
Episode 2 also highlights the Indiana Pacers, arguably the most stable franchise in the league. Diverse, disciplined, and deeply connected to their city, they become the ABA’s gold standard, winning multiple titles and eventually the 1972 championship.
Meanwhile, Rick Barry makes his final ABA stand with the Nets before returning to the Golden State Warriors. Another star gone. Another reminder that the ABA is developing legends it can’t always keep.
Growing pains, indeed.
Merger Tensions and a League at War
By the episode’s end, the cost of competition becomes clear.
Rising salaries. Player raids. Lawsuits. Owners pushing for a merger. Players fighting it because their leverage has never been higher.
The leagues circle each other like heavyweights.
And one name hangs over everything.
Doctor J.
The NBA knows that if they steal Erving, they cripple the ABA.
The ABA knows that if they lose him, the music stops.
So the fight becomes personal.
Not just leagues versus leagues.
But survival versus extinction.
Verdict
“Growing Pains” smartly expands the series from origin story to battlefield. Spencer Haywood changes the law. Julius Erving changes the imagination. Together, they prove the ABA wasn’t just innovating the game.
It was reshaping who got to play it.
Episode 2 captures a league caught between brilliance and instability, youth and lawsuits, art and economics. Messy, urgent, and wildly entertaining, it shows that revolutions don’t grow smoothly.
They grow loud.
