Bryant Tucker and Milton Thomas sit down across from each other inside the board room of the Sports Radio 810 WHB headquarters. This will be the first of three business meetings, and they&#8217;re hoping that it starts off a good day.</p><p>Ever since Thomas bought an American Basketball Association team for Kansas City and hired his friend Tucker as coach and general manager, they&#8217;ve walked into places like this wanting to be taken seriously. As executives of the new Kansas City Spartans, they&#8217;re striving for respect. And sponsorship dollars wouldn&#8217;t hurt either.</p><p>Thomas hasn&#8217;t turned 30 yet and wears a bright orange oversized polo and baggy jeans &#8212; dare you to catch David Glass or Clark Hunt wearing that. Sometimes Thomas thinks that his look forces him to work harder and prove himself. But at this meeting, he and his partner are not judged on how they dress but rather by what in the world they&#8217;re thinking.</p><p>&#8220;So,&#8221; station account manager Gary Cashion starts, &#8220;who gave you this crazy idea to start a franchise in Kansas City?&#8221;</p><p>Cashion chuckles. The two young men exchange glances. They can&#8217;t find the answer right away.</p><p>Explanations aside, ready or not, the ABA is back in town.</p><p>The city has seen its share of minor-league franchises come and go. Quite possibly, the most controversial team was Kansas City&#8217;s previous ABA club, the Knights, who played four seasons during 2000-05. The new ABA reset in 2000 from its well-known model of the 1970s but was not without warts.</p><p>&#8220;The Knights had problems, but the ABA had problems, too,&#8221; former Knights coach Bob Sundvold says. &#8220;We had (opposing) teams that wouldn&#8217;t show up. We had some teams that would come into Kansas City and not have a full roster. (Coaches would) call and say, &#8216;Hey, do you know anybody that can play a game?&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;When you have that, it&#8217;s not a professional league.&#8221;</p><p>Today, the ABA has 49 teams, despite losing influence, like other minor-league basketball leagues, to the NBA Development League. All six ABA champions, including the Knights, are no longer in the league. Although a disagreement lives on three years later between the league CEO and the former Knights owner over how the team really ended, Tucker and Thomas could not care less. They say they want to separate themselves from the Knights and bring a community-friendly ABA team to the metropolitan masses.</p><p>Even if that&#8217;s a &#8220;crazy idea.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We really want to put Kansas City on the map,&#8221; Thomas says. &#8220;(But) I need the city. I need as much support from the city as I can get.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226;&#8226;&#8226;</p><p>Oddities and minor-league franchises are one and the same, and the ABA is no exception. Kansas City has seen its share, thanks to the Knights.</p><p>During a January 2005 game against the Nashville Rhythm, the Rhythm&#8217;s female head coach was fired after an on-court dispute with the team owner.</p><p>That same year, local talent manager Eric Chappell, who typically organizes national anthem and halftime performances, said Knights middle management asked him to recruit new team dancers from strip clubs. Although Chappell declined, he said the Knights still paraded go-go dancers as cheerleaders.</p><p>Maybe for these reasons, memories of the Knights endure. But Thomas wishes the name would just go away.</p><p>His Spartans have no sponsors, and Thomas heaps that blame on the Knights.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re cleaning up the mistakes the Knights made,&#8221; Thomas tells Cashion. &#8220;That&#8217;s the challenge.&#8221;