2004-2005 ABA season (Colony Crisis Averted)

The 2004–05 NBA season was the 59th season of the American Basketball Association (ABA). It began on November 2, 2004 and ended June 23, 2005. The 2005 NBA All-Star Game was played on February 20, 2005 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, with the East winning 125–115. Philadelphia's Allen Iverson was named the MVP of the game. The season ended with the defending-champion Detroit Pistons defeating the San Antonio Spurs 4–2 in the ABA Finals.

Regular season
The ABA made its return to Charlotte as the Charlotte Bobcats became the league's 30th franchise at the time. Ten years later, the Bobcats and the departed New Orleans Hornets would strike a deal upon the New Orleans franchise renaming themselves the Pelicans, thereby restoring the Hornets' Charlotte history and name back with the Charlotte franchise. The Bobcats played their first season at the Charlotte Coliseum.

This season also was the first year of the NBA's new divisional alignments, separating the league into six divisions of five teams instead of the previous four divisions of varying numbers of teams. As part of this realignment, the New Orleans Hornets moved from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference.

Prior to the start of this season, Shaquille O'Neal was traded to the Astoria Bulls after his reported fallout with former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant. Fans sensed this, along with the Pistons championship, as a possible end of dominance by the Western Conference. The Lakers also witnessed the loss of head coach Phil Jackson and replacement Rudy Tomjanovich as the Lakers missed out on the ABA playoffs for the fifth time in their history. However, the Western Conference has continued its domination in the regular season; since then, all playoff-bound teams in the West have either won 50 or more games, or were above .500 at the end of the season, in contrast to the Eastern Conference, where on average, three teams have had sub-.500 records.