When Did the NBA Start?

The NBA started on June 6, 1946, in New York City, and its first game was played that November. If you want the long version, we have a full NBA history. This page covers the beginning.

It wasn’t called the NBA yet. The league that formed in 1946 was the Basketball Association of America (BAA), put together mostly by owners of hockey arenas in big eastern cities who wanted something to fill their buildings on nights without hockey. An older league, the National Basketball League (NBL), had existed since 1937 and had many of the best players, but it played in smaller Midwestern towns.

In August 1949 the two leagues merged, and the combined league took the name National Basketball Association. The NBA counts the three BAA seasons as its own, which is why it dates its history to 1946 and not 1949.

The First NBA Game

The first game was played on November 1, 1946, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The New York Knickerbockers beat the Toronto Huskies 68-66, and Ossie Schectman of the Knicks scored the first basket. Any fan taller than the Huskies’ tallest player, the 6’8″ George Nostrand, was promised free admission.

The game looked very little like today’s. There was no shot clock until 1954 and no three-point line until 1979, most players shot with two hands and both feet on the floor, and the Knicks’ winning total of 68 points would be a bad half now.

NBA Teams & Coaches from When the NBA Started in 1946

Eleven teams played the 1946-47 season:

1. Boston Celtics: coach John “Honey” Russell
2. Chicago Stags: coach Harold Olsen
3. Cleveland Rebels: coach Dutch Dehnert, then Roy Clifford
4. Detroit Falcons: coach Glenn Curtis, then Philip Sachs
5. New York Knickerbockers: coach Neil Cohalan
6. Philadelphia Warriors: coach Eddie Gottlieb
7. Pittsburgh Ironmen: coach Paul Birch
8. Providence Steamrollers: coach Robert Morris
9. St. Louis Bombers: coach Ken Loeffler
10. Toronto Huskies: four coaches in one season, starting with player-coach Ed Sadowski
11. Washington Capitols: coach Red Auerbach, then 29 years old

Four of them (Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Toronto) folded after that single season. Only three of the original franchises are still playing: the Celtics, the Knicks and the Warriors, who are now in San Francisco.

10 NBA Players from 1946 When the NBA Started

1. Joe Fulks, Philadelphia. The league’s first scoring champion at 23.2 points a game, and one of the first players to rely on a jump shot.
2. Bob Feerick, Washington. The best shooter on the team with the best record.
3. Max Zaslofsky, Chicago. First-team all-league at the age of 21.
4. Bones McKinney, Washington. Auerbach’s forward, and later a coach himself.
5. Stan Miasek, Detroit. The fifth member of the first all-league team.
6. Ed Sadowski, Toronto and Cleveland. One of the league’s top scorers, and briefly a player-coach.
7. Ernie Calverley, Providence. Led the league in assists.
8. Howie Dallmar, Philadelphia. Hit the shot that clinched the first championship.
9. Ossie Schectman, New York. Scorer of the first basket.
10. Chuck Connors, Boston. A reserve who became far more famous as an actor, the star of the television western The Rifleman.

The biggest name of the era, George Mikan, was playing in the rival NBL in 1946. He joined the BAA with the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948.

10 Interesting Facts about the NBA in 1946 When it all Began!

1. The first champions were the Philadelphia Warriors, who beat the Chicago Stags four games to one in the 1947 Finals.
2. The first coach to win a title was Eddie Gottlieb, who also owned part of the Warriors and for years wrote the league’s schedule by hand.
3. The regular season was about 60 games long. It grew to 82 in 1967.
4. Games were 48 minutes, as they are now. The BAA chose 48 minutes, eight more than college games, so that fans would feel they got a full evening.
5. Zone defenses were banned partway through the first season to speed the game up.
6. Chuck Connors shattered a backboard during warm-ups before the Celtics’ first home game, which delayed the start.
7. There was no draft in 1946. The first one was held in 1947.
8. The league was all white. Earl Lloyd became the first Black player to appear in an NBA game on October 31, 1950.
9. The first All-Star Game was played on March 2, 1951, at Boston Garden.
10. The first Most Valuable Player award went to Bob Pettit of the St. Louis Hawks in 1956.

5 more firsts from the years that followed

11. The 24-second shot clock arrived in the 1954-55 season.
12. The Minneapolis Lakers were the first team to win back-to-back titles, in 1949 and 1950.
13. The first slam dunk contest was held by the rival ABA in 1976 and won by Julius Erving.
14. The NBA added the three-point line in the 1979-80 season.
15. The league returned to Canada in 1995 with the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies.

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