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During the barnstorming era of (semi-) professional basketball, roughly 1920 to 1950, two of the leading clubs were from New York City: the Rens (or Renaissance) and the Original Celtics (not to be confused with a certain franchise in Beantown). The rivalry between these squads centered around talent, basketball knowhow, and race too. The all-black Rens persistently faced bias on the road. For the team’s founding owner and manager, Smilin’ Bob Douglas, one of the top objectiv

Much to the chagrin of local fans, the Pittsburgh Pipers relocated to Minnesota in the immediate aftermath of the ABA's inaugural season (1967-68). "We packed in the fans," recalls Sweet Charlie Williams, the team’s sharp shooting, "and the town started to talk about the Pipers and Connie Hawkins” – the league’s MVP and top scorer. “You would think that would be something to build on – we were the DEFENDING CHAMPS [author's emphasis], and Connie lived in Pittsburgh year-round

On November 13, 1967, about a month into the inaugural season of the American Basketball Association, Indiana Pacers guard nailed an 88-foot shot at the buzzer to wrench a 119-118 road victory away from the Dallas Chaparrals. “Dallas’s Charles Beasley,” Harkness recalls, “hit a jumper to put them ahead by two points with two seconds left. We got the ball out under our basket and Oliver Darden threw it to me. I was not quite all the way in the corner, but I was on the baseline

Literally minutes after Mike Storen was hired as the first GM of the Indiana Pacers, he asked owners John DeVoe and Dick Tinkham for a $500 check. Dumbfounded by this request, the latter asked the new executive what he intended to do with the money. "I'm going to take this and sign our first player. . . . You never heard of him, but his name is Roger Brown." Before the ink had dried on the check, Storen took off for Dayton, Ohio with the objective of tracking down "the Man w

One of the more colorful and beloved characters of the American Basketball Association was Coach Babe McCarthy. Dubbed Magnolia Mouth for his penchant for telling stories over gin until the break of dawn, the thickly-accented southerner manned the sidelines for the New Orleans Buccaneers, Memphis Pros, Dallas Chaparrals, and Kentucky Colonels between 1967 and 1974. A two-time ABA Coach of the Year, McCarthy’s Bucs lost to Pittsburgh in the league’s first championship series.

While best known as an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty of the early 1990s, Johnny Bach was a fine player too. Over the course of his basketball career at St. John’s Prep, the Brooklyn native earned two New York Catholic High School titles. He was a regular contributor on Fordham University’s 1942-43 team. However, World War II pressed Bach into the Navy. The training framework in upstate New York, though, enabled the 6’2” forward/guard to play a season at Roche

In a tribute to the ongoing Fall Classic between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, it is worth noting that basketball has occasionally indulged in the highfalutin language of our national pastime. After the Oakland Oaks took the 1969 ABA championship, the team’s head coach, Alex Hannum, wired Celtics president Red Auerbach, whose own team had just stunned the Los Angeles Lakers to claim yet another NBA title, with a bold challenge: their two clubs should square off in the very first

[Before the 1971-72 season,] NBA and ABA teams squared off for another round of preseason interleague games. Once again, nearly all were...

After getting his start as a ball boy for the New York Knicks, Marv Albert worked his first game as the team’s broadcaster at the age of...

When teams from all over the country began spilling into New York for the Olympic basketball trials at Madison Square Garden in March...

Ten days after winning the very first regular season NBA (or BAA) contest ever played, at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, the New York...

Although Holcombe Rucker is best known for establishing and cultivating the eponymous basketball tournament, his personal biography is no...

While the rudiments of basketball’s creation story are familiar to most fans, the current post will touch on the ideology that animated...

The game that did more than any other to catapult hoops into the modern era did not involve a single future Hall-of-Famer. For that...

During the inaugural 1946-47 season of the BAA (the Basketball Association of America – one of the two leagues that merged into the NBA),...

The first backboards were introduced in 1895 [four years after the game itself], though their purpose had nothing to do with helping...

A few games into the Las Vegas Summer League, the player that has perhaps most captured the hearts of Knick fans is Japan’s Yudai Baba....

Flanked by HoF coaches Joe Lapchick and Lou Carnesecca (adjacent photo), Alan Seiden (#33) led Cinderella-story St. John's to the...

In the adjacent photograph, Sid Borgia (far right) confronts his self-avowed “nemesis” Red Auerbach. Both the referee and HoF coach were...

The man that perhaps best epitomizes the tenuous, improvisational nature of the NBA’s fledgling steps was Tom King – a 5’10” guard with...