The Founding Era

Professional basketball's modern era began in 1946, when eleven East Coast arena owners formed the Basketball Association of America (BAA) largely to fill empty seats on nights their hockey tenants weren't playing. The BAA was polished but thin on talent, competing for players and attention with the older, more established National Basketball League (NBL).

In 1949 the two leagues merged into the National Basketball Association, joining the BAA's arenas with the NBL's roster depth. The new league standardized a shot clock-free, physical style of play, and it found its first true draw in George Mikan, a bespectacled center whose footwork and reach made him unstoppable near the basket.

Mikan was so dominant that the NBA widened the free-throw lane specifically to keep him further from the rim -- lore still tells it as the first rule change built specifically to slow one player down.

By the early 1950s, the league was still small and financially fragile, but it had a template for how a big man could anchor a franchise and a shared rulebook that both merged leagues could build on.