Live Q&A: Basketball Historian and Author of 'The Birth of the Modern NBA'

[JElias]

My apologies for not responding sooner to those of you I'm just now getting to, my account was mistakenly banned by a moderator who wasn't aware I had cleared this in advance with Howard. Thanks for your patience!

[eminence]

Were there any white players in the early days who stood out particularly strongly either for or against integration?

I’ve got the impression the NBL stars (Mikan/Davies/Schayes) were supportive, but I’m curious to what degree that manifested in action.

[JElias]

Hi Josh, great work on your research and thanks for stopping by. I'm curious do you enjoy the state of the game today ? Do you see any comparisons from historical basketball to today's players ?

Thank you so much! I do enjoy it; it's not quite my favorite era aesthetically and I have some quibbles with just how many games players take off and various other things of that nature, but I think understanding just how much the game has changed over time has given me a bit more patience when it comes to these minor to moderate factors. The pre-WWI version of the professional sport was tactically closer to futsal but while using hands rather than feet than it is to modern basketball, so, considering that, anything differing today's game from what people are nostalgic for is very small in the larger picture.

I definitely do! Now, at the very top level of players, not as many clear direct comparisons as I have in most past eras, I think in large part due to the level of heliocentrism in the game right now, but among role players there are still very clear archetypes that stretch back a long way. Among top-level players, I notice Brunson has a particularly vintage game in a general sense, with quite a lot of influence from West, Cousy, and Guerin in various ways. Fox, while secondary to a lot of modern influences, definitely has a lot of young Jerry West in him offensively. Anthony Davis, when he was younger, reminded me a lot of (a poor man's, compared in impact to his peers) George Mikan whenever he actually embraced the center position, but as he's grown into his game has turned into more of a Duncanian type. Jaylen Brown feels quite specifically to me like a cross between Jack Twyman from the Rochester & Cincinnati Royals with one of the 2000s post-Jordan copycats like Jason Richardson. And I was just working on some prospect analysis last week and my projection of Dalton Knecht had, as top-end potential outcome, Lee Shaffer of the Syracuse Nats as the primary examples of players he could have shades of.

[JElias]

I'll kick it off. Can you give us your perspective on the suspentions of Ralph Beard, Dale Barnstable and Alex Groza on the NBA and how that era of basketball unfolded as a result of multiple "star" level guys being banned for life?

It was certainly a weird time for basketball, and the loss of Groza and Beard led quite quickly to the death of the Indianapolis Olympians as a franchise (and the player-owner model as an ownership concept, by association). Both, as individual players, were a massive loss for the sport, but they were far from alone. Sherman White was seen by many as a better player than Groza, and he was guaranteed to be headed to the Knicks as a result of territorial rights because of the ban--that's a team that would go one to make the Finals the next three years anyways, so it's easy to make an argument that his ban stopped them from potentially becoming a dynasty. Gene Melchiorre, the number 1 pick, and Bill Spivey, the projected top pick of the next season, were banned as well. Ed Roman, Ed Warner, Floyd Layne, Billy Mann, all highly regarded prospects likely to carve out a role, all gone too. I think the losses of Groza, Beard, White, Spivey, and Melchiorre in particular were impactful in a sense of limiting the number of potential stars in the gap between Mikan and Russell, in causing an image issue regarding legitimacy that pushed teams closer to bankruptcy (and note that the two teams that shut down in the subsequent years both lost key parts of their future), and I believe their absence has made it a decent bit easier for fans today to look back at things that happened prior to Russell with a level of dismissiveness that wouldn't be as easily acceptable had they been able to play. White would've likely been the first black star in the integrated NBA. Spivey would've been the first player of well over 7'. But instead we have, as the best players in basketball right after a guy who was by a large consensus believed to be the best to ever do it, Bob Cousy (who was theoretically the perfect guy to be the face of the league but couldn't lead Boston to the promised in the playoffs at this point), Dolph Schayes (who was great but had aan unorthodox game for the time and was not particularly take-charge as someone easily picturable as the face of the league), and Neil Johnston (who people never really thought of as highly as his stats made him out to be).

You’re getting better as you go but paragraph breaks are very helpful online.

Thanks for stopping by. Good stuff.

Thank you, that's fair. That answer got longer than I thought it would and I should've gone back and added a couple breaks before hitting submit. I have now edited it to do so, hopefully that helps!

[JElias]

I'll try to import the book, seems interesting and worth a read. Appreciate your work and insight.

You should also post this thread at the "Player Comparisons" board, they really like basketball history over there.

My question is: who are the underrated players of the 50s?

Greetings.

Thank you! I'll make sure to post to the player comparisons at some point too, thank you for the recommendation.

I'll put them in three categories:

Two-way stars whose impact was far bigger than their box score: Jim Pollard, Paul Seymour, Tom Gola, Nathaniel Clifton, Mel Hutchins. With Pollard it's especially weird because he should be remember as an all-time great but just seems to get lost in the pack of Mikan's supporting cast. The Lakers' GM at the time actually said he believed Pollard was the better player between the two... that's going a decent bit too far though. Seymour was the generation's top Cousy defender and most versatile perimeter defender in general, while always locking in to play larger roles in the postseason and developing toward a relatively short peak as the second-best guard in the league. Particularly a shame with Clifton, because it feels like people go out of their way a bit to ignore how good and valuable he actually was in order to make a point about the integration era limiting his impact. His impact really wasn't limited as much as redirected in a way that makes it less obvious statistically.

Non-Cousy point guards: Bob Davies, Slater Martin, Dick McGuire, Andy Phillip. Although I'm not entirely sure if Davies isn't more just forgotten than underrated in the same way as the others. But as a role in general, even very knowledgeable people tend not to understand just how important the point guards of the day were for dictating pace of play and conducting the entire offense.

Neil Johnston: Neil Johnston. He's the opposite of much of the first category, where people quickly dismiss his career as empty stats, or as a dinosaur who was irrelevant as soon as Russell came around. His stats were definitely somewhat inflated, and he definitely had some underwhelming playoff performances including in his one Finals appearance, but he was genuinely in competition with Cousy for best player in the league for a while there, and his fall-off had nothing to do with Russellian centers emerging and everything to do with an ultimately career-ending injury.

[JElias]

As a historian which players do you believe of years past don't get the recognition they deserve?

Generally speaking, for the most part. Everyone has their own biases, so people tend to have nostalgia-based connections to the eras they grow up in. A larger percentage of the time than should be, that turns into a non-objective analysis of that era as being the best in a material way that may only partially exist or may not at all. We see a lot of younger people who dismiss everything before now, but we also see quite a few who quit watching as soon as Jordan retired or complain to this day how today's players "wouldn't be able to handle" the physicality of '80s teams. HOFer Al Cervi believed to his dying day that basketball was permanently ruined by the implementation of the shot clock. There's a greater recency bias in that regard simply because there are more young people invested in that sort of conversation than middle-aged, and the number of those still alive who watched players in the '60s or before is shrinking every day. But it would be great if people took an active interest in the past! It helps to contextualize the present so much better. It's far more extreme for pre-NBA players, because the NBA and HOF often like to pretend the NBA is the be-all and end-all of the pro sport. There was over half a century of professional basketball before them!

[JElias]

How much was Mikan the real engine of driving the league at that point? Would there have been other stars who could have carried the mantle toward legitimacy, or was "teams/owners/administrative organization" more important than the talent on the court?

Mikan definitely helped a lot, not just in being as big of an individual star as he was, but being one who lent the league and the sport at large a significant level of respectability. Just before he came to the pros, there was a player named Bobby McDermott who was, in his own right, very clearly the best player to have played the game thus far. He won five straight MVPs in the NBL. The way I like to describe him is if you crossed Stephen Curry with Kobe Bryant, sent him back in time, and gave him an alcohol problem, you''d get Bobby McDermott. He was massive for the game, and it's only moderately hyperbolic to describe him as having turned basketball from a 2D sport along the baseline to a 3D sport. He had one game where he made 11 shots from beyond half-court (this was in the ABL where the court was shorter, so logo range by today's standards).

But he only attended one year of high school before dropping out, made a living for a couple years before going pro by gambling on street ball, got in constant fights on the court, knocked out a teammate while player-coach in a fight over a craps game, punched a referee in the face in the playoffs, and ended his career banned from basketball. Everyone in charge of the sport essentially tried to intentionally forget him until around 30 years after he died. So Mikan, being a well-spoken law school graduate whose career decision before basketball worked out was whether he wanted to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a priest, while being an even bigger star than McDermott and one who had started that ascent in college, was a gold mine for the league.

I think that if Mikan had not existed, there would have very likely been a more explicit focus on teams over players at first, yes. Bob Davies and one of Fulks (pre-merger) or Schayes (post-merger) would have been the faces of the league without him, and while Davies was an incredibly entertaining player in many of the same ways Cousy would be and would thrive in that spotlight, Fulks' drinking problems would've been even more in the spotlight and given people the same view of basketball as during the McDermott era, and Schayes just had a weird game and wasn't a natural face-of-the-league type of guy.

Also, from the description of the book, there was some anti-Semitism at play, which is interesting because Jews seem to have played a large role in integrating Northeastern basketball for black players before the larger organizational structures and wealthier owners came in. Is there much history on the written or unwritten rules that kept basketball segregated for so long, and then resulting in the informal "no more than two blacks per team" policy until Red Auerbach decided he'd rather have a dynasty?

The most explicit anti-Semitism was in the BAA era, particularly toward the first season of the New York Knicks and particularly from markets like Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Pittsburgh's coach, Paul Birch, was particularly bad in that regard (and in many other regards).

Jews played a large part in pre-integration black basketball, particularly notable in the form of Abe Saperstein as the owner of the Harlem Globetrotters and Abe Lichtman as the owner of the Washington Bears. Two of the three black teams that reached a status of having, at the very least, a good argument at one point in time for being the best team in the world. (The other one though, the black-owned New York Renaissance, were by far the most successful of the three. I'd put them on par with the Original Celtics as the two pre-NBA teams far and away better than any other.)

However, there was actually, unfortunately, quite a bit of Jewish influence on the anti-integration arguments at the time of integration. Saperstein put a lot of pressure on the NBA (and the BAA before it) not to integrate so that he could continue to sign the vast majority of the best black players for less than they were worth. Eddie Gottlieb, owner of the Warriors, was his strongest ally in that regard and infamously responded to Carl Bennett casting the vote to break the tie in favor of integrating the NBA with:

Carl, you son of a bitch, you just ruined the league! In five years, 75% of the league is going to be black. We won’t draw crowds. People won’t come out to see them.

There had been quite a number of temporary integrations prior to that though, the first being Bucky Lew beginning in 1902. The NBL had four different integrated seasons (five if one counts the MBC as the same thing as the NBL), and most of those integrations were indeed precipitated by Jewish owner-managers. I believe the 1946-47 integration of Pop Gates, Dolly King, Bill Farrow, and Willie King was intended to be permanent at the time, but that those in charge of the league discouraged the continuation of it following the Pop Gates-Chick Meehan fight toward the end of the season that resulted in a lengthy hospital stay for Meehan and so much bad publicity that some sports journalists began to fear it would impact whether Jackie Robinson would be allowed to play in the MLB.

Once NBA permanent integration happened is when it becomes a little tricky. It's common knowledge that there were only three integrators at first in 1950-51 (with a fourth, forgotten one, Hank DeZonie, briefly joining midseason before quitting after a couple weeks due to racism). But less known is that there were actually nine originally signed, those three were just the only ones who made their team. The technical first black player in the NBA based on contract legality was Harold Hunter, who never played a game in the league.

Now, the Warriors, Olympians, and Lakers held out on integrating for years. The league did indeed have unofficial caps on black players, first at two, then at four, then at four on the court at the same time, which were intended to suppress the number of black players in the league. But at the same time, black basketball had already been struggling for talent since the start of WWII, between the war itself, the Washington Bears basically stealing the NY Renaissance's entire roster, and most importantly, the Great Depression's decimation of second-tier black teams that had become de facto developmental teams for the Rens and the Trotters. The Rens went out of business the same summer as the merger, the Trotters switched to semi-rigged games around the same time. It was a point in which the number of black basketball players who could compete at the highest level was at its lowest since WWI anyway, even without the artificial caps that NBA execs put in place. And for that reason, it's very difficult to figure out exactly how much the slow trickle of integration was natural vs unofficially enforced by the league, both definitely played a part. And then Goose Tatum, Marques Haynes, and Bill Garrett turned the league down, and Sherman White, Ed Warner, and Floyd Layne all got banned in the college matchfixing scandal, when they would've collectively formed the backbone of the rest of the early integrators along with Don Barksdale and co.

[JElias]

I'll kick it off. Can you give us your perspective on the suspentions of Ralph Beard, Dale Barnstable and Alex Groza on the NBA and how that era of basketball unfolded as a result of multiple "star" level guys being banned for life?

Groza was interesting. 2nd leading scorer after Mikan his first two years, then gone. Brother of Browns kicker Lou the Toe Groza. Alex later emerged as a fairly successful executive in the ABA, in Kentucky and San Diego. Someone could write a good biography on him.

Most certainly! I'm kind of surprised Jon Scott hasn't already done so.

[JElias]

I'll kick it off. Can you give us your perspective on the suspentions of Ralph Beard, Dale Barnstable and Alex Groza on the NBA and how that era of basketball unfolded as a result of multiple "star" level guys being banned for life?

Groza was interesting. 2nd leading scorer after Mikan his first two years, then gone. Brother of Browns kicker Lou the Toe Groza. Alex later emerged as a fairly successful executive in the ABA, in Kentucky and San Diego. Someone could write a good biography on him.

My dad is a commercial photograph. Sam Beard's basketball collection many many years ago found it's way to his studio along with some other UK related stuff. Really wild to see somewhat "important" players like these two being removed from a fledgling league in need of names and stars.

Yeah, it's basically like if the league today had to ban Embiid, Morant, half the guys in this draft's top ten (except it was a far better draft, so imagine that includes Wemby/Miller/Henderson), and Cooper Flagg.

[JElias]

Were there any white players in the early days who stood out particularly strongly either for or against integration?

I’ve got the impression the NBL stars (Mikan/Davies/Schayes) were supportive, but I’m curious to what degree that manifested in action.

Carl Braun stands out as particularly in favor, he was very close to his coach Joe Lapchick, who was the greatest force behind the NBA integrating, and later in his career that manifested in refusing to partake in any establishments that turned away his black teammates. Cousy was very much in favor, he was good friends with Chuck Cooper. Most of the guys on the court were really, almost everyone who wasn't from the South had played with black players at some point in high school, college, or in a few cases the NBL, and the consensus from guys I've talked to who played back then was that a majority of the players were looking forward to it and thought it should've happened sooner. The guys who were against it, such as Mel Hutchins and Bob Harris, stood out a lot more.

[JonFromVA]

Please explain as best you can the impact that Bill Russell had on the Celtics and the league. Modern fans look at the box score stats and tend to dismiss him as just a great defender who played on a great team.

[___Rand___]

When did NBA decide to market itself based on the face of star athletes instead of focusing the branding on teams or clubs like in other sports? Was there a player critical to this development?

[JElias]

Please explain as best you can the impact that Bill Russell had on the Celtics and the league. Modern fans look at the box score stats and tend to dismiss him as just a great defender who played on a great team.

Russell was an overwhelming defensive anchor to an extent that we haven't seen before or since. No one comes close, in comparison to their peers, to the impact he had in comparison to his peers on that side of the floor. The only player in the sport's history who was better at blocking shots was Chamberlain, and Chamberlain liked to overcommit to blocks for that explicit purpose in a way that made Russell a significantly more effectively shot-blocker despite slightly lesser numbers. Russell, of course, was also one of the most skilled rebounders that the game has ever seen (the stats actually somewhat exaggerate that particular aspect due simply to era, but certainly well within the top ten ever), and at that point in time, defensive rebounds were more explicitly a part of defense than it's often considered today.

He had a better sense of timing, whether it regard blocks, contests, helping close down on the perimeter, or being selective and taking a play to primarily be a psychological deterrent, than any other player in the history of the sport. He was incredible at recovery when necessary, had an advanced understanding that meant said recovery was rarely necessary, was a borderline Olympic-level athlete in both a vertical and lateral sensibility, and was the ultimately help-D contester. Every HOF center he played against declined significantly in efficiency against him, and all but Thurmond in pure PPG as well. The Celtics were one of the worst defensive teams in the league before he joined, and again very average in their first year without him--during his career they were second in Drtg once and first every single other year, often by very large margins.

It's hard to get particularly deep into it without turning this into an essay, but hopefully that at least touches, on a superficial level, how he had a greater impact defensively than any other player ever has. I rarely speak in such definitive terms regarding who was the best at something in an objective sense, but regarding this, it's not close.

[JElias]

When did NBA decide to market itself based on the face of star athletes instead of focusing the branding on teams or clubs like in other sports? Was there a player critical to this development?

The sport's always tended toward that direction more than other sports, it was already a pretty fundamental aspect of how people understood basketball during the 1900s in the cases of players such as Al Cooper, Harry Hough, and Joe Fogarty. It waned a bit in the 1910s, as the Troy Trojans were very team-oriented and that team largely defined the era, but then just before WWI began a significant period of high-profile mercenary players who played for 3+ teams simultaneously. During the Mercenarian Era (1917-23), teams had to market around players, because they didn't have their best players full-time.

Take the era's premier defensive center for example, Chris Leonard. There was a point where his typical schedule was to play for Coatesville on Monday, Pittston on Tuesday, Coatesville on Wednesday, the NY Whirlwinds on Thursday, either take a day off or find an independent team on Friday, Pittston on Saturday, and whichever other independent or Interstate league team paid him the most on Sunday. One player, Swede Grimstead, had a season where he suited up for 12 different teams. Schedules clashed often, and fans would want to know if their team would have one of the best players in the world on it that day or not before buying tickets.

So the path toward that being the case within the NBA was set in stone decades before the NBA was even an idea. It ebbed and flowed a bit: through the '20s it was extremely common, by the '30s it was only really used when a team's opponent had one superstar and a merely decent supporting cast, such as in the cases of Phil Rabin and Bobby McDermott, and in the 1940s it was very commonplace again. By the time the NBA came around... well, let's just say, the first time the Knicks hosted the Lakers, Madison Square Garden's marquee didn't say "Knicks vs. Lakers." It read "Geo. Mikan v/s Knicks."

[WaltFrazier]

When did NBA decide to market itself based on the face of star athletes instead of focusing the branding on teams or clubs like in other sports? Was there a player critical to this development?

The sport's always tended toward that direction more than other sports, it was already a pretty fundamental aspect of how people understood basketball during the 1900s in the cases of players such as Al Cooper, Harry Hough, and Joe Fogarty. It waned a bit in the 1910s, as the Troy Trojans were very team-oriented and that team largely defined the era, but then just before WWI began a significant period of high-profile mercenary players who played for 3+ teams simultaneously. During the Mercenarian Era (1917-23), teams had to market around players, because they didn't have their best players full-time.

Take the era's premier defensive center for example, Chris Leonard. There was a point where his typical schedule was to play for Coatesville on Monday, Pittston on Tuesday, Coatesville on Wednesday, the NY Whirlwinds on Thursday, either take a day off or find an independent team on Friday, Pittston on Saturday, and whichever other independent or Interstate league team paid him the most on Sunday. One player, Swede Grimstead, had a season where he suited up for 12 different teams. Schedules clashed often, and fans would want to know if their team would have one of the best players in the world on it that day or not before buying tickets.

So the path toward that being the case within the NBA was set in stone decades before the NBA was even an idea. It ebbed and flowed a bit: through the '20s it was extremely common, by the '30s it was only really used when a team's opponent had one superstar and a merely decent supporting cast, such as in the cases of Phil Rabin and Bobby McDermott, and in the 1940s it was very commonplace again. By the time the NBA came around... well, let's just say, the first time the Knicks hosted the Lakers, Madison Square Garden's marquee didn't say "Knicks vs. Lakers." It read "Geo. Mikan v/s Knicks."

I assume the Mikan thing was an anomaly though, they didn't do that for Pettit or Baylor or Cousy. The real switch in my memory came when NBC took over the contract from CBS about 1990. Suddenly games were billed as Jordan vs Magic or whoever, rather than Bulls Lakers. An intentional strategy by Don ohlmeyer that Stern went along with.

[JElias]

When did NBA decide to market itself based on the face of star athletes instead of focusing the branding on teams or clubs like in other sports? Was there a player critical to this development?

The sport's always tended toward that direction more than other sports, it was already a pretty fundamental aspect of how people understood basketball during the 1900s in the cases of players such as Al Cooper, Harry Hough, and Joe Fogarty. It waned a bit in the 1910s, as the Troy Trojans were very team-oriented and that team largely defined the era, but then just before WWI began a significant period of high-profile mercenary players who played for 3+ teams simultaneously. During the Mercenarian Era (1917-23), teams had to market around players, because they didn't have their best players full-time.

Take the era's premier defensive center for example, Chris Leonard. There was a point where his typical schedule was to play for Coatesville on Monday, Pittston on Tuesday, Coatesville on Wednesday, the NY Whirlwinds on Thursday, either take a day off or find an independent team on Friday, Pittston on Saturday, and whichever other independent or Interstate league team paid him the most on Sunday. One player, Swede Grimstead, had a season where he suited up for 12 different teams. Schedules clashed often, and fans would want to know if their team would have one of the best players in the world on it that day or not before buying tickets.

So the path toward that being the case within the NBA was set in stone decades before the NBA was even an idea. It ebbed and flowed a bit: through the '20s it was extremely common, by the '30s it was only really used when a team's opponent had one superstar and a merely decent supporting cast, such as in the cases of Phil Rabin and Bobby McDermott, and in the 1940s it was very commonplace again. By the time the NBA came around... well, let's just say, the first time the Knicks hosted the Lakers, Madison Square Garden's marquee didn't say "Knicks vs. Lakers." It read "Geo. Mikan v/s Knicks."

I assume the Mikan thing was an anomaly though, they didn't do that for Pettit or Baylor or Cousy. The real switch in my memory came when NBC took over the contract from CBS about 1990. Suddenly games were billed as Jordan vs Magic or whoever, rather than Bulls Lakers. An intentional strategy by Don ohlmeyer that Stern went along with.

Not as explicitly as Mikan for sure, but Cousy at his peak was definitely given an outsized portion of both the credit and the blame for the Celtics as a whole. And you're definitely right about Pettit and Baylor, but conversely Celtics vs. Warriors was generally treated to a significant extent as an extension of Bill vs. Wilt. I think I'd describe the changes that happened during the Stern commissionership in that regard as a significant expansion quantitatively in how many cases in which such marketing was pushed, but still rooted within a tradition of star marketing and player rivalries that has existed since some of the earliest days of the sport.

[___Rand___]

When did NBA decide to market itself based on the face of star athletes instead of focusing the branding on teams or clubs like in other sports? Was there a player critical to this development?

The sport's always tended toward that direction more than other sports, it was already a pretty fundamental aspect of how people understood basketball during the 1900s in the cases of players such as Al Cooper, Harry Hough, and Joe Fogarty. It waned a bit in the 1910s, as the Troy Trojans were very team-oriented and that team largely defined the era, but then just before WWI began a significant period of high-profile mercenary players who played for 3+ teams simultaneously. During the Mercenarian Era (1917-23), teams had to market around players, because they didn't have their best players full-time.

Take the era's premier defensive center for example, Chris Leonard. There was a point where his typical schedule was to play for Coatesville on Monday, Pittston on Tuesday, Coatesville on Wednesday, the NY Whirlwinds on Thursday, either take a day off or find an independent team on Friday, Pittston on Saturday, and whichever other independent or Interstate league team paid him the most on Sunday. One player, Swede Grimstead, had a season where he suited up for 12 different teams. Schedules clashed often, and fans would want to know if their team would have one of the best players in the world on it that day or not before buying tickets.

So the path toward that being the case within the NBA was set in stone decades before the NBA was even an idea. It ebbed and flowed a bit: through the '20s it was extremely common, by the '30s it was only really used when a team's opponent had one superstar and a merely decent supporting cast, such as in the cases of Phil Rabin and Bobby McDermott, and in the 1940s it was very commonplace again. By the time the NBA came around... well, let's just say, the first time the Knicks hosted the Lakers, Madison Square Garden's marquee didn't say "Knicks vs. Lakers." It read "Geo. Mikan v/s Knicks."

That's really interesting because I certainly thought the marketing thing came from league office hiring a marketing or branding executive or consultant from business world. And amazing that a small city like Troy had a pro basketball team.

[JElias]

When did NBA decide to market itself based on the face of star athletes instead of focusing the branding on teams or clubs like in other sports? Was there a player critical to this development?

The sport's always tended toward that direction more than other sports, it was already a pretty fundamental aspect of how people understood basketball during the 1900s in the cases of players such as Al Cooper, Harry Hough, and Joe Fogarty. It waned a bit in the 1910s, as the Troy Trojans were very team-oriented and that team largely defined the era, but then just before WWI began a significant period of high-profile mercenary players who played for 3+ teams simultaneously. During the Mercenarian Era (1917-23), teams had to market around players, because they didn't have their best players full-time.

Take the era's premier defensive center for example, Chris Leonard. There was a point where his typical schedule was to play for Coatesville on Monday, Pittston on Tuesday, Coatesville on Wednesday, the NY Whirlwinds on Thursday, either take a day off or find an independent team on Friday, Pittston on Saturday, and whichever other independent or Interstate league team paid him the most on Sunday. One player, Swede Grimstead, had a season where he suited up for 12 different teams. Schedules clashed often, and fans would want to know if their team would have one of the best players in the world on it that day or not before buying tickets.

So the path toward that being the case within the NBA was set in stone decades before the NBA was even an idea. It ebbed and flowed a bit: through the '20s it was extremely common, by the '30s it was only really used when a team's opponent had one superstar and a merely decent supporting cast, such as in the cases of Phil Rabin and Bobby McDermott, and in the 1940s it was very commonplace again. By the time the NBA came around... well, let's just say, the first time the Knicks hosted the Lakers, Madison Square Garden's marquee didn't say "Knicks vs. Lakers." It read "Geo. Mikan v/s Knicks."

That's really interesting because I certainly thought the marketing thing came from league office hiring a marketing or branding executive or consultant from business world. And amazing that a small city like Troy had a pro basketball team.

I'm sure there were consultants involved in how exactly that ultimately ended up being ramped up once the league had say over television coverage to some extent, but yeah it's well-rooted within the grassroots of the sport.

Small-market and mid-market teams were par for the course until the late 1950s. Anderson IN, Waterloo IA, Moline IL, and Sheboygan WI all had teams within the actual NBA at the start. Pre-NBA, some of the best players and teams at various times represented places like Millville NJ, South Framingham MA, East Liverpool OH, McKeesport PA, Johnstown PA, Pittston PA, and Oshkosh WI.

[bledredwine]

This is awesome

Which players of that era do you consider overlooked and why? How do you compare Wilt and Russell beyond the surface knowledge that we already understand? What was player belief between the two and whom was better? I’m on the team of Wilt, believing that with the right squad he’d be rightfully in the GOAT debate. But I have no idea.

[___Rand___]

The sport's always tended toward that direction more than other sports, it was already a pretty fundamental aspect of how people understood basketball during the 1900s in the cases of players such as Al Cooper, Harry Hough, and Joe Fogarty. It waned a bit in the 1910s, as the Troy Trojans were very team-oriented and that team largely defined the era, but then just before WWI began a significant period of high-profile mercenary players who played for 3+ teams simultaneously. During the Mercenarian Era (1917-23), teams had to market around players, because they didn't have their best players full-time.

Take the era's premier defensive center for example, Chris Leonard. There was a point where his typical schedule was to play for Coatesville on Monday, Pittston on Tuesday, Coatesville on Wednesday, the NY Whirlwinds on Thursday, either take a day off or find an independent team on Friday, Pittston on Saturday, and whichever other independent or Interstate league team paid him the most on Sunday. One player, Swede Grimstead, had a season where he suited up for 12 different teams. Schedules clashed often, and fans would want to know if their team would have one of the best players in the world on it that day or not before buying tickets.

So the path toward that being the case within the NBA was set in stone decades before the NBA was even an idea. It ebbed and flowed a bit: through the '20s it was extremely common, by the '30s it was only really used when a team's opponent had one superstar and a merely decent supporting cast, such as in the cases of Phil Rabin and Bobby McDermott, and in the 1940s it was very commonplace again. By the time the NBA came around... well, let's just say, the first time the Knicks hosted the Lakers, Madison Square Garden's marquee didn't say "Knicks vs. Lakers." It read "Geo. Mikan v/s Knicks."

That's really interesting because I certainly thought the marketing thing came from league office hiring a marketing or branding executive or consultant from business world. And amazing that a small city like Troy had a pro basketball team.

I'm sure there were consultants involved in how exactly that ultimately ended up being ramped up once the league had say over television coverage to some extent, but yeah it's well-rooted within the grassroots of the sport.

Small-market and mid-market teams were par for the course until the late 1950s. Anderson IN, Waterloo IA, Moline IL, and Sheboygan WI all had teams within the actual NBA at the start. Pre-NBA, some of the best players and teams at various times represented places like Millville NJ, South Framingham MA, East Liverpool OH, McKeesport PA, Johnstown PA, Pittston PA, and Oshkosh WI.

Thank you for your answers.