Short answers, pulled from the story.
The National Basketball League was a professional basketball league that operated in the United States from 1937 to 1949. It was originally founded in 1935 as the Midwest Basketball Conference before officially renaming itself the National Basketball League on the 6th of October 1937. After twelve seasons, it merged with the Basketball Association of America to form the National Basketball Association.
Five current NBA teams trace their history directly to the NBL: the Los Angeles Lakers (formerly the Detroit Gems and Minneapolis Lakers), the Detroit Pistons (formerly the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons), the Sacramento Kings (formerly the Rochester Royals), the Atlanta Hawks (formerly the Buffalo Bisons and Tri-Cities Blackhawks), and the Philadelphia 76ers (formerly the Syracuse Nationals).
The NBA adopted the Basketball Association of America's history as its own following the 1949 merger, treating the event as an expansion rather than a merger of equals. The NBA's official season recaps begin with the 1946-47 BAA season. As of 2025, NBL records and statistics are only recognized in NBA history if the player, coach, or team also participated in the NBA after 1949.
Leroy "Cowboy" Edwards was a 6-foot-4 center for the Oshkosh All-Stars who led the NBL in scoring for each of the league's first three seasons. He had been the Helms Foundation College Player of the Year as a member of the 1934-35 University of Kentucky Wildcats and left college after two years, which was highly unusual at the time. He is credited with introducing the three-second rule in basketball and played in all twelve NBL seasons.
In the 1942-43 season, two NBL clubs signed African-American players five years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The Toledo Jim White Chevrolets and the Chicago Studebaker Flyers both integrated their rosters that season, though both franchises folded before the year ended. In December 1948, the NBL also admitted the Dayton Rens, an all-black team that had previously operated as the New York Renaissance.
Fred Zollner, owner of the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, used the profits from his piston manufacturing company to subsidize other NBL franchises during World War II, when the league shrank to as few as four teams. He was reportedly the only team owner turning a profit during some of those seasons and shared his revenue to prevent the league from collapsing entirely.