NBA Roots
From Hoopedia
Early Professional Leagues
By Robin Deutsch and Douglas Stark from the NBA Encyclopedia
While the NBA became a staple in the sports world during the last half of the 20th century, the vision and effort to create a professional basketball league is almost as old as the game. The first professional league began in 1898, only seven years after the sport was created, and many pro leagues came and went during the first half of the 20th century.
Most of the leagues were regional, but two leagues -- the American Basketball League and the National Basketball League -- were somewhat national in scope, and they produced some great players and memorable stories. The barnstorming tradition made popular by the Harlem Globetrotters also has its roots in early basketball. The There were a number of teams that went from town to town, earning a paycheck by playing a local team, and eventually all three of those teams -- the Original Celtics (no relation to the Boston Celtics), Buffalo Germans and New York Rens -- were enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
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The First Pro Game
The first documented professional basketball game took place on November 7, 1896, when the Trenton (N.J.) Basketball Team (formerly the Trenton YMCA team) rented the local Masonic Temple, charged admission and agreed to split the profits should there be any. Trenton defeated the Brooklyn YMCA team 16-1 and the Trenton players received $15 each, with the $1 that was left over going to team leader Fred Cooper -- who thus became pro basketball's first "highest paid player." That game also marked the first appearance of the cage, a steel mesh that surrounded the court and separated the players from the fans.
The First Pro Leagues
The first pro league on record is the National Basket Ball League, founded in 1898 with six teams in Philadelphia and nearby parts of New Jersey -- hardly "national" in scope. The National League lasted five seasons, but new leagues quickly were formed throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, prominent among them were the Philadelphia Basketball League, Eastern Basket Ball League, Hudson River League, New York State League and the Interstate League.
History was made in 1902 in the New England League when Harry "Bucky" Lew entered a game for Lowell against Marlboro, becoming the first African-American to play in a professional basketball game. "At first this manager refused to put me in," he said years later. "He let them play us five on four but the fans got real mad and almost started a riot screaming to let me play. I took the bumps, the elbows in the gut, knees here and there and everything else that went with it. It was rough but worth it."
The National Basketball League
The most successful league -- at least in terms of longevity -- was the National Basketball League (NBL), which began as the Midwest Basketball Conference in 1935 but changed its name in 1937 in an attempt to attract a larger audience.
The league began rather informally with scheduling left to the discretion of each of the nine teams as long as the team played at least 10 games and four of them were on the road. Games consisted either of four 10-minute quarters or three 15-minute periods. The choice was made by the home team. Some of the teams were independent while others were owned by companies that also found jobs for their players.
And for those who may think that professional sports are too commercialized, consider some of the team names in the NBL -- the Akron Firestone Non-Skids, the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots, the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets, the Cleveland Allmen Transfers and the Chicago Duffy Florals.
"Our team was sponsored by the General Electric Company, so they gave me a job working in the factory," said Scott Armstrong, who played for the Fort Wayne General Electrics in 1936-37. "GE paid us $5 a game."
The history of the NBL falls into three eras, each contributing significantly to the growth of professional basketball and the emergence of the NBA. The first dynasty centered on the Oshkosh All-Stars, who appeared in the championship series five consecutive years (1938-42) and won two titles. The middle years saw the emergence of the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, who were later instrumental in the survival of the NBA during its infancy. The final period of note during the NBL's existence centered around George Mikan and the emergence of the big man in basketball.
The Oshkosh All-Stars were led by rugged 6-4 center Leroy "Cowboy" Edwards. He used a deadly hook shot with either hand and an array of moves around the basket to lead the NBL in scoring three consecutive years (1937-40).
The Zollner Pistons -- so nicknamed because they were owned by Fred Zollner, whose company made pistons for engines -- were led by tough veteran Bobby McDermott. The Pistons finished second in 1942 and 1943 and won the league title in 1944 and 1945. Like many teams of that era, it wasn't uncommon for Fort Wayne to play its games in taverns, armories, high school gyms or ballrooms.
"In those days, you would drive into town and look for the biggest building," recalled the Pistons' Buddy Jeannette, like McDennott, a Basketball Hall of Famer. "We drove up to this bar and I got out of the car and ran inside and I said to the bartender, 'Hey, we are supposed to play a basketball game in this town today, can you tell me where it is?' He said, 'This is the place.' I looked around and there were tables all over the place. After we got dressed they had shoved all the tables back and put a basket on one wall, and on the other side they had a basket drawn up into the ceiling. The referee drew a big circle on the middle of the floor, and a net dropped down around the floor. And the damnedest fight you ever saw started. That was a real education."
Under Zollner, the Pistons would eventually play an important role in the survival and growth of the NBA. Zollner's financial support of the NBA helped the league stay afloat during its tumultuous formative years.
The NBL's third era was dominated by Mikan, the 6-10, three-time All-American center from DePaul who would emerge as the dominant player in the game. As a rookie, Mikan led the Chicago American Gears to the 1947 NBL title, but before the next season, owner Maurice White pulled his team out of the league and formed his own 24-team circuit called the National Professional Basketball League. That venture quickly failed, and Mikan was signed by the NBL's Minneapolis Lakers, where he teamed with the versatile Jim Pollard to win the 1948 championship.
But after the 1947-48 season, Mikan's Lakers and three other NBL clubs left to join the Basketball Association of America. The NBL, stripped of its best teams and prime gate attraction, lasted only one more season, the Anderson Duffey Packers winning the league's last championship before six of its members were absorbed by the BAA, which changed its name to the National Basketball Association.
The NBL obviously contributed significantly to the foundation of the NBA, but it also had major accomplishments in other areas, most notably in offering opportunities for African-American players. In the 1942-43 season, with many players in the armed forces, two NBL clubs, the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets and the Chicago Studebakers, filled their rosters by signing African-Americans -- five years before Jackie Robinson would break baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Neither team fared well. Toledo signed several black players to start the season, including Bill Jones, who had starred at the University of Toledo, but the team lost its first four games and folded due to financial difficulties. Chicago stocked its roster with several members of the Harlem Globetrotters, who worked during the week at the Studebaker plant, but it also folded after compiling an 8-15 record.
During the final NBL season, the Detroit Vagabond Kings folded in midseason, their franchise was awarded to one of the most famous of the barnstorming teams, the New York Rens comprised of all African-Americans. The team finished the year as the Dayton Rens, marking the first time that an all-black team competed in an all-white league.
The American Basketball League
The first league of any significance -- and the one that paved the way for the NBL, was the American Basketball League, which was founded in 1925. It was the first "national" league with franchises that stretched from New York and Boston in the East to Chicago and Indiana in the Midwest. The ABL advanced the profession of basketball in several ways. It was the first league to sign players to exclusive contracts that prevented them from constantly changing teams, a problem that had plagued earlier regional leagues. It made backboards mandatory in each arena and eliminated the wire cage around the court that had separated fans from players in the sport's early years. The ABL also adopted amateur rules and made the double dribble a violation, creating a style of play that was predicated on speed and agility as opposed to brute strength.
At the time, however, basketball was not very popular, so the league would piggyback its games onto other events such as concerts or dances, a common practice during that era.
"At halftime of a game, fans would go down to the bar and have a drink," said Moe Spahn, an ABL player with Kingston. "After the game the crowd would have a dance to canned music or a band. I think the dance was the real reason they came to the game."
The Cleveland Rosenblums, led by John "Honey" Russell, won the championship of the nine-team ABL in its inaugural season. The following season, the league strengthened itself by adding the Original Celtics, a barnstorming troupe that was arguably the world's best team with stars like Joe Lapchick, Dutch Dehnert, Nat Holman and Pete Barry. It also added the Philadelphia Warriors, an offshoot of another prominent barnstorming club, the Philadelphia SPHAs. That team was run by Eddie Gottlieb, a master promoter and lifelong basketball man who would go on to play a prominent role in the NBA for many years.
The Original Celtics overpowered the rest of the ABL, winning championships in their first two seasons in the league. They were so dominant that the league sought ways to break up the Celtics, finally getting the opportunity after the team's manager, Jim Furey, was convicted of embezzling. The team's players were dispersed, and the 1929 title went to the Cleveland Rosenblums -- a team that had been strengthened by the additions of Lapchick, Dehnert and Barry. Those three joined ex-Celtics Johnny Beckman and Carl Husta, leading many to refer to the club as the Rosenblum Celtics.
Despite the crash of the stock market and the onset of the Great Depression, the ABL attempted to plow on. Cleveland won the title again in 1930 but folded early the following year, and after Brooklyn won the crown in 1931, the league suspended operations. Attempts would be made to revive it, but it would never again achieve the status of a national league.
Early Leagues
The ABL was a model of stability compared with pro basketball's earlier leagues, which folded almost as quickly as they sprang up. Each league operated under different rules and there were no contracts to bind one player to a team and a league. It was not uncommon to see players play for a team in one league one night and then travel to another city and play for another team in another league the next night. For example, in the 1914-15 season, Hall of Famer Barney Sedran led Carbondale, Pa., to 35 consecutive victories and the championship of the Tri County League while at the same time helping Utica to a 15-11 record in the New York State League.
The best players sold their services to the highest bidder on almost a nightly basis. In 1919, Lapchick, who is in the Hall of Fame, split his services among several teams including those in Holyoke, Mass., Schenectady, N.Y., and Brooklyn, N.Y.
"Sometimes there were important games in Schenectady or Brooklyn," Lapchick said. "I'd make a phone call and tell the Holyoke manager I had a chance to play for $45 in Schenectady. ‘Don't let a few dollars stand in your way. I'll pay you $50,’ he'd say. That would lead to several more phone calls and the first thing I knew I was selling myself to the highest bidder for $75 a game. Like the rest of the fellows, I'd play where the money was."
Barnstorming Teams
Some of the best teams of the era disdained affiliation with leagues, or moved in and out of leagues as it suited them. They found they could make more money by barnstorming -- traveling around the country, playing one-night stands against local teams and then moving on. Among the best-known of these teams were the Original Celtics, the Philadelphia SPHAs and the Buffalo Germans, who once won 111 consecutive games and compiled a 792-86 record from 1895 to 1929. One of the Germans' victories came against the Carlisle Indians, a team that featured the legendary Jim Thorpe. Other noteworthy barnstorming teams included the Trojans of New York, and two teams comprised of African-Americans, the New York Renaissance Five and the Harlem Globetrotters.
The Philadelphia SPHAs
The SPHAs, a team created by Eddie Gottlieb, Harry Passon and Hughie Black in 1918 in Philadelphia, had a successful 31-year run before disbanding at the end of the 1948-49 season. One of professional basketball's pioneering teams, the SPHAs, an acronym that stood for South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, a social club from which the team derived its name, won championships in the Philadelphia League, the Eastern League and the ABL.
When the Philadelphia League disbanded, the SPHAs took their show on the road. In one stretch, they won nine of 11 games against the Cleveland Rosenblums -- the ABL’s premier team -- the Original Celtics and the Rens.
The Original Celtics
The Original Celtics' impact on the game before they entered the ABL was profound -- from the first individual contracts to the zone defense to working the ball into the pivot. Descendants of the New York Celtics, a team organized in 1914 to represent a settlement house on Manhattan's tough west side, the Original Celtics were formed after World War I by Jim Furey, a New York promoter, and his brother Tom.
The Original Celtics became one of the dominant teams by adding the best players, such as Dehnert, Holman, Lapchick, Barry, Swede Grimstead, Johnny Beckman and Horse Haggerty. Jim Furey created stability by renting the 71st Regiment Armory in Manhattan for Sunday night games and by signing the players to the first individual contracts in the history of basketball, which meant no more switching teams or leagues at the highest bidder.
The team experimented constantly with great success, averaging more than five victories for every six games. They were superb showmen, and none was better than Holman. He had Dehnert step toward the pivot pass, sealing the defender off with his back, a tactic that is still a basic of fundamental basketball. But Holman's biggest attribute on the court was the feint, which invariably drew fouls, often the results of imaginary contact. That move has survived, although it is now called the "flop."
Primarily a barnstorming team, the Original Celtics did play in a couple of professional leagues before their ABL days. They joined the Eastern League for the second half of the 1921-22 season, when they beat Trenton in a best-of-three championship.
The following season they joined the Metropolitan League, but dominated so thoroughly -- 13-0 -- they withdrew for lack of competition. They rejoined the Eastern League, replacing the Atlantic City team, but again won so easily they couldn't attract enough people to cover their $900 weekly guarantee. They dropped out when the owner sought to cut the salaries to $400.
So the Original Celtics went back to barnstorming, touring the country for appreciative fans.
