Pacer Sale Ok'd; Await Realignment

May 8, 1979

Chicago -- National Basketball big shots met for almost eight hours yesterday and accomplished almost nothing.

They did, however, approve the sale of the Indiana Pacers to Beverly Hills businessman Sam Nassi. Nassi purchased the club last week for an estimated $8 million. The approval by the Board of Governors allows the Pacers to initiate steps toward acquiring needed personnel without regards to funds.

Also approved was Harry S. Mangurian's purchase of co-owner John Y. Brown's stock in the Boston Celtics.

The Board of Governors deferred action on the proposed New Orleans Jazz move to Salt Lake City - which meant they had to defer action on NBA realignment. The Jazz will move to the Western Conference only if and when they move to Utah.

About all the NBA honchos did in their windy session in Chicago was eliminate a "junior eligibility" clause that permitted players (such as Larry Bird) to be picked in the NBA draft without immediately turning professional.

From now on, NBA general counsel David Stern explained, there will be two ways a player can be drafted: "One is to complete all his collegiate eligibility. The other is to renounce any college eligibility he has left up to 45 days before the draft."

Bird, the Indiana State star, was eligible to be drafted a year ago because his original graduating class was in its senior year. (Bird originally had attended Indiana University before dropping out.) The Boston Celtics claimed him in the 1978 draft and have exclusive right to him up until 24 hours before this year's June 25 draft.

"This way," said Jonathan Kovler, who represented the Chicago Bulls, "there will be no pressure on a kid from a pro team while he's still playing college ball. There's an NCAA rule against a kid having an agent while he still eligibility, so a guy like Bird had to deal with things completely on his own." The rule goes into effect next season.

Source: Chicago Sun Times-Mike Downey,