I don't think it's the most "heinous" NBA crime, but whoever sold that cocaine to Len Bias definitely had the biggest impact on the history of the league.
@@ignatiusjackson235 It wasn't a one-time thing with Bias. He didn't do coke once and OD. He was a known user of it in college, and the amount he did the night he died was insane!
1) Today's "refereeing". 2) The exclusion of ABA achievements. 3) The whitewash of Leo Ferris' contributions. 4) The appointment of Adam Silver 5) Propping up LeBron.
if the NBL had counted in NBA history: The Lakers would have 18 championships The Pistons would have 5 championships George Mikan would be a 7x champion
I enjoyed the video, but there are a few points that need to be corrected... Yes, Pop Gates was signed by the Buffalo Bisons (which later moved to become the Tri-Cities Blackhawks), but at the same time the Rochester Royals signed Dolly King, so they entered the NBL at the same time. The NBL also had an all-Black team in 1948-49 - the Dayton Rens. When the Detroit team folded 19 games into the season, the New York Rens were invited to replace them, but were forced to assume Detroit's 2-17 record and were left out of the merger between the NBL and BAA. And it was the University of Kentucky, not Kentucky State, that featured the Fabulous Five (they were also known as the "Dream Team," the first known use of the phrase). Wallace Jones wasn't called "Wally." His nickname was "Wah Wah" because his younger sister couldn't pronounce his name when she was young. And the other player was Cliff Barker, not Baker. I covered the NBA for a major newspaper, and for years I railed about the NBA's erasing of the NBL history, going back to the NBA at 50 celebration at the 1997 All-Star Game (which marked 50 years since the founding of the BAA, not NBA). Nice to see others giving the NBL its proper recognition.
Thank you, I appreciate the corrections. It's really a credit to how difficult some of this stuff is to track down with how obscure most coverage of the NBL is, because I feel like I put in effort to get the info right but so little of what happened back then is written about in places that don't take tons and tons of internet sleuthing to find. The college name errors though, that was inexcusable. I think I just blanked in the middle of writing and then recording and went "State" because it sounded college-sounding.
@@GohLow No problems. I made quite a few errors during my years writing for the newspaper, and was always baffled by how I could make them. The mind just glitches sometimes. Trust me, I know how much work goes into researching stuff about the NBL (I did a video about the basketball history a couple of years ago for Facebook that included sections on the Olympians and Pop Gates/Dolly King), so I completely understand how things happen. I again want to say how great it was seeing a video like this. I'm a new subscriber because of it.
Woah woah woah. I was convinced this video must if had at least 100k views. BUT LESS THAN 150??? And this high quality?? You deserve quite a bit more my guy
Thanks a ton! Really appreciate it! Tell your friends and the rest of the world about it. The stuff I normally post didn't lend itself to building up a homegrown audience for this stuff so TH-cam doesn't really know what to do with me lol.
@@GohLow you randomly appeared in my recommended, I watch a lot of NBA TH-cam so hopefully this means your video will draw an audience from that side of TH-cam
I started watching NBA late 50's early 60's. The games were televised by ABC nationally on Sunday. Their coverage began 2 1/2 minutes into the game. There was no opening jump, no player introductions on TV. Two or three minutes into the game there would be an officials time-out and that's when ABC would begin its coverage of the game. There was also a jump at the start of every quarter and 6 team fouls every quarter; so the last two minutes of every quarter was a foul-shooting contest as each team would twice "give one." Oscar Robertson used to argue every call against himself, even when he was "giving one." Eventually the foul limit was lowered to 4 to end this practice. BTW this is where the expression "give one" comes from. A team under the limit would "give" the opponenst a 1 shot foul and try to make 2 at the other end. Hence "give one" to make two.
Man I love hearing this stuff. If you got any more stories about particular things you remember, please share them. There's not enough first-hand accounts of what it was like to be just a normal fan of the NBA around that time.
@@GohLow Back in the day there was a thing called “NBA Doubleheaders.” I lived in New York and would attend them @ Madison Square Garden. As a HS student with a “GO Card” the admission fee was 50 cents; which was some real money those days when the coins were made of silver. This would entitle us to “balcony” seats at either end of the court. Those seats were pretty good as the old Garden was built upwards and not outwards like present day arenas. So even though we were 50 feet up we were right over the court! They were among the best seats in the house! The 1st game of the “doubleheader” would be 2nd tier NBA teams like the Syracuse Nationals, Fort Wayne Pistons and Cincinnati Royals; never the Lakers, Celtics, Hawks or Warriors. Those teams would be a main attraction against the Knicks. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
I’m really glad you told this story. I was aware of some of things you talked but didn’t know all of them. I tried to tell people about the NBL for years. Some of the things you said about the ABL conflict with things with information I’ve been able to but this was a great video. In 1971 the NBA had a 25 year celebration, so by that point they are already recognizing 1946 as the starting point, Ignoring the NBL. Fun fact: in 1935 Midwestern Basketball Conference (MBC) was formed, in 1937 it was renamed the NBL. So it actually began 2 years earlier.
I've never heard about the MBC, and I've been diving deep in this sorta stuff for years now. It's so nuts how much of the truth of these matters is just buried in old newspaper archives.
@@GohLow MIDWEST BASKETBALL CONFERENCE [1935-36 to 1936-37] MBC 1935-36 EASTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB Akron Firestone Non-Skids 11 7 .611 .. Pittsburgh Y.H.M.A.s 10 7 .588 0.5 Buffalo Bisons 7 8 .467 2.5 Dayton Metropolitans 4 6 .400 3.5 WESTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB Indianapolis Kautskys 9 3 .750 .. Chicago Duffy Florals 3 2 .600 2.5 Detroit Hed-Aids 9 7 .562 2 Indianapolis U.S. Tires 5 9 .357 5 Windsor Cooper Buses 2 11 .154 7.5 MBC PLAYOFFS Chicago defeated Akron, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh in a round robin tournament MBC 1936-37 EASTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB Akron Goodyear Wingfoots 16 2 .889 .. Akron Firestone Non-Skids 13 5 .722 3 Warren Hyvis Oilers 8 6 .571 6 Columbus Athletic Supplys 6 5 .545 6.5 Detroit Altes Lagers 2 8 .200 10 Pittsburgh Y.M.H.A.s 2 9 .182 10.5 WESTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB Dayton London Bobbys 8 6 .571 .. Whiting Ciesar All-Americans 3 5 .375 2 Chicago Duffy Florals 4 7 .364 2.5 Indianapolis Kautskys 2 5 .286 2.5 Indianapolis U.S. Tires 3 9 .250 4 MBC PLAYOFFS Akron Goodyear won the league championship. Goodyear also won the championship in the NBL’s first season which means they re-peat-ed.
10:35 On the Leo Ferris point there’s another point to consider and a minor correction I would like to bring up. Podoloff really hated the NBL. He was the guy who started counting the BAA years, and it’s entirely possible he tried to erase Ferris like he did the NBL. This brings me to the second point, that while it’s partly true to say teams failing was the reason they were down to 8 teams it’s not the whole truth. Podoloff asked each team for a $50k insurance after the Stags collapse during the first season and was subsidized by the league to not go under during the season. The Packers wouldn’t pay this as Duffy wanted a guarantee that if he did pay it he would be in the league the following season, a guarantee Podoloff refused to give. Everyone else managed it, at which point Podoloff abandoned subtly and called a vote to kick out the Packers, Red Skins, Waterloo Hawks, and Nuggets. The first vote wasn’t unanimous then Podoloff threatened the dissenting team that they’d go too if they voted wrong, so naturally the vote was changed. So the reason the NBA went from 17 teams in its first season to 11 in the second is because Podoloff forced 4 of the 6 NBL teams out, and two teams (Stags and Bombers) collapsed despite the money Podoloff took.
Oh damn, so this idea that Podoloff was a likeable guy was actually likely entirely based on accounts given from the people he bothered keeping around. Dude seems like a proper cunt.
This was really well done, and I know your intention was to make me feel for Leo, but I was impressed with Red absolutely eradicating this man from history. That's a level of spite I am forced to commend.
The NBA could have wanted to hide the precedent of players like the old Fab Five being offered a share of team ownership. I don't know enough about league history to say it didn't happen in both leagues, but that's a strong motivator for owners.
The Fab Five deal is the only time I've heard it happen in NBA history. Wouldn't surprise me if it happened in the ABA at some point given how wild that league was with contracts and stipulations, but I can't recall it actually happening again.
@@GohLowit was offered to wilt i believe in 1967ish by the owner of the sixers. after the owner died, wilt tried to collect on his ownership stake and he was refused that’s what forced wilt to leave philly and head to form a big three in los angeles with Elgin and West. It’s basically completely unknown by most fans, but it’s an integral part of league history.
Great video! I find the early history of the NBA incredibly interesting and had no idea it was actually the NBL "buying" the BAA, not the other way around
Yeah you'd only hear about it if you dug into newspapers from the 1940s/50s or followed a very select couple of basketball nerds across the internet. Hell, I only heard about it from Leo's nephew having an Instagram page where he digs up all these old newspaper clippings in his spare time going to public libraries and archives. His account is linked in the description.
Reminds me of another "innovation" Red Auerbach fought: The Celtics were also the last NBA team to add dancers. They didn't do so until after Red Auerbach passed away. 😐
That's incredibly weird given that dancers were part of how he got the pick to draft Bill Russell. Part of the trade was the agreement that the Icecapades - owned by Boston's owner - would do multiple shows in the Syracuse Nationals' home arena.
@@GohLow Red also fought hard against the three-point line, then very quickly reversed field after it was adopted anyway, knowing he'd just acquired Larry Bird. The Celtics were second only to the Clippers for three-pointers made in the first year of their existence.
I am shocked that the Pistons and Lakers do not honor their championships won in the NBL. It is part of their history just as much as the ones won in the NBA or in their current city.
It's like Popovich being against the 3-Point Line. You'd just expect these great coaching minds to be for the innovations, but they're often the ones pushing back against them.
I always admire great coaches and executives but I would never view them as saints. Almost all great personalities have their skeletons on their closets.
I've always wondered why the NBL's role in pro basketball history has always been given short shrift; thanks for the video. Isn't it also true that the NBL didn't have a colour bar in the days when it was an industrial league? There was also the Professional Basketball League of America (PBLA), which played for a few weeks in the fall of 1947; I never heard of it until I read a biography of George Mikan, who played in the PBLA.
Yeah the NBL was pretty ahead of the times with integration. There's another comment in this comments section that explains it pretty thoroughly from a writer whose been pushing for NBL recognition since the 90s.
George was literally a baller. An anywhere-anytime baller it seems. "New league? Sure I'll help get it some attention. A 3 point line that takes advantage from guys like me?? Sure, it'll be good foe basketball." I wish I would have had ANY adult that was a basketball fan when I was a kid, so I could have learned about the legends sooner.
@@therealdannymullen And to think, he wasn't even the best center of his day. He had a rival in college, Bub Kurland, who was seen as a much more fluid player than Mikan, but chose not to go pro and was basically the Bill Russell of AAU leagues back when the AAU was actually about competitive sports and not destroying kids' knees. Mikan/Kurland would have been a huge rivalry to build the league around post-merger.
The 1951 College Basketball Betting Scandal happened and 3 of the 5 were indited in some facet, forced to sell their stakes in the team and were banned from the NBA for life.
Ive been watching for ages and its cool to see the algorithm shine a spotlight on the video! Side note: hows your NBA playoff bracket predictions been going?
Went almost perfect in round 1, but Cleveland/Orlando was a 7-game shit fest that busted it. Now it looks like Denver's about to make things even worse by losing to Minnesota, and not even in a competitive way. Two games of playing like absolute shit and Jamal Murray being a total bitch. So until further notice, I am a Knicks fan now.
Cool that the first NBL champion was the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots (Lebron's Cleveland Cavaliers). No stats should count from either league until segregation was obliterated in October 1946 (Ferris signs William Gates and Dolly King to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks).
6:05 Minneapolis is pronounced Minny-apolis. You put an extra syllable in there to try to rhyme it with Indianapolis (which it doesn't). This seems to be a surprisingly common issue as another sports TH-camr I frequently watch also says Minianapolis for some reason.
I’m not sure if you just intentionally left this out and didn’t explain why and the technical details of how it went down- the BAA changed its name to the NBA and legally acquired the NBL teams in an expansion. You can characterize it as a merger and the other ways you did in the video in a narrative sense of how it happened but technically, officially, legally, historically etc it was an expansion and a modified BAA- hence why BAA stats and history count as NBA’s but The NBL’s doesn’t- consistent with expansion norms
Great video but please note: Michigan State "Spartans," University of Michigan are totally different. To say Michigan State Wolverines sounds like nails on a blackboard.
I always wondered about the BAA-NBL "Merger". Through Research(Wikipedia reading) you're not gonna find much, how this was even possible and how it's portrayed. In the End, it was most likely nasty revisionism. The "American Model" of Sportsmanagemt and League Operation makes sense with how it delevoped but when you look back it's also like really cancerous. This happend in every major sport in the US. All this folding and absorping. It's just gang of owners competing against another gang of owners. Instead of seeing as a sort of unifying history of the Deveopment of the sport in the US, It just gets erased. Much history, stories, legacies championships, stats(achievements) or pioneering get lost. I think that's actually the worst part. Todays base of costumers dont really care about that. That's why i always found it funny lakers fans bragg how they have 17 instead of 18 championships Pistons having 3 instead of 5 In other sports: Chiefs, Jets, Titans, Bills and the AFL Championships Browns and the AAFC Hurricanes and the Coyotes the WHA Major League Status stuff with Baseball with the NA(Concerns the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs)
History and what the ‘facts are’ are interpreted and determined by those that are actually ‘present in the room’! He’s not given his due simply because he left the NBA before the History was being written. Meanwhile, Red was always around.
I always knew that what we're told about the history of basketball is rife with bullshit, especially and specifically there in the first 30-40 years or so of the sport. They even changed who is credited with "inventing" basketball, too. It's really annoying. But as usual, no one ever is none the wiser. I know I've heard of this man before multiple times, but cannot recall when or where. I just know I knew his name. So this video is super valuable for me and filling in my memory on it. I appreciate it!
Terrific vid! :) Im thinking maybe its not so much they're hiding the NBL legacy, as much as they just choose one of the leagues to attach to historically and they went with the BAA because they were in the bigger cities?
@@GohLow from your other videos, I realised you are one of the real ones who’d know Terry & Andy Bogard & definitely Iori & Kyo. 😂👊🏽💪🏽 If you know, you know!! Great video btw!!
I didn't know most of this stuff. Great video 👏🏼 Watching the "highlights" of old time basketball, it's not hard to see why they might have a score of 19-18 😅 Lots of bricks.
Nah, that 19-18 game was actually a massive outlier. Most games were cracking the 70-point mark dating back to like the 20s even with shooting percentages in the low 30s.
I don't understand. If the NBL had all the cards in their favor, why did they agree to the merger at all? Would it not have been better for them to lure teams away from the BAA until the BAA folded?
If you're a half-decent athlete, probably, but you would have gone after baseball or football back then because they were a lot more popular and paid better.
It hurts to think that Red Auerbach might have aided more than anyone else in keeping Leo Ferris out of NBA history but thanks to your research I can not deny the truth; as a Celtics fan I respect Red but this Ferris guy really deserves his flowers and spot in the Hall of Fame 🫡☘️ thank you for this vid
They did running hooks and push hooks. Kareem's big innovation was that he was the first to really pause at the top of his hook and basically flick it like a jumpshot release.
William "Dolly" King and William Penn "Pop" Gates. 1946... 1 year before the year many mention... 1947. What happened to the Keokuk Hawkeyes. In 1885, Bud Fowler was aigned to that team. Its deep. The ABA was created in easesne to highlight black athletes. The numbers are not matching. Not even with the creation of the WNBA. Pop Gates atteneded Clark Atlanta University. The YMCA has hidtory in sports for under privileged.
Tbf that's like saying "look how bad that toddler is at walking" 😂. The game had to start somewhere. I love watching the old games, just as a basketball puritan, seeing how far we've come (for better or worse lol). Plus, sometimes you'll see a player do something that makes you think "damn, is he the one that invented THAT?" 😂 Like, sometimes you'll see a dude do a move so far ahead of its time, it's like a little Easter egg by the universe. :)
@@therealdannymullen I specifically remember seeing Red Kerr doing a between-the-legs pocket pass to a cutter that blew my mind realizing it was from the 50s. The equipment quality was a lot of what was holding the sport back. The ball didn't even have a defined size until the early 70s.
@GohLow ever hear the old timers talk about shoes? 🤣 Something we literally take for granted has a huge impact on endurance, stamina, and just general play.
@@therealdannymullen Just watching the games, they were basically playing in slippers them things were so thing. Damn miracle Bill Russell could still walk, must have had divine knees.
@@itsvictoroyedeji Well it didn't save the ABA because the only thing that could have saved the NBA was big-money investors on-par with the NBA. The ABA was a financial nightmare
What do you think the biggest crime in NBA history is?
Karl Malone is prolly up there
I don't think it's the most "heinous" NBA crime, but whoever sold that cocaine to Len Bias definitely had the biggest impact on the history of the league.
@@ignatiusjackson235 It wasn't a one-time thing with Bias. He didn't do coke once and OD. He was a known user of it in college, and the amount he did the night he died was insane!
1) Today's "refereeing".
2) The exclusion of ABA achievements.
3) The whitewash of Leo Ferris' contributions.
4) The appointment of Adam Silver
5) Propping up LeBron.
@@GohLow Oh, I know. I have no dog in that fight. I'm just saying that it was certainly the "crime" that most altered the game.
if the NBL had counted in NBA history:
The Lakers would have 18 championships
The Pistons would have 5 championships
George Mikan would be a 7x champion
The Minnesota Lakers
and Bobby McDermott might be considered a better Piston than Isiah Thomas
And the Cavs would technically have 2 championship titles.
Also the Celtics rings would belong to LAC technically.
@@kartikaychoudhary8797how? I thought the Celtics were founded in the 1947 as an NBL/NBA team in Boston
The fact that Leo Ferris and Leroy Edwards are not in the hall of fame is completely ridiculous.
I enjoyed the video, but there are a few points that need to be corrected...
Yes, Pop Gates was signed by the Buffalo Bisons (which later moved to become the Tri-Cities Blackhawks), but at the same time the Rochester Royals signed Dolly King, so they entered the NBL at the same time. The NBL also had an all-Black team in 1948-49 - the Dayton Rens. When the Detroit team folded 19 games into the season, the New York Rens were invited to replace them, but were forced to assume Detroit's 2-17 record and were left out of the merger between the NBL and BAA.
And it was the University of Kentucky, not Kentucky State, that featured the Fabulous Five (they were also known as the "Dream Team," the first known use of the phrase). Wallace Jones wasn't called "Wally." His nickname was "Wah Wah" because his younger sister couldn't pronounce his name when she was young. And the other player was Cliff Barker, not Baker.
I covered the NBA for a major newspaper, and for years I railed about the NBA's erasing of the NBL history, going back to the NBA at 50 celebration at the 1997 All-Star Game (which marked 50 years since the founding of the BAA, not NBA). Nice to see others giving the NBL its proper recognition.
Thank you, I appreciate the corrections. It's really a credit to how difficult some of this stuff is to track down with how obscure most coverage of the NBL is, because I feel like I put in effort to get the info right but so little of what happened back then is written about in places that don't take tons and tons of internet sleuthing to find.
The college name errors though, that was inexcusable. I think I just blanked in the middle of writing and then recording and went "State" because it sounded college-sounding.
@@GohLow No problems. I made quite a few errors during my years writing for the newspaper, and was always baffled by how I could make them. The mind just glitches sometimes. Trust me, I know how much work goes into researching stuff about the NBL (I did a video about the basketball history a couple of years ago for Facebook that included sections on the Olympians and Pop Gates/Dolly King), so I completely understand how things happen. I again want to say how great it was seeing a video like this. I'm a new subscriber because of it.
@@Jimifan57 I really appreciate that!
Michigan State Wolverines
It wasn't Kentucky it was Kentucky State.
Thank you TH-cam algorithm.
It worked so well spreading this video actually lol
Amen right. Even now and then something worth while and not a redbar radio vid with ads or a Jake Paul Tyson Feminist Takedown!
I just found the video right now.
Woah woah woah. I was convinced this video must if had at least 100k views. BUT LESS THAN 150??? And this high quality?? You deserve quite a bit more my guy
Thanks a ton! Really appreciate it! Tell your friends and the rest of the world about it. The stuff I normally post didn't lend itself to building up a homegrown audience for this stuff so TH-cam doesn't really know what to do with me lol.
@@GohLow you randomly appeared in my recommended, I watch a lot of NBA TH-cam so hopefully this means your video will draw an audience from that side of TH-cam
@@Timoboza Thanks a ton!
Give it time
I'm here from the random youtube algorithm!
I started watching NBA late 50's early 60's. The games were televised by ABC nationally on Sunday. Their coverage began 2 1/2 minutes into the game. There was no opening jump, no player introductions on TV. Two or three minutes into the game there would be an officials time-out and that's when ABC would begin its coverage of the game. There was also a jump at the start of every quarter and 6 team fouls every quarter; so the last two minutes of every quarter was a foul-shooting contest as each team would twice "give one." Oscar Robertson used to argue every call against himself, even when he was "giving one." Eventually the foul limit was lowered to 4 to end this practice. BTW this is where the expression "give one" comes from. A team under the limit would "give" the opponenst a 1 shot foul and try to make 2 at the other end. Hence "give one" to make two.
Man I love hearing this stuff. If you got any more stories about particular things you remember, please share them. There's not enough first-hand accounts of what it was like to be just a normal fan of the NBA around that time.
@@GohLow Back in the day there was a thing called “NBA Doubleheaders.” I lived in New York and would attend them @ Madison Square Garden. As a HS student with a “GO Card” the admission fee was 50 cents; which was some real money those days when the coins were made of silver. This would entitle us to “balcony” seats at either end of the court. Those seats were pretty good as the old Garden was built upwards and not outwards like present day arenas. So even though we were 50 feet up we were right over the court! They were among the best seats in the house! The 1st game of the “doubleheader” would be 2nd tier NBA teams like the Syracuse Nationals, Fort Wayne Pistons and Cincinnati Royals; never the Lakers, Celtics, Hawks or Warriors. Those teams would be a main attraction against the Knicks. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
How old are you, if I may ask?
@@seauxphiesanders7289 77
@@seauxphiesanders7289 212
I was absolutely obsessed with the NBA until about 2002. And I never heard the name Leo Ferris. This video is fantastic. I hope we see more from you.
Thanks!
I’m really glad you told this story. I was aware of some of things you talked but didn’t know all of them. I tried to tell people about the NBL for years. Some of the things you said about the ABL conflict with things with information I’ve been able to but this was a great video. In 1971 the NBA had a 25 year celebration, so by that point they are already recognizing 1946 as the starting point, Ignoring the NBL. Fun fact: in 1935 Midwestern Basketball Conference (MBC) was formed, in 1937 it was renamed the NBL. So it actually began 2 years earlier.
I've never heard about the MBC, and I've been diving deep in this sorta stuff for years now. It's so nuts how much of the truth of these matters is just buried in old newspaper archives.
@@GohLow I have stats for the MBC, if you’re interested?.
@@elijahmorris9864 Sure, drop the link!
@@GohLow
MIDWEST BASKETBALL CONFERENCE [1935-36 to 1936-37]
MBC 1935-36
EASTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB
Akron Firestone Non-Skids 11 7 .611 ..
Pittsburgh Y.H.M.A.s 10 7 .588 0.5
Buffalo Bisons 7 8 .467 2.5
Dayton Metropolitans 4 6 .400 3.5
WESTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB
Indianapolis Kautskys 9 3 .750 ..
Chicago Duffy Florals 3 2 .600 2.5
Detroit Hed-Aids 9 7 .562 2
Indianapolis U.S. Tires 5 9 .357 5
Windsor Cooper Buses 2 11 .154 7.5
MBC PLAYOFFS
Chicago defeated Akron, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh in a round robin tournament
MBC 1936-37
EASTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB
Akron Goodyear Wingfoots 16 2 .889 ..
Akron Firestone Non-Skids 13 5 .722 3
Warren Hyvis Oilers 8 6 .571 6
Columbus Athletic Supplys 6 5 .545 6.5
Detroit Altes Lagers 2 8 .200 10
Pittsburgh Y.M.H.A.s 2 9 .182 10.5
WESTERN DIVISION W L Pct. GB
Dayton London Bobbys 8 6 .571 ..
Whiting Ciesar All-Americans 3 5 .375 2
Chicago Duffy Florals 4 7 .364 2.5
Indianapolis Kautskys 2 5 .286 2.5
Indianapolis U.S. Tires 3 9 .250 4
MBC PLAYOFFS
Akron Goodyear won the league championship.
Goodyear also won the championship in the NBL’s first season which means they re-peat-ed.
I have other stats too. NBL Championships, regular season standings, All-NBL 1st and 2nd teams, NBL MVPs and some players stats.
10:35
On the Leo Ferris point there’s another point to consider and a minor correction I would like to bring up.
Podoloff really hated the NBL. He was the guy who started counting the BAA years, and it’s entirely possible he tried to erase Ferris like he did the NBL.
This brings me to the second point, that while it’s partly true to say teams failing was the reason they were down to 8 teams it’s not the whole truth.
Podoloff asked each team for a $50k insurance after the Stags collapse during the first season and was subsidized by the league to not go under during the season. The Packers wouldn’t pay this as Duffy wanted a guarantee that if he did pay it he would be in the league the following season, a guarantee Podoloff refused to give. Everyone else managed it, at which point Podoloff abandoned subtly and called a vote to kick out the Packers, Red Skins, Waterloo Hawks, and Nuggets. The first vote wasn’t unanimous then Podoloff threatened the dissenting team that they’d go too if they voted wrong, so naturally the vote was changed.
So the reason the NBA went from 17 teams in its first season to 11 in the second is because Podoloff forced 4 of the 6 NBL teams out, and two teams (Stags and Bombers) collapsed despite the money Podoloff took.
Oh damn, so this idea that Podoloff was a likeable guy was actually likely entirely based on accounts given from the people he bothered keeping around. Dude seems like a proper cunt.
This was really well done, and I know your intention was to make me feel for Leo, but I was impressed with Red absolutely eradicating this man from history. That's a level of spite I am forced to commend.
🤣Fair enough
The NBA could have wanted to hide the precedent of players like the old Fab Five being offered a share of team ownership. I don't know enough about league history to say it didn't happen in both leagues, but that's a strong motivator for owners.
The Fab Five deal is the only time I've heard it happen in NBA history. Wouldn't surprise me if it happened in the ABA at some point given how wild that league was with contracts and stipulations, but I can't recall it actually happening again.
@@GohLowit was offered to wilt i believe in 1967ish by the owner of the sixers. after the owner died, wilt tried to collect on his ownership stake and he was refused that’s what forced wilt to leave philly and head to form a big three in los angeles with Elgin and West. It’s basically completely unknown by most fans, but it’s an integral part of league history.
He may have a big ego, but the NBA and Basketball HOF should acknowledge his actions in basketball history.
Totally, and what person in the positions he was in wouldn't have a big ego? It's basically a requirement for rolling at the top levels of pro sports.
Yo, thats actually some great research. Well done!
Great video! I find the early history of the NBA incredibly interesting and had no idea it was actually the NBL "buying" the BAA, not the other way around
Yeah you'd only hear about it if you dug into newspapers from the 1940s/50s or followed a very select couple of basketball nerds across the internet. Hell, I only heard about it from Leo's nephew having an Instagram page where he digs up all these old newspaper clippings in his spare time going to public libraries and archives. His account is linked in the description.
Wow, Red was really as big of a piece shit as most people portray him to be.
Yeah, this deserves way more views.
Thanks for this. Mandatory viewing for any adherents to the game.
Easiest way to summarize it all: it was all out of greed, the need/want for recognition, and just all around corruption and backstabbing. 🤣
Reminds me of another "innovation" Red Auerbach fought: The Celtics were also the last NBA team to add dancers. They didn't do so until after Red Auerbach passed away. 😐
That's incredibly weird given that dancers were part of how he got the pick to draft Bill Russell. Part of the trade was the agreement that the Icecapades - owned by Boston's owner - would do multiple shows in the Syracuse Nationals' home arena.
@@GohLow Red also fought hard against the three-point line, then very quickly reversed field after it was adopted anyway, knowing he'd just acquired Larry Bird. The Celtics were second only to the Clippers for three-pointers made in the first year of their existence.
I am shocked that the Pistons and Lakers do not honor their championships won in the NBL. It is part of their history just as much as the ones won in the NBA or in their current city.
The Lakers didn't even retire Mikan's jersey number until THIS YEAR
Today I learned Red Auerbach was against the adoption of the shot clock. I never would’ve guessed
It's like Popovich being against the 3-Point Line. You'd just expect these great coaching minds to be for the innovations, but they're often the ones pushing back against them.
I always admire great coaches and executives but I would never view them as saints. Almost all great personalities have their skeletons on their closets.
What a neat video. Thanks for the upload!
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Okay, but this is AMAZING. Here's hoping you're able to find those answers
Thanks!
How do you have less then 5k subs 😭Your wayy to high quality for such low numbers
Thank you! Honestly, it's probably down to thumbnails. Some of my older thumbnails SUCKED.
@@GohLow no offence but I see what you mean, mine aren’t to good either but at least you know your issue and your definitely on the right track🔥
@@RagingRaptor07 No offense taken. It's a completely different skill from writing or editing a video, so it takes a bit to figure them out.
I've always wondered why the NBL's role in pro basketball history has always been given short shrift; thanks for the video. Isn't it also true that the NBL didn't have a colour bar in the days when it was an industrial league? There was also the Professional Basketball League of America (PBLA), which played for a few weeks in the fall of 1947; I never heard of it until I read a biography of George Mikan, who played in the PBLA.
Yeah the NBL was pretty ahead of the times with integration. There's another comment in this comments section that explains it pretty thoroughly from a writer whose been pushing for NBL recognition since the 90s.
George was literally a baller. An anywhere-anytime baller it seems. "New league? Sure I'll help get it some attention. A 3 point line that takes advantage from guys like me?? Sure, it'll be good foe basketball."
I wish I would have had ANY adult that was a basketball fan when I was a kid, so I could have learned about the legends sooner.
@@therealdannymullen And to think, he wasn't even the best center of his day. He had a rival in college, Bub Kurland, who was seen as a much more fluid player than Mikan, but chose not to go pro and was basically the Bill Russell of AAU leagues back when the AAU was actually about competitive sports and not destroying kids' knees. Mikan/Kurland would have been a huge rivalry to build the league around post-merger.
This video deserves more views
Man, this was incredibly interesting, and sad to realize how i had never heard of this guy before. Thank you for the video!
what happened to the Kentucky players who were offered ownership shares in that Indiana franchise?
The 1951 College Basketball Betting Scandal happened and 3 of the 5 were indited in some facet, forced to sell their stakes in the team and were banned from the NBA for life.
Crazy
Amazing video I learned a lot of things I didn't know about the history of the NBA
Glad you liked it!
Great video! It is high time MBC/NBL history was recognized.
Ive been watching for ages and its cool to see the algorithm shine a spotlight on the video!
Side note: hows your NBA playoff bracket predictions been going?
Went almost perfect in round 1, but Cleveland/Orlando was a 7-game shit fest that busted it. Now it looks like Denver's about to make things even worse by losing to Minnesota, and not even in a competitive way. Two games of playing like absolute shit and Jamal Murray being a total bitch. So until further notice, I am a Knicks fan now.
@@GohLow ya the Cleveland/Orlando match ruined my bracket as well as most of my friends' brackets.
@@sladevalen If it wasn't for injuries to other teams (Philly, Miami, Indy) they both probably would have been play-in teams.
Cool that the first NBL champion was the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots (Lebron's Cleveland Cavaliers). No stats should count from either league until segregation was obliterated in October 1946 (Ferris signs William Gates and Dolly King to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks).
The NBA is to basketball what the WWE is to wrestling.
Eh not really more of sport with rigging and bit of corruption
A young man rejecting a career in professional sports to attend Julliard seems like 2024 type energy.
You're the first person to mention that part of this story in the comments, when it's fucking hilarious😂
Right??
Lmfao!
Players back then had to work part times during their off season because their salary isn't as big as it is now.
Carli Fiorina was CEO of Compaq, led merger with HP, then became failure CEO of HP. A lot of other rewritten institutional history
Great video, I actually learned something!
Good to see someone else who isn't done with any era in basketball, except maybe this one! 😊
Especially in the pre-internet age. There's probably so many stories stuck in old newspapers that have yet to be rediscovered.
Wow! Amazing investigative journalism.
Thank you!
Great video didn't know this ... subscribed
Cheers, thanks!
6:05 Minneapolis is pronounced Minny-apolis. You put an extra syllable in there to try to rhyme it with Indianapolis (which it doesn't). This seems to be a surprisingly common issue as another sports TH-camr I frequently watch also says Minianapolis for some reason.
GREAT VIDEO
Thanks!
Nice work!
DUDE! I've been watching your stuff your ages! Thanks!
This film was made by the person Leo Ferris is currently haunting.
Actually kinda true 😂
Great video, super interesting
New here. Great vid, sir 🤙🏾
Cheers bro, thanks!
This is a great video 👍 💯
If the NBA died before 1960, does the ABA end up being the league today? Or do they die as well?
The ABA in its actual iteration would have died in like 78 because that league managed money like alcoholics manage sobriety.
I’m not sure if you just intentionally left this out and didn’t explain why and the technical details of how it went down- the BAA changed its name to the NBA and legally acquired the NBL teams in an expansion. You can characterize it as a merger and the other ways you did in the video in a narrative sense of how it happened but technically, officially, legally, historically etc it was an expansion and a modified BAA- hence why BAA stats and history count as NBA’s but The NBL’s doesn’t- consistent with expansion norms
That was not intentional on my part; this shit's just really difficult to research.
Great video thank you
And thank you!
Great video but please note: Michigan State "Spartans," University of Michigan are totally different. To say Michigan State Wolverines sounds like nails on a blackboard.
The Michigan State Wolverines were good, but they were no match for Bobby Knight’s Indiana State teams.
@@g.shumway5925 There is no such thing as Michigan State Wolverines...I need to go and wash my eyes out now.
I always wondered about the BAA-NBL "Merger".
Through Research(Wikipedia reading) you're not gonna find much, how this was even possible and how it's portrayed. In the End, it was most likely nasty revisionism.
The "American Model" of Sportsmanagemt and League Operation makes sense with how it delevoped but when you look back it's also like really cancerous.
This happend in every major sport in the US.
All this folding and absorping.
It's just gang of owners competing against another gang of owners.
Instead of seeing as a sort of unifying history of the Deveopment of the sport in the US, It just gets erased.
Much history, stories, legacies championships, stats(achievements) or pioneering get lost. I think that's actually the worst part.
Todays base of costumers dont really care about that.
That's why i always found it funny lakers fans bragg how they have 17 instead of 18 championships
Pistons having 3 instead of 5
In other sports:
Chiefs, Jets, Titans, Bills and the AFL Championships
Browns and the AAFC
Hurricanes and the Coyotes the WHA
Major League Status stuff with Baseball with the NA(Concerns the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs)
Leo really did help Black People that’s why he was written out of history and lied on ….
16:05 You mispronounced Minneapolis you said (Minion-Apo-lis) it's actually (Minny-Apo-lis).
That's all you took from this video?
Amazing video.
Great video
good content
History and what the ‘facts are’ are interpreted and determined by those that are actually ‘present in the room’! He’s not given his due simply because he left the NBA before the History was being written. Meanwhile, Red was always around.
I always knew that what we're told about the history of basketball is rife with bullshit, especially and specifically there in the first 30-40 years or so of the sport. They even changed who is credited with "inventing" basketball, too. It's really annoying. But as usual, no one ever is none the wiser. I know I've heard of this man before multiple times, but cannot recall when or where. I just know I knew his name. So this video is super valuable for me and filling in my memory on it. I appreciate it!
No reason not to be true, great content
Larry O'Brian, like I mentioned, was the head of the Irish mafia. The championship trophy used to bear his name and likeness.
The initial commissioner was the head of the Irish mafia. Friends with the Kennedys. The championship trophy used to be named after him.
Terrific vid! :)
Im thinking maybe its not so much they're hiding the NBL legacy, as much as they just choose one of the leagues to attach to historically and they went with the BAA because they were in the bigger cities?
It’s like Terry Bogard talking NBA!! Love it!
I sound like Terry? I primarily make fighting game videos and nobody's mentioned that before.
@@GohLow from your other videos, I realised you are one of the real ones who’d know Terry & Andy Bogard & definitely Iori & Kyo. 😂👊🏽💪🏽
If you know, you know!!
Great video btw!!
That Adam silver is a real troll..!
Cracking history. Sports organisations are so weird, like little governments - complete with controlling history for their own strange purposes!
I didn't know most of this stuff. Great video 👏🏼 Watching the "highlights" of old time basketball, it's not hard to see why they might have a score of 19-18 😅 Lots of bricks.
Nah, that 19-18 game was actually a massive outlier. Most games were cracking the 70-point mark dating back to like the 20s even with shooting percentages in the low 30s.
I don't understand. If the NBL had all the cards in their favor, why did they agree to the merger at all? Would it not have been better for them to lure teams away from the BAA until the BAA folded?
Watching that B roll makes me feel like I would have competed in the early NBA lol
If you're a half-decent athlete, probably, but you would have gone after baseball or football back then because they were a lot more popular and paid better.
Goh Low NBA video??? sick
Yes, finally someone mentioning the original Fab(ulous) Five/original Dream Team. Go Cats!
thank you youtube algorithm
The first Pro Basketball league started in 1898, playing the 1898-99 season. So there was a season pro basketball played in the 1890’s.
It hurts to think that Red Auerbach might have aided more than anyone else in keeping Leo Ferris out of NBA history but thanks to your research I can not deny the truth; as a Celtics fan I respect Red but this Ferris guy really deserves his flowers and spot in the Hall of Fame 🫡☘️ thank you for this vid
Big men were doing sky hooks way before Kareem
They did running hooks and push hooks. Kareem's big innovation was that he was the first to really pause at the top of his hook and basically flick it like a jumpshot release.
So
@@Dark0_Cl0ud Exactly
Red was absolutely wrong about the 24 second shot clock…!
Leo ferris is my great great uncle!
Tell your Dad to check out the video. Tried messaging him on IG about this video.
Well done! More
Red looks like a red flag.
That traveling is called is a liiiiiie
They call it enough to convince the masses they call it at all
Good reserech
More blooomin basketball content please🙏 🙏 was a fantastic watch
I'll see what I can come up with! Glad this video is doing so well.
William "Dolly" King and William Penn "Pop" Gates. 1946... 1 year before the year many mention... 1947. What happened to the Keokuk Hawkeyes. In 1885, Bud Fowler was aigned to that team. Its deep. The ABA was created in easesne to highlight black athletes. The numbers are not matching. Not even with the creation of the WNBA. Pop Gates atteneded Clark Atlanta University. The YMCA has hidtory in sports for under privileged.
I never knew these things!!!
The vast majority of people don't, so you're not alone.
@@GohLow Where did you find these facts?
@@owensmith2137 I laid it all out in the description
@@GohLow Thanks!
@@owensmith2137 Cheers! You're the first person to ask for my sources.
Red Auerbach was not business minded at all
He was staunchly against the Celtics having cheerleaders too, and they were the last team to add them.
early life has all your answera
i love history thank you
Cheers!
Who invented the game of Basketball period?
Tre group youre not allowed to talk about own and operate the NBA now. Its not rigged but its biased as hell
That is some shit basketball in the background lol
The bar for entertainment sports in general was very low back then. Just look at how many pro football games ended with scores of 0-0 back then.
Tbf that's like saying "look how bad that toddler is at walking" 😂. The game had to start somewhere. I love watching the old games, just as a basketball puritan, seeing how far we've come (for better or worse lol). Plus, sometimes you'll see a player do something that makes you think "damn, is he the one that invented THAT?" 😂 Like, sometimes you'll see a dude do a move so far ahead of its time, it's like a little Easter egg by the universe. :)
@@therealdannymullen I specifically remember seeing Red Kerr doing a between-the-legs pocket pass to a cutter that blew my mind realizing it was from the 50s. The equipment quality was a lot of what was holding the sport back. The ball didn't even have a defined size until the early 70s.
@GohLow ever hear the old timers talk about shoes? 🤣 Something we literally take for granted has a huge impact on endurance, stamina, and just general play.
@@therealdannymullen Just watching the games, they were basically playing in slippers them things were so thing. Damn miracle Bill Russell could still walk, must have had divine knees.
Leo Ferris destroys you
Bird-magic race hoax is the biggest lie. 3 point line saved game
What hoax are you talking about?
@@itsvictoroyedeji the Aba didn’t have tv contacts and Jewish $ behind it
@@itsvictoroyedeji racism doesn’t exist it’s a Jewish trick
@@itsvictoroyedeji Well it didn't save the ABA because the only thing that could have saved the NBA was big-money investors on-par with the NBA. The ABA was a financial nightmare
Jesus loves you
Then why isn't he answering ANY of my prayers
great video