Kansas City (ABA)
Kansas City, Missouri was granted a charter franchise in the American Basketball Association in February 1967.
On February 2, 1967, the ABA was created. One of the charter teams announced that day was an unnamed Kansas City franchise.[1] The Kansas City team was awarded for $35,000 to James B. Trindle.
On March 27, 1967, Vince Boryla was named general manager of the Kansas City team.
The Kansas City team had ongoing problems finding an arena to host their games in Kansas City.
On April 1, 1967 due to an inability to nail down an arena deal in their home city the Kansas City franchise was relocated to Denver and named the Denver Larks.
Trindle had ongoing financial problems with the team, leading Boryla to resign and ultimately to the team being sold to J. William Ringsby, the owner of Rocket Truck Lines. Ringsby soon renamed the team the Denver Rockets in homage to his trucking business.
The Denver Rockets played in the ABA from 1967 through 1974.
In 1974 the team became the Denver Nuggets and played as such through the ABA's final two seasons. With the ABA-NBA merger in 1976 the Denver Nuggets joined the NBA and continue to play in that league to the present day.
Professional basketball returned to Kansas City in the fall of 1972 when the Cincinnati Royals relocated there and became the Kansas City Kings. The Kings left for Sacramento, California in 1985 and Kansas City has been without an NBA franchise since then.