Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri was granted a charter franchise in the American Basketball Association in February 1967. History Kansas City's first pro basketball team was the Kansas City Blues of the ill-fated Professional Basketball League of America in 1947; the league folded within a month, and the Blues played only six games. In 1961, the American Basketball League was formed; one of its teams were the Kansas City Steers, who qualified for the ABL's first (and only) championship series in 1962, which they lost to the Cleveland Pipers. The Steers and the ABL returned for the 1962-63 season, but the league folded on the last day of 1962; the Steers, with a 22-9 record, were considered unofficial champions of the truncated season. On February 2, 1967, the ABA was created with eleven charter teams, including an unnamed Kansas City franchise. The Kansas City team was awarded for $35,000 to James B. Trindle; on March 27, 1967, Vince Boryla was named general manager. But the club had problems finding an arena to host their games in Kansas City. Municipal Auditorium, which had hosted Blues and Steers games, had just been awarded a Central Hockey League franchise, which was to be the top farm club of the NHL's expansion St. Louis Blues, thus limiting its available home dates. So, on April 1, 1967, the team was relocated to Denver and named the Denver Larks.