The Oakland Oaks were a charter member of the original American Basketball Association and the first West Coast basketball team to win a major professional championship. Formed in February 1967, the team played in the ABA during the 1967–68 and 1968–69 seasons at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena. The team colors were green and gold. On February 2, 1967, longtime entertainer and business entrepreneur Pat Boone, S. Kenneth Davidson and Dennis A. Murphy (who would later co-found the World Hockey Association) were awarded a team in exchange for $30,000. Initially, Boone received a 10 percent share of the franchise to serve as president, but he had limited involvement in team operations and rarely attended home games because of his outside interests. An earlier Oakland Oaks basketball team played in the American Basketball League in 1962, along with a baseball team that had played for nearly a half century in Oakland, with the latter and the ABA Oaks both using the oak tree and the acorn on its logos. Beginnings The team had widely varying performances in its two years of existence. In their first season, the Oaks finished 22–56 and had the second-worst performance of any professional basketball team ever in a major league, of 1485 such team-seasons (through 2015, according to the Elo rating system); only the 1946–1947 Pittsburgh Ironmen had a worse year. They were probably noted more for a major contract dispute with the cross-bay San Francisco Warriors of the established National Basketball Association over the rights to superstar player Rick Barry than for any on-court accomplishments. Barry, a former NBA Rookie of the Year who led the Warriors to the NBA finals in 1966–67, was so frustrated by team management's failure to pay him certain incentive awards that he sat out the 1967–68 season. He joined the Oaks in the following year, leading the franchise to the ABA championship in 1968–69. The first and last great year The road to the championship was led by pioneering owner, S. Kenneth Davidson, who aggressively pursued Barry and one-time Warriors head coach Alex Hannum, signing them for an unprecedented $85,000 per year. His efforts drove a historic turnaround from last place to first in one year. Unfortunately for Barry, he tore ligaments in his knee after colliding with Ken Wilburn late in a game versus the New York Nets on December 27, 1968. He tried to return in January,