Basketball Association of America
| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | June 6, 1946 |
| Ceased | August 3, 1949 (merger) |
| No. of teams | 16 |
| Countries |
 United States Canada |
| Last champion(s) |
Minneapolis Lakers |
| Related competitions |
National Basketball Association |
The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA and the National Basketball League (NBL) merged to create the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The Philadelphia Warriors won the inaugural BAA championship in 1947, followed by the Baltimore Bullets and the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948 and 1949. Six teams from the BAA remain in operation in the NBA as of the 2012–13 season, three who co-founded the league in 1946 and three who joined it from the NBL in 1948 (below). The inaugural BAA season began with 11 teams, of which four dropped before the second season. One ABL team joined to provide 8 teams for 1947–48 and four NBL teams joined to provide 12 for 1948–49. The records and statistics of the BAA and NBL prior to the merger in 1949 are considered in official NBA history only if a player, coach or team participated in the newly formed NBA after 1949 for one or more seasons.
The NBA generally claims the BAA's history as its own. For example, at NBA History online its table of one-line "NBA Season Recaps" begins 1946–47 without comment. It celebrated "NBA at 50" in 1996, with announcement of its 50 Greatest Players among other things.
When the BAA was founded there were two established professional leagues in the United States: the American Basketball League in the East, founded 1925, and the National Basketball League in Midwestern industrial cities, founded 1937. However, most of the ABL and NBL teams played in small arenas, and in some cases even ballrooms or high school gymnasiums. Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Garden, believed that major ice hockey arenas, which sat empty on many nights, could be put to profitable use hosting basketball games when there were no ice hockey games to be played. To put this theory into practice, the BAA was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946. Maurice Podoloff, who was already serving as president of the American Hockey League, was appointed president of the BAA, becoming the first person to simultaneously lead two professional leagues (Joseph Carr had been president of the ABL from 1925 to 1928 while also overseeing the National Football League, although the NFL and ABL seasons did not overlap).
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