For Kenan Kamwana Holley, directing ‘Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association’ was more than filmmaking—it was a chance to honor the legends and the legacy of the ABA while they were still alive.
“This really speaks to the quality of the league, which has not been publicized in other films,” Holley says of ‘Soul Power’. “We give the guys their just due.”
In this conversation, Kenan Kamwana Holley discusses the genesis and creation of the definitive ABA documentary series, tracing its roots to George Karl and highlighting the collaborative effort with Brett Goldberg, Todd Lieberman, and his own team. He reflects on the league’s cultural and historical significance, the pioneering players and executives like Dr. J, George Gervin, and Ellie Brown, and how the ABA’s innovations—from fast-paced play to player empowerment—shaped modern basketball. Holley also shares insights on capturing the personalities and stories of the league’s legends, the generational bridge between the players and production team, and the importance of documenting these figures while they are still alive.
‘Soul Power’ is the first docuseries to tell the definitive story of the American Basketball Association. It traces the league’s ambitious launch in 1967 and follows its nine-eventful seasons, during which a collection of franchises—many of which relocated or folded—took on the NBA both on and off the court. The series highlights the ABA’s enduring influence on basketball, from the invention of the three-point shot and the slam dunk contest to the integration of former ABA teams like the Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs into the NBA. It also celebrates the league’s role in empowering women in sports leadership and showcases the rise of legendary players and contributors including Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Spencer Haywood, George Gervin, Rick Barry, and George Karl. In 2026, the ABA-NBA merger reaches its 50th anniversary.
‘Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association’ premieres February 12 exclusively on Prime Video.
Awards Focus: It’s so nice to meet you. How are you doing?
Kenan Kamwana Holley: Very good. How are you doing?
AF: I am doing well. What was the genesis behind ‘Soul Power’ and at what point in the process did you come on as director?
Holley: The genesis was really George Karl. George Karl coached the Seattle Supersonics against Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the NBA Finals. He was an ABA guy. I heard a podcast of he and Dr. J talking about the ABA. George Karl’s business partner happens to be one of my good friends from college and my friend said, “You got to hear this. I think George Karl thinks there’s a documentary involved.”
I was telling these guys it’s so hard to make a documentary these days, Danielle. It’s so hard to get one green lit and actually done. I said, You need a really good team to get it pulled off. The genesis was George Karl’s team. He and Brett partnered with me and my team, Holley Films, and us finding the secret elixir, which is our third partner, who’s Todd Lieberman with Hidden Pictures. When we found Todd—he’s made a lot of successful Hollywood movies—he came in to help us really push this thing over the edge.
When that team came together, Danielle, I was like, Okay, we might have a chance to sell something in a market that’s extraordinarily hard to sell things in these days. We were able to pull it off.
AF: Yeah. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the merger. What made now the right time to tell the ABA story and put the definitive docuseries out there?
Holley: Yeah, thank you for saying that, Danielle. I feel like this is the definitive docuseries. There’s been a lot of little one-off documentaries done about this and Semi-Pro, a movie that is funny, but not very realistically depicting the league. I feel like right now, with the way where we are in our society, and if you look at the league and where they were in the 70s, as far as how divisive things were in the country, how divided the country was, and how these young guys who most of them are coming from backgrounds where the players, because of the time, 1967, they had never been in a unified locker room based on race, based on different socioeconomic status. This was an experiment that had never happened before. You’ll learn early on in the doc that the NBA had a quota at the time where you could only have so many Black players. You could have three on a team, maybe four.
This is the first time where the locker room was opened up to who’s the best player. Let’s bring the best player in and we’ll have that person be our star. That’s what makes it so poignant, I think, for right now, is that you look at the essence of the league and how free-flowing the NBA is now, and how the borders are gone, even internationally. That all started in the ABA—the mindset of us coming together as a group of people, particularly young people, who are willing to push the boundaries of what the status quo said was okay and to challenge the status quo. That’s why this movie I think is so poignant right now at this time.
AF: I’m a Kentucky native and I grew up in a state where college basketball is life. I can’t help but imagine a world where the Kentucky Colonels were allowed to keep playing rather than fold up shop.
Holley: Yeah, it was a beautiful thing going to Louisville. We went on the man on the street interviews in Louisville. We talked to people and the Colonels are well remembered. They are well remembered and still well loved in the city of Louisville and the state of Kentucky. People lamented the fact they didn’t make it in. A little-known fact—I’ll give you a little bit about it from episode four to your audience. You can watch the whole series, of course, on February 12th to see it.
The Kentucky Colonels would have made it in. They were so successful. But there was one particular owner in the NBA who was in love with Artis Gilmore. He was like, I have to have Artis Gilmore. If we’re going to bring these teams in, I want Artis Gilmore. In order to get Artis Gilmore, he had to exclude the Kentucky Colonels from the ABA. That’s really the reason why one of the ABA’s most successful, consistent franchises from the very beginning did not make it in to the league with the other four teams that made the travel across to the NBA, the Pacers, the New Jersey team, of course, who are now the Nets, the Denver Nuggets, and the San Antonio Spurs.
AF: On that note, I thought it was so thoughtful that the Brown family was allowed to view a cut of the film before Ellie passed away.
Holley: Yeah, that was big. That was big. I hadn’t heard Ellie Brown’s story. I’m like a kid who was a sports historian nerd growing up so I read almost all the stories and thought I knew about all the different little aspects of MLB, hockey, basketball, football, but I never heard of Ellie Brown. I thought her story was so remarkable. She was so just endearing and smart as far as being sharp about what had happened all those years ago when she met with us.
I’m so glad that we got to include her in the documentary and that we made her a main character. When we heard about her, I was like, this is something that’s so innovative. And again, we talk about poignant these times, right? We talk about the fight right now about diversity, is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Should we have these, this, and that? Give somebody a chance like Ellie Brown, who may not be a basketball person, but finds a team and a staff of a whole board of directors of women who come into a professional sport dominated by men and take a team who had always been good, but never been champions and she lifted them over the top.
Those players in Kentucky—Dan Issel, Louie Dampier, Artis Gilmore—all said that we were right there on the edge of being champions, but what we’re missing was we needed a full crowd. We needed the arena to be full. Because when we get in the finals, the other team has full arenas and they come to our place and we do have kind of partial support. Ellie Brown and her team, her staff of ladies who took over the front office, were able to figure that out. It’s a testament, I think, in this day and age and we talk about who’s included and who gets a chance to play in the game and who gets a chance to have leadership roles to see what Ellie Brown and her team did in the 1970s when just we’ve been given a chance.
AF: Yeah. You talk about a stadium struggling to get a crowd. I have a hard time imagining going to Rupp Arena or the KFC YUM Center and unless the team is really stinking up the joint, those arenas would be sold out!
Holley: Yeah. The funny thing is that just because of the timing of when the league came into conception, that college basketball was big already, but pro basketball was so undervalued in America at that time. The NBA game was considered boring and slow. It didn’t, of course, have the loyalties that are naturally built into the college game. The NBA was really struggling. They were really struggling. And of course, that permeated over to the ABA. If you start a league with an industry that’s already not doing well, you’re fighting a double uphill battle. Teams like Kentucky, they were suffering from those repercussions.
But what the ABA was able to do was change the style of play. They changed the way that the game was so boring and stayed and slow and made it fast and exciting and very spontaneous. When that was taken into a big market—when the NBA was able to adopt that, they were able to grow. One thing we’ve noticed about this documentary, Danielle, we always say the NBA was able to beat the ABA in a David versus Goliath battle, but the only way they could do it was they really had to become them. They had to become the ABA. So they beat them, but they only beat them by becoming like them. So in that way, the essence of the ABA lives on forever.
AF: And that was before Michael, Magic, and Larry really revitalized the league!
Holley: Yeah, yeah. You’re saying in the 70s, what kept the league going—this is what opened the door for those guys. Because a guy like Magic Johnson coming into the league, playing the way he does, that was only accepted because the work that was done before him by Silas, by Roger Brown, by George Gervin, and by Julius Erving. Even Larry Bird, because Larry Bird had a lot of free flow to his game. Larry Bird is a playground player in and of himself, regardless of skin color. His way, his style of play is very free-flowing, very unregimented. Larry Bird’s style was accepted because the guys before him who came in the league.
All the Mack Calvins, the Dan Issels, the Louie Dampiers of the league who came before him, that’s Larry Kenon, and people I had never heard of, these are guys who opened the door for Larry Bird.
AF: I remember hearing about the Silnas’ deal years ago, probably when they had the 2014 settlement. But hands down, that’s got to be the greatest deal in sports history!
Holley: Yeah, isn’t that remarkable? They spent a couple hundred thousand to get in the league, and they were really fabric guys from New York who just loved basketball. They love basketball and so for them to turn a few hundred thousand dollars into an $800 million deal, that’s the guy at the end of the back end. It’s incredible. It’s a testament to their business acumen.
But also, I think one of the very telling things about it, Danielle, is that we were talking to Mr. Silna in New York as part of episode three, and he was saying—this is shocking to me, for someone who’s had $800 million from a deal—he was like, “Yeah, I’m very happy about the money. I’m very thankful. I felt out of gratitude about that.” He’s like, “But for me, I’m a basketball guy. My brother was really a basketball guy. We still talk, we hurt about the idea of we never got to compete for the NBA championship. That’s what we really wanted. We really wanted to test our ability to win the whole thing.” He said, “We never got that. And even for someone with me who has everything I have from this deal, that part still hurts.”
AF: Speaking of St. Louis, I’m a Bob Costas fan, but that’s the first time I think I’ve ever heard him share that story about that anecdote where he thought he was going to be losing his job.
Holley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s beautiful to hear him. Because you know what? Bob Costas is one of those people who’s so composed. He’s so together. He’s the definition of sports media composure. When we interviewed him, it was exactly that, Danielle. I’d ask him a question. He’d take a moment and then he’d give you the greatest answer you ever heard. He gives you 45 seconds, the most concise tight answer you ever heard. So to hear him talk about being 22, before he had perfected his style, before he perfected that precision, and hear him talk about the mistake he made on air, and I’ll leave that for the audience to watch in the series. You got to hear what he said on air on accident.
He actually let something slip out of his mouth. He misphrased the word he meant to say and said something that would get him fired if it was 2026. But to hear him be not flawless, right? It’s really something I think is at 22, he was still working it out.
Same thing with Julius. Julius Erving, Dr. J. He talks about at 22, 21, still trying to work it out how to do it.
I think one of the things I’m really proud of in this, Danielle, is that on set, we had a number of 20-year-olds, 20-somethings, who were a big part of this production. They were constantly asking questions and constantly grappling with this history they had never heard. And so, to see the speakers in the interview chair who were like 75, and the people on set who were 25, and to see the 25-year-olds get into it, and they were challenging me and the other crew members and the 75-year-olds to give them, I want to know, I want to understand why’d y’all do this. Why did the government do this? Why was that a court case? To see the bridge of those two generations come together is one of the things I’m most proud of that happened silently behind the scenes in this documentary.
AF: What was the most surprising thing you learned during the process of making the documentary series.
Holley: The most surprising thing was that they beat the NBA head to head in competition. I had never heard that before. I didn’t know that the ABA played the NBA in the first place, but I certainly didn’t know they had beaten them. And so to see the numbers in the later years of the league when the ABA and NBA would play each other in exhibition games, the New York Knicks versus, at that time, the San Diego Conquistadors, and San Diego would win. The Kentucky Colonels would play against the Lakers and win. The fact that the ABA won the majority of the games, especially in the last two years, was mind-blowing to me. This really speaks to the quality of the league, which has not been publicized in other movies, other films. That’s why this—which I do feel is the definitive story of the ABA that’s been told so far—that’s why this is so unique because we give the guys their just due. We tell the truth and give them their just due.
AF: How long was the rough assembly cut before getting eventually cut down to its final runtime?
Holley: Yeah, I think the final runtime is like 50 minutes. You know how it is, Danielle. The first rough assembly cut was probably, I think, an hour and 45 minutes, pushing 2 hour because there was so much good stuff. We left so many incredible stories on the cutting room floor. We left stories of players that are legendary stories from the ABA, kind of mythological creatures who never really made it to the final cut. We tried to get them in, but we just had too much stuff.
There’s a player by the name of John Brisker who has one of the best stories in the history of sports.
There’s a player by the name of Wendell Ladner, who was an all-time playboy of 1970s playboy. He was the Burt Reynolds of the ABA. These are stories we had cut fully and were in the series, but in the end, we just didn’t have space for them. We have so much more material and great characters didn’t make it. But yeah, we started out very long because we had a lot to work with.
AF: Yeah. I imagine that if this weren’t something going direct to streaming and was eventually going to get a physical media release, that some of those stories would end up there.
Holley: Yeah, true. They may still end up coming to public light. I would love for them to still be seen by the public. We have so many just great accounts of these individuals. I think a lot of these characters, they embodied athletic excellence, of course. They need that, of course, to get to where they were, but they also had a certain—there’s a different tone about these guys from this era, as far as because of what they were going through and what the country was going through, there’s a certain rebellious streak amongst them that I think you can still see in these men, even as they’re older men.
Even Bob Costas, there’s still something about them where there’s a little bit of an edge if you come from the ABA. They also had this kind of sense of togetherness and community think where they weren’t selfish in their thinking about what they were doing or the endeavor because they were fighting against the power of the NBA, the power of the employment structure at that time in America, and so they have a real collective brotherhood to them that gives them a certain soulfulness to the way they operate, which I think warrants itself. That there’s so many stories we could tell because of that soulfulness.
AF: Yeah. One of the things I found so fascinating in watching the doc series was taking away how today’s modern NBA is really more a continuance of the ABA.
Holley: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing to see once you get all the little pieces of the three-point line—that being popularized, where’d that come from? The ABA. The dunk contest and the energy that brings to All-Star Weekend, where’d that come from? The ABA. Guys playing fast and free, where’d that come from? The ABA. Dudes coming to the arena dressed in their all individual walk-in and they all got their own individual style. That did not exist in the NBA, NFL, or basically baseball in the 60s and 70s until the ABA made it a thing. So these guys are really pioneers. In media, they’ve never really been given their just due for the pioneers that they are and how they affect the sports landscape today.
AF: What do you hope people take away from watching the documentary?
Holley: A couple things. I want people to take away, one, what you just said. These guys are the forefathers for our modern NBA and modern sports, what they created for player empowerment. There’s a number of dramatic turns when it comes to player personnel. But in episode one, you’ll see how heavily Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was involved with almost being a part of the ABA and the idea of player empowerment had a big effect on whether he became an ABA player or an NBA player. You’ll see with Spencer Hayward, the same thing, Rick Barry.
They really were the first to empower the players, empower the individuals. And then secondly, it’s just the idea of what you can do community-wise when you have a group of like-minded individuals who are willing to think beyond just themselves. They were willing to, as young people, come together beyond racial differences, beyond cultural differences, and join together to really take on institution in the NBA. They had no business, Danielle, no business having a shot at taking these guys down and they took them down. A lot of their ability to do that was their togetherness and the community mindset.
AF: Something I’m just now thinking about—when did production actually get underway with interviewing former players and coaches?
Holley: Well, it was a long period of time. This is a slow build, a slow build. The very first interviews we did, we actually started with Dr. J. and we started with Bob Costas. That was way back in December of 2021. Those were our very first months.
That’s where it started and that gave us that initial impetus to begin creating a sizzle reel and doing all the mechanics you have to do to get something done, sold these days. We began it back then. The idea was alive in Coach George Karl’s mind for two, three years before that. So to see something over that period of time come to fruition is really a blessing. And like I said, a lot of the greats of the ABA, Fred Jones, like you said, you mentioned from Kentucky, Ellie Brown, George McGinnis, these people are no longer with us and we were able to capture them. We still get to get them while they were alive. I’m very happy for that. I’m very thankful for that—that we’re able to get them because the story wouldn’t be the same without these individuals.
AF: You mentioned December 2021. What were the challenges of filming a documentary during a pandemic?
Holley: All the stuff we know about the pandemic and why it was hard, getting people to agree to do it. And then also, I think there’s something about the pandemic that people were feeling separate from one another and this is a story basically about togetherness. So in that way, the timing may have actually helped us. Because as we started to gain momentum, the players heard about it from one another. They would call each other, they’re doing something. Something’s happening. They’re doing a big production on us. And they would let each other know.
I think when people found out, they wanted to be a part of it and they wanted to get out of the house and be a part of it. I think that actually may have helped us somewhat in that it was a collective story of brotherhood ,where the brothers wanted to join up. They wanted to get back together for any reason and this is a perfect reason.
AF: Was there a player or coach or anyone in general that childhood you would have been freaking out just to be in the same room interviewing them?
Holley: Yeah, well, it’s funny because I did the definitive movie on Dominique Wilkins for ESPN for the 30 for 30 SEC Storied series, and he was my childhood hero. I had to contain myself, Danielle, for a year and a half from freaking out. Andre 3000 did the voice-over, and he’s my favorite rapper of all time. I had to contain myself from freaking out to the very end. So the premiere, then I let myself freak out and become a fanboy. But in this one, this Dr. J, because he’s so cool, he’s got such a cultural vibe, cultural essence, and for me, he’s such a hero vibe that I had to kind of like, Okay, Kenan, stomp all that down, push that down to you get to the end of the movie. I still have never let it out. I’m going to see him tomorrow. We have the premiere in New York City tomorrow and he’ll be there. I can let it out a little bit and tell him what a fan I am.
But at the time, as you know, when you’re directing, you have to conduct yourself in a way where you’re providing head coach type leadership so you can’t be a fanboy to one of your players. I have to calm it all down and hold it in to work with him. And even to work with Common, who I love, is also a rapper. He was the executive producer and narrator on this one. I feel like, Whoo. As a director, you have to push all that down to the bottom, let all that reside in the foundation. You know you love this person and you’re a huge fan of theirs, but you got to make sure that you capture their essence. Because in the end, they want their essence captured.
Dr. J loves the ABA, loves the ABA, has a reverence for his time there. He’s going to want the story told in the best way possible, and that’s my job to deliver that. My team and I were able to—we all were fans, huge fans, but we were able to kind of calm it down and let it rest quietly while we brought out the best of the guys.
AF: You had to be a fan. You wouldn’t be doing a project of the ABA if you weren’t!
Holley: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, the players we talked to—sitting with George Gervin for an afternoon, just sitting with the Iceman, hearing him speak. Everything he says is like a jazz song. The way he talks about—he could tell you about his bologna sandwich he had for lunch. It’ll sound beautiful and cool because the way he talks is just so eloquent and it has a certain rhythm to it and flow.
I just love being around these guys. It was really something that inspired me in my career to see the way they handled their careers. They were after success, but they also did it with a certain integrity of principles where they knew they wanted to operate in a certain way and move in a certain way and they held to that. I think that’s why they’re legends. I look at a number of these guys who I talk to and still talk to as mentors now. These players, they were able to do it the right way. They did it the right way.
AF: Yeah, well, thank you again for helping get this documentary out there and telling the ABA story. John has been pushing it on social media. I’m from Kentucky and I’ve known him for a long time now.
Holley: Yeah, he’s great. He’s great. We have so much good footage, too, extra stuff. We’ll just share some of that stuff with you all in Kentucky. Went to Kentucky and we filmed with him that stuff that didn’t he make the final documentary series where John Y. Brown is looking over a whole pool table full of images from the Kentucky Colonels days. It’s a beautiful thing to watch him go back down memory lane and see him be able to do it with his mom, Ellie Brown, while she was still here with us was really something that just is I’m grateful for, man. I’m just grateful for it.
AF: Thank you so much and enjoy the premiere.
Holley: Yeah. Thank you, Danielle. Appreciate you.