The NBA merged two leagues on August 3, 1949
The National Basketball Association was born on 3 August 1949, when the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League combined. It later claimed the BAA's history as its own, so it dates its founding to 6 June 1946, and today it runs 30 teams, 29 American and one Canadian.
Owners of big ice hockey arenas in the Northeast, the Midwest and Canada started the BAA in 1946. The game the league counts as its first came on 1 November 1946 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, where the Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers and Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket. Before the 1948–49 season the BAA poached the Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Rochester clubs from the NBL with the lure of Boston Garden and Madison Square Garden; the NBL answered by outbidding for players such as Dolph Schayes, and with teams struggling financially the rivals merged. BAA president Maurice Podoloff took charge, but NBL records were never adopted.
The merged league began with 17 franchises and shrank to eight by 1954–55, all still active, most in new cities. Wataru Misaka, a Japanese-American Knick, broke the colour barrier in 1947–48, and in 1950 Chuck Cooper, Sweetwater Clifton and Earl Lloyd became early African-American players. George Mikan's Minneapolis Lakers won five titles as the first dynasty, and the 24-second shot clock arrived in 1954 to stop stalling.
Bill Russell joined Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach in Boston in 1957 and won 11 championships in thirteen seasons, including eight straight from 1959 to 1966, the longest run in American professional sport. His rival Wilt Chamberlain set single-game records of 100 points and 55 rebounds. The 1976 merger with the American Basketball Association added four franchises.
Teams play 82 regular-season games from October to April before playoffs into June. The NBA trails only the NFL in revenue, its players earned the highest average salaries of any athletes as of 2020, and it launched the WNBA in 1996. Boston holds a record 18 titles; the Knicks beat San Antonio in the 2026 Finals.
Source: National Basketball Association
