Professional Basketball League of America

Professional Basketball League of America
SportBasketball
Founded1947
Folded1947
No. of teams16
Country United States
Last champion
none

The Professional Basketball League of America was a basketball league in the United States that existed for less than one month in 1947. It was launched in response to the tremendous upsurge in interest in basketball in the era immediately following World War II and based on the success of the Chicago American Gears and its star center, George Mikan.[1] Despite being owned by the American Gears' team owner (Maurice White) and The Commercial Sports Advertisers, Inc. and being very ambitious in nature, the organization was still underfunded when compared to its competitors, the younger Basketball Association of America, the National Basketball League that the American Gears had defected from (despite recently being champions there), and even the older American Basketball League; there was simply not enough room in the marketplace for four major professional basketball leagues going on at once. The PBLA folded on November 13, 1947 after playing only 54 games among its 16 teams.[1]

Today the league is best known for George Mikan, the star center for the Chicago American Gears. After the PBLA's collapse, rights to its players were distributed among NBL teams via a dispersal draft. The first pick belonged to the new Minneapolis Lakers, the successor to the Detroit Gems, which had finished the previous season 4–40. The Lakers selected Mikan with the first pick, launching what would become the first dynasty in the NBA's history.[2]

Five people associated with the PBLA have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame:

In addition to them, Gerald Ford, the future 38th President of the United States, also served for the Grand Rapids Rangers as a business manager for the team next to head coach Stan Szukala.[3][4]

Teams

Notable players

References

  1. 1 2 "Professional Basketball League of America". nbahoopsonline.com. Retrieved April 30, 2019.
  2. ↑ Sid Hartman (25 December 1947). "Lakers organization does miracle in just six months". Times, the Picture Paper. p. 32. Retrieved 8 September 2024 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  3. ↑ Triptow, Richard F. (1997). The Dynasty that Never Was: Chicago's First Professional Basketball Champions, The American Gears. Lake Bluff, Illinois: self-published. ISBN 0-9659280-0-4., pp. 171–172
  4. ↑ "Basketball Management – Ford in Focus". 14 March 2025.
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