National Basketball League (United States)
The National Basketball League ( NBL ) was a North American professional basketball league . As the Midwest Basketball Conference, the league began playing in 1935. The operation of the league lasted two years and ended with the 1936-1937 season. After that, the league's owners changed the name because the Midwest Basketball Conference was too easy to confuse with the Big Ten Conference , a well-known college division (whose teams are from the Midwest). Furthermore, the league also expanded to the east, i.e. H. teams from the east of the USA were also included in the league. The league was founded by the three major corporations today, General Electric , Firestone and Goodyear . Most of the teams came from near the Great Lakes or were associations of industrial companies. The league gradually adopted the rules of college basketball, making professional basketball more attractive. Some of the NBL teams also had African-American players under contract, making the NBL a pioneer in this regard as well. At the end of the 1940s, the league struggled with financial problems and was finally swallowed up by the rival league BAA in 1949 . To give the whole thing the appearance of a merger of equal partners, the new league was called the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Five of today's 30 NBA teams can trace their roots back to the NBL. These are the Los Angeles Lakers (as Minneapolis Lakers), the Detroit Pistons (as Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons), the Sacramento Kings (as Rochester Royals), the Philadelphia 76ers (as Syracuse Nationals) and the Atlanta Hawks (as Tri-Cities Blackhawks ).
history
The league wasn't very well organized at first. The clubs had to arrange the game dates among themselves and the playing time (4 × 10 minutes or 3 × 15 minutes) was set by the home team. There were two divisions and the two best teams reached the play-offs . As in the play-offs in best-of-three mode, the winners then played against each other in the final.
The first years
In the early years, the NBL was dominated by one team, the Oshkosh All-Stars . The first title was won by the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots , but the All-Stars always reached the finals in the first five years and won the championship twice. The All-Stars were led by their center and star player Leroy Edwards , who was three years in a row (1937-1940) top scorer of the NBL. The Akron Firestone Non-Skids also won the championship twice in a row, but stopped playing in 1941.
The early 1940s
In 1941 the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons , led by star player Bobby McDermott , joined the NBL. The Pistons finished second twice in a row (1942, 1943) and then twice champion (1944, 1945). The Pistons' greatest challenger was the Sheboygan Red Skins , who made it to the finals five times in six years. In 1941 they lost to Oshkosh, in 1943 they won against the Pistons, but lost to them in 1944 and 1945. In 1946 they lost their last series of finals against the new team from Rochester .
The last few years
From 1947 the NBL was dominated by one player, namely George Mikan . In his rookie season, he played for the Chicago American Gears , with whom he became instant champion. After that, the team owner of the Gears founded his own league, the National Professional Basketball League . This attempt failed and Mikan moved to the Minneapolis Lakers . He led the Lakers to the championship in 1948 together with Jim Pollard . After that season, the Lakers and three other teams (Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester) joined the Basketball Association of America . Last season the Anderson Duffey Packers became champions. After that, the NBL was merged with the BAA to form a league and the National Basketball Association was founded.
NBL teams 1937-49
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literature
- Robert W. Peterson: Cages to Jump Shots. Pro Basketball's early years , University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (NE) 2002. ISBN 0-8032-8772-0 (engl.)