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1946–47 BAA season

The 1946–47 BAA season was the inaugural season of the Basketball Association of America. The league launched with 11 teams playing a 60-game schedule. The postseason tournament (the 1947 BAA Playoffs) at its conclusion, ended with the Philadelphia Warriors becoming the first BAA Champion, beating the Chicago Stags 4 games to 1 in the BAA Finals.

Following its third, the 1948–49 season, the BAA and National Basketball League merged to create the National Basketball Association or NBA. The NBA recognizes the three BAA seasons as part of its own history, sometimes without comment, so the 1946–47 BAA season is sometimes considered the first NBA season.

By 1951, only three original BAA teams were still in the NBA: the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors (now in San Francisco as the Golden State Warriors). Meanwhile, every single member of the inaugural Western Division had folded operations by 1950, with three of these teams lasting for only one season (Cleveland Rebels, Detroit Falcons, and Pittsburgh Ironmen) in the inaugural BAA season. Not only that, but the Toronto Huskies also folded operations following the season's conclusion as well (with them and Pittsburgh folding after the inaugural 1947 BAA draft concluded), which made for a total of four teams folding operations before the BAA's second season began.

Notable events

  • Before the inaugural BAA season began, the newly-created league had intended for 13 teams to join in the league with the original eleven that had been created alongside planned teams being added in Buffalo and Indianapolis. However, both of those teams had ultimately dropped out of entry before entering the BAA's inaugural season properly, as while Buffalo's entry was supposedly never truly considered a serious one by the representatives of that team at the time (likely due in part to them recognizing that they would also have to compete against a newly-created National Basketball League team in the Buffalo Bisons at the time), Indianapolis' withdrawal was brought up to the BAA due to serious concerns about them competing against three different professional basketball teams with the rivaling National Basketball League that all were in the state of Indiana with the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, the Indianapolis Kautskys, and the newly-added Anderson Duffey Packers combined with venue issues at hand. (Supposedly, the Indianapolis squad would end up moving their operations to Detroit to become the Detroit Falcons, though that isn't 100% confirmed information.)
  • On November 1, 1946, in the inaugural game of the new league, the New York Knicks beat the Toronto Huskies 68–66 in front of 7,090 spectators at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket for the New York Knicks against Toronto. In 1949, the BAA helped create the National Basketball Association by merger, and Schectman's shot may be considered the first basket in NBA history. The NBA recognizes the three BAA seasons as part of its own history, sometimes without comment.
  • On November 11, the New York Knicks would host their first home game of the season against the Chicago Stags. While the game would go into overtime, the Knicks would lose to the Stags in a messy 78–68 defeat by the overtime period. Interestingly, unbeknownst to everyone in the Madison Square Garden that night, one of the attendees would later become an infamous figure in early basketball history, as future NBA All-Star, point-shaver, and eventual gangster Jack Molinas would attend that game with some of his friends as a part of the paying audience that night.

Final standings

Playoffs

There were no byes. Western and Eastern champions Chicago and Washington immediately played a long semifinal series with Washington having home-court advantage. Chicago won the sixth game in Washington one day before Philadelphia concluded its two short series with other runners-up.

Statistics leaders

Note: Prior to the 1969–70 season, league leaders in points and assists were determined by totals rather than averages.

BAA awards

See also

Notes

References

External references

  • This book is dedicated to detailing the 1946–47 season out, including the first meeting that the BAA had when establishing operations, the trials and tribulations each team had during their first season of operations, and what caused commissioner Maurice Podoloff to claim this season was a good one publicly at the time, only to later admit that it was a complete failure to the point where desperate changes had to be made for the league to survive years later.