The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. The league merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) in 1949, forming the National Basketball Association (NBA). The BAA consisted of 18 teams, 2 of which suspended operations before the Association began playing, leaving 16 to play the 3 complete seasons before merging with the NBL to form the NBA. The Philadelphia Warriors won the inaugural BAA championship in 1947, followed by the Baltimore Bullets and the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948 and 1949 respectively. Six teams from the BAA are still active in the NBA as of the 2009–10 season. The 1946-47 season began with 11 teams, before decreasing to 8 in 1948, and to 12 in 1949. The BAA also had several problems. These included low-scoring games (there was no shot clock at that time), poor attendance, and scheduling conflicts, due to many teams sharing arenas with hockey teams.
Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Garden, wondered what could happen if the ice hockey arenas, which were often empty, hosted basketball games when there were no ice hockey games played. For this reason the BAA was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946. All thirteen people at the meeting formed and owned teams.[2] Later that day, 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 American Basketball League from 1925 to 1928 while also overseeing the National Football League, although the NFL and ABL seasons did not overlap).
The owners of the BAA, while experienced businessmen, had little practice at owning basketball teams. The league started with 11 professional basketball teams, which played in a 60-game regular season. This was followed by the playoffs and the final series to determine the league winner. Similar to Major League Baseball, nobody expected signing or drafting back players.
Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League (ABL) and the NBL, the BAA was the first league that attempted to play primarily in large arenas in major cities, such as Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not significantly better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, both the 1948 and 1949 titles were won by teams that had played in the other leagues during the previous year, the Baltimore Bullets in 1948 and the Minneapolis Lakers in 1949 respectively.
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