April 30
From Hoopedia
- 1956 - The St. Louis Hawks trade draft rights to Bill Russell to Boston Celtics for Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan.
- 1961 - Hall of Fame player Isiah Thomas, a twelve-time NBA All-Star and twice the All-Star Game MVP, is born in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1971 - The Milwaukee Bucks, led by young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and veteran Oscar Robertson, beat the Baltimore Bullets, 118-106, to complete a four-game sweep in the NBA Finals, capturing the franchise’s only NBA Championship.
- 1975 - Larry O'Brien is named the third commissioner of the NBA, succeeding Walter Kennedy.
- 1984 - NCAA and WNBA standout Seimone Augustus is born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
- 1985 - The National Basketball Association sets an all-time regular-season attendance record as 19,506,355 fans attended games in arenas around the league. Seven NBA teams - Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia each drew more than a million fans.
- 1988 - Sleepy Floyd scores 42 points and Hakeem Olajuwon adds 41 as Houston downs Dallas, 119-108, in Game 2 of their Western Conference First Round series, marking only the second time in NBA Playoff history that teammates surpassed 40 points in a game.
- 1999 - The Women’s National Basketball Players Association ratifies the first-ever collective bargaining agreement negotiated in women’s professional sports.
- 2002 - Seattle SuperSonics guard Gary Payton becomes only the second player in league history to be named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team nine times. Payton joins the Michael Jordan as the only nine-time members of the All-Defensive First Team.
