Basketball Association of America

• 1. Introduction

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  The Basketball Association of America was born in a hotel meeting room in New York City on the 6th of June, 1946 - and it almost never happened. Two of the men at that meeting, representing would-be teams in Buffalo and Indianapolis, left without teams to show for it. One admitted he had no real plans to field a roster. The other folded before playing a single game, partly because he could not find enough wood to build a portable basketball court. The league that emerged from that chaotic founding would last only three seasons. Yet those three seasons laid the groundwork for one of the most enduring sports organizations in North America. How did a league run by hockey-arena owners, with attendance averaging just 3,000 fans per game and puddles forming on floors laid over ice, become the ancestor of the NBA? And why do six of the teams from that first, shaky season still play today?

• 2. Hockey Owners, Empty Arenas

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  Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Garden, had a simple problem: his arena sat empty on too many nights. The idea driving the BAA's creation was not a passion for basketball but a real-estate calculation. When no hockey game was scheduled, large arenas generated no revenue. Brown and his colleagues believed basketball could fill those gaps. The founding members gathered at the Commodore Hotel represented some of the most prominent sporting venues in the northeast and midwest. Madison Square Garden's Ned Irish, Chicago Stadium's Arthur Wirtz, and Detroit Olympia's James D. Norris were among them. Maurice Podoloff, already serving as president of the American Hockey League, was appointed president of the new league. His appointment made him the first person to lead two professional leagues simultaneously. Joseph Carr had held dual roles with the ABL and NFL earlier, but those seasons did not overlap - making Podoloff's situation genuinely unprecedented. The league these men built differed from its rivals in one clear way: it was designed from the start to fill large arenas in major cities, not the ballrooms and high school gymnasiums where some existing teams played. That ambition would take time to match with actual quality on the court.

• 3. A Rough First Season

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  On the 1st of November, 1946, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers in what the NBA now regards as the league's first official game. Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket for the Knickerbockers. The season that followed was full of operational difficulties. In arenas that shared space with hockey teams, wooden floors were laid directly over the ice. Puddles formed and games were cancelled. Some owners refused to heat their buildings; fans brought blankets, and players wore gloves. Teams sitting on large leads resorted to stalling - players would simply dribble for long stretches, draining the clock and the patience of anyone watching. League owners debated radical alternatives, including a 60-minute game and an innings-style format where each team would take possession in turns. Despite all of this, the Philadelphia Warriors won the inaugural championship, defeating the Chicago Stags 4-1 in the final series. The venue scheduling created an unusual wrinkle: the two teams had to swap home-court advantage during the series because one arena was hosting a circus. The Washington Capitols had finished the regular season with 49 wins, the best record in the league, but fell to the Stags in the semifinal before the Warriors completed their run.

• 4. Teams Come and Go

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  Four teams folded before the second season even began. The Cleveland Rebels, Detroit Falcons, Pittsburgh Ironmen, and Toronto Huskies all dropped out, leaving just seven teams for 1947-48. The Baltimore Bullets stepped in, joining from the American Basketball League and landing in the Western Division. The Bullets made an immediate impact: they won the 1948 championship, defeating the Philadelphia Warriors 4-2 in the finals. Buddy Jeannette coached that Baltimore squad, and he later appeared on the All-BAA Team in recognition of his play. The 1948 champion Bullets were notable for another reason: they had competed in a different league the previous year, which raised genuine questions about whether the BAA's talent level was superior to its rivals. The 1949 champion Minneapolis Lakers had also come from outside the BAA, joining from the NBL ahead of that final season. George Mikan came with the Lakers and the arrival of NBL teams changed the competitive landscape entirely. Rochester's win total reached 45 and Minneapolis finished with 44 wins, dominating the Western Division that year. The college draft, first held on the 1st of July, 1947, became a mechanism for the league to build on the popularity of former college stars - one of the few consistent draws the league had in its difficult early years.

• 5. Merger and the Birth of the NBA

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  On the 3rd of August, 1949, the BAA agreed to merge with the National Basketball League, creating the National Basketball Association. Seven NBL teams joined the ten remaining BAA clubs; two franchises, the Indianapolis Jets and the Providence Steamrollers, folded before the merger took effect. The new league began with 17 teams spread across a mix of large cities and small ones, in arenas of every size from major venues to armories. The final event held under the BAA name was the 1949 college draft, conducted on the 21st of March. The NBA absorbed the BAA's history and statistics wholesale but drew a line at the NBL: records from that league were included in official NBA history only if the players, coaches, or teams from the NBL went on to participate in the newly formed NBA after 1949. The NBA celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996, counting from the BAA's founding season of 1946-47. Six teams that played in the BAA remain active in the NBA as of the 2024-25 season: the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and Philadelphia Warriors from the original 1946 founding, and the Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers, and Rochester Royals, who joined for the final BAA season in 1948. Of those six, the Pistons now play in Detroit, the Lakers in Los Angeles, and the Royals, after three relocations, in Sacramento.