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NBA turns 75: From modest beginning to behemoth, charting the league's growth
FirstpostIt started in 1946 with 11 teams and 160 players. “None of us who were playing at that time knew what this would be,” Schectman, who played for the original New York Knicks, said in a 2010 interview, three years before his death. “We didn’t know if this was going to work out and become something.” Schectman scored the first basket in Basketball Association of America history; it wasn’t called the NBA until three years later, but the NBA counts those years as part of its own. Maurice Podoloff, a hockey executive who was the BAA’s first president and ultimately the first NBA commissioner, was tasked with saving the league and winning a battle with the rival National Basketball League for players and attention. “That’s what this country is all about and should be about,” NBA great and Basketball Hall of Famer Jerry West said.
History of this topic
NBA at 75: 2000s saw MJ-LBJ shift, 'Malice at the Palace'
The Independent
Fights, drugs, racial tension: ‘70s spelled trouble for NBA
Associated Press
The NBA at 75: From a very modest beginning, to a behemoth
The Independent
The NBA at 75: From a very modest beginning, to a behemoth
Associated PressDiscover Related
