Memphis Sounds
Louisiana Buccaneers 1970 Memphis Pros 1970-72 Memphis Tams 1972-74 Memphis sounds 1974-75 Baltimore Hustlers 1975 Baltimore Claws 1975
Memphis Sounds was the name of a U.S. basketball franchise from Memphis, Tennessee, who played in the American Basketball Association from 1974 to 1975. It started as a New Orleans Buccaneers and moved to three seasons in New Orleans, Louisiana to Memphis, where they played some home games in the past against excessive backdrop. The renamed Memphis Pros played their home games at the Mid-South Coliseum, adjacent to the Mid-South Fairgrounds what is now known as Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.
Previous franchise history
The Buccaneers 1968-1970
The New Orleans Buccaneers were a founding member of the ABA. They were coached by Babe McCarthy, who was known for two things: first, that he led the Mississippi State University as a coach for the championship in the Southeastern Conference, and in an era when the basketball in this league from the University of Kentucky was dominated. The other was when the white legislature banned in Mississippi of the team to participate in the multiracial NCAA tournament. McCarthy brought the team in the middle of the night on the state border and left them still participate, giving him an almost legendary status in some people brought ( and eternal enmity with others).
Co-owner of the team was Morton Downey Jr., before he became a famous talk show host. In his autobiography, Downey describes an incident in which he was arrested because he took some of his African-American players in by a local restaurant, defended himself in court and was acquitted.
Memphis Pros 1970-1972
After the 1969/70 season, the Buccaneers were relocated to Memphis and became the Memphis Pros.
Memphis Tams 1972-1974
After two seasons as Memphis Pros, the team of Charlie O. Finley was purchased, who also owned the Oakland Athletics in the MLB and the California Golden Seals in the NHL. The winning entry in a competition was to find the name Memphis Tams, ostensibly an acronym for Tennessee - Arkansas - Mississippi. The logo was a Tam O'Shanter Hat in white, green and gold, which as well as the new team colors were that you had in common with the Athletics and the Golden Seals.
Memphis Sounds 1974-1975
It soon became obvious that the Tams had not a high priority for Finley. The amenities such as program notes began to disappear and morale suffered when the players began to wonder whether they would receive paychecks and whether the bank would accept if they wanted to redeem them. After two such seasons, the ABA stepped in and took control of the team. ABA Commissioner Mike Storen resigned from his post at the League to take over the business and to manage a new team in Memphis.
It may be tempting to think the sounds were just a continuation of the Memphis Tams, but they were not. The team had completely new players, a new name, a completely new team colors, a new identity and new owners. Storen led several local variables as co-owner on how the musician Isaac Hayes and Kemmonis Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn hotel chain. Storen called the new team Memphis Sounds and developed a new logo in red and white, as well as the team colors were.
Storen adjusted the old cadres of the Tams and brought in experienced players like Mel Daniels, Freddie Lewis, Roger Brown, Chuck Williams, Collis Jones, George Carter, Rick Mount and Julius Keye. The only player who still aground of the earlier fans, was Larry Finch, an audience favorite because he used to play at Memphis State University.
The sounds that were coached by Joe Mullaney, finished the season with 27 wins and 57 defeats, which was enough for fourth in the Eastern Division, and thus for the playoffs. Your opponent in the first round were the Kentucky Colonels, who won the Eastern Division. They defeated the Sounds 4-1 and won at the end of the championship.
Summary
The sounds were not financially successful in Memphis, and so the franchise was after the season 1974/75 to a group of businessmen from Baltimore, Maryland sold, who called a team into life, the first was just as Baltimore Hustlers and then known as the Baltimore Claws.
The Baltimore Claws should play in the 1975/76 season in the ABA. The team had severe financial problems and collapsed before the season started. In their short history they only played three warm-up matches.
Not long after the Claws tasks, it also did the San Diego Sails and the Utah Stars, so the league shrank abruptly from ten to seven teams. The failure of these franchises was one of the reasons for the merger of the NBA and ABA in the summer after the 1975 season / 76th
When the ABA was dissolved and extinguished the rights to it, took a minor league baseball team in Nashville, Tennessee, the Nashville Sounds, colors scheme and logo of the Memphis Sounds. The name is still used, color scheme and logo but changed after 1998.
2001 returned the professional basketball with the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA back to Memphis.