Ruby Richman, the former coach of Canada men's national basketball team, working with Ballard pursued a number of existing National Basketball Association (NBA) and American Basketball Association (ABA) teams to relocate to Toronto to play at MLG in the 1970s. Richman had a tentative agreement to purchase both the Miami Floridians and Pittsburgh Condors of the ABA with a plan to merge them into a single Toronto-based team, but the deal fell through. Later, Richman held negotiations with the Detroit Pistons, which were seeking $5 million for the franchise, but pulled out when the price was raised to $8.25 million. MLGL attempted to purchase and relocate the Buffalo Braves, which had played a number of regular season games at MLG over the years, to Toronto in 1974 for $8.5 million, and again several times later, but the owners eventually chose to move the team to San Diego. When Toronto was awarded an expansion NBA franchise in 1974 for the 1975–76 season MLGL was one of three groups to bid for the rights to the team, but the club never materialized as no group was able to secure funding for the expansion fee of $6.8 million. MLGL attempted to purchase and relocate the Houston Rockets in 1975, which were seeking $8 million for the team, but the team's lease ultimately prevented a relocation. In 1976 MLGL attempted to buy the Atlanta Hawks. In 1979 a Toronto group which included Ballard again pushed for an expansion franchise, but lost out to the Dallas Mavericks. A Toronto group, which included Bill Ballard, son of Harold, and Basketball Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain submitted an application and US$100,000 deposit for an NBA expansion franchise for MLG in 1986, but of the six cities to apply Toronto was not one of the four which were successful. It was not until the NBA awarded an expansion franchise to John Bitove, over a group led by future MLSE minority partner Larry Tanenbaum which had partnered with the Maple Leafs, and the Toronto Raptors joined the NBA for the 1995–96 season that the city would get an NBA team.