1949 Overview

From Hoopedia

1948-49 NBA Season

The Minneapolis Lakers won the 1948 National League title, then jumped to the BAA the next year and won that one, too.

The BAA clearly had the best arenas in the bigger cities, but the National Basketball League, featuring teams in smaller Midwestern cities, claimed the best players. This changed, however, prior to the 1948 season, when three other NBL teams -- Fort Wayne, Rochester, and Indianapolis -- joined the Lakers in moving to the BAA.

George Mikan led the Lakers. At 6-10 and 245 pounds, he dominated the game with his inside scoring, hook shooting right or left. He shot .416 from the floor while averaging a league-leading 28.3 points per game, earning him the first of three consecutive league scoring titles.

Just behind Mikan in the scoring race was jump-shooting Joe Fulks, the country boy from Kentucky who rifled in 26.0 points per game for the Philadelphia Warriors.

With 12 teams, the NBA played a 60-game schedule, with Washington (coached by Red Auerbach) finishing first in the Eastern Division and Rochester besting Minneapolis by one game in the West.

The two teams went on to meet in the Finals. Mikan scored 42 points in Game 1 and, despite breaking his wrist in Game 4, led the Lakers over Auerbach’s Capitols in six games.

“He wore a cast that was a hard as a brick,” recalled Washington’s Horace “Bones” McKinney, who guarded Mikan in the series. “It fit right in with his elbows. It would kill you. And it didn’t bother his shooting a bit.”