I remember the first time I watched an NBA game with my grandfather - he kept pointing at the screen and telling me stories about the "old days" when players had second jobs and traveled by train. That conversation sparked my lifelong fascination with the league's origins, and I've spent countless hours digging through archives and old newspaper clippings to understand how this global phenomenon began. The NBA's creation story feels remarkably similar to that Kammeraad quote about teams fighting back and games that "could have went both ways" - it was a messy, uncertain beginning where every decision mattered.
Most people don't realize the NBA wasn't actually the first professional basketball league in America. Before the 1946 founding, there were several attempts at creating sustainable professional leagues, but they all struggled with organization and financial stability. I've always found it fascinating how close we came to never having an NBA at all - the entire enterprise could have collapsed in those first few years. The league's survival reminds me of Kammeraad's observation about tournaments where "they had chances, we had chances" - every game and every season balanced on a knife's edge during those early years.
The official birth date was June 6, 1946, when a group of arena owners gathered at New York's Commodore Hotel. These weren't basketball visionaries - they were practical businessmen looking for ways to fill their buildings on nights when hockey wasn't playing. Maurice Podoloff, a man who stood just 5-foot-1, became the first commissioner, which I've always thought was wonderfully ironic for a basketball league. The original name was the Basketball Association of America (BAA), and it started with 11 teams playing a 60-game schedule that first season. Ticket prices ranged from about 75 cents to $2.50, which sounds charming until you adjust for inflation and realize that's roughly $30 in today's money.
Those early games were nothing like the high-flying spectacle we see today. The first basket in league history was scored by Ossie Schectman of the New York Knicks - a simple layup that would be completely ordinary by today's standards. Players traveled by train, sometimes playing back-to-back games in different cities, and the average salary was around $4,000 annually. I sometimes imagine what it must have been like for those pioneers - no guaranteed contracts, no national TV deals, just pure love for the game and uncertainty about whether this whole experiment would last beyond the first season.
The merger with the National Basketball League in 1949 created what we now know as the NBA, combining the BAA's major market teams with the NBL's midwestern squads. This was the moment when the league truly found its footing, though it still faced enormous challenges. Teams folded regularly - the original 11 had dwindled to just 8 by the 1954 season. What strikes me most about this period is how the players and owners persisted despite the obstacles, much like Kammeraad described his team fighting back when things looked bleak. They believed in basketball's potential even when attendance numbers suggested otherwise.
George Mikan became the league's first true superstar during this era, a 6-foot-10 center who dominated in ways that would be impossible under today's rules. The game was slower, more physical, and frankly less exciting than modern basketball - but it had a raw authenticity that I sometimes miss when watching today's perfectly choreographed contests. The introduction of the 24-second shot clock in 1954 revolutionized the game, creating the faster pace that would eventually make basketball must-see entertainment.
Looking back, what amazes me is how many pivotal moments could have gone differently. If the owners at that Commodore Hotel meeting had decided basketball wasn't worth the risk, if the merger with the NBL had fallen through, if the shot clock hadn't been implemented - we might be living in a world without the NBA as we know it. The league's founding era was exactly like Kammeraad described tournament play - unpredictable, hard-fought, and ultimately fair in its Darwinian selection of which teams and ideas would survive. The NBA we celebrate today exists because countless people fought through those uncertain early years, believing in a game that would eventually capture the world's imagination.
Argentina World CupCopyrights