UCLA Bruins men's basketball
The UCLA Bruins men's basketball program represents the University of California, Los Angeles in the sport of men's basketball as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Established in 1919, the program has won a record 11 NCAA titles. Coach John Wooden led the Bruins to 10 national titles in 12 seasons, from 1964 to 1975, including seven straight from 1967 to 1973. UCLA went undefeated a record four times. Coach Jim Harrick led the team to another NCAA title in 1995. Former coach Ben Howland led UCLA to three consecutive Final Four appearances from 2006 to 2008; as a member of the AAWU, Pacific-8 and Pacific-10, UCLA set a NCAA Division I record with 13 consecutive regular season conference titles between 1967 and 1979 which stood until passed by Kansas in 2018. UCLA men's basketball has set several NCAA records. 11 NCAA titles 7 consecutive NCAA titles 13 NCAA title game appearances* 10 consecutive Final Four appearances 25 Final Four wins* 38 game NCAA Tournament winning streak 134 weeks ranked No. 1 in AP Top 25 Poll 221 consecutive weeks ranked in AP Top 25 Poll 54 consecutive winning seasons 88 game men's regular season winning streak 13 consecutive Div-I regular season conference titles ** 4 undefeated seasons * 1980 tournament final vacated by NCAA ** Surpassed by Kansas in 2018 In 1919, Fred Cozens became the first head coach of the UCLA basketball and football teams.
Cozens coached the basketball team for two seasons, finishing with an overall record of 21–4. Caddy Works was the head coach of the Bruins from 1921 to 1939. Works coached the team only during the evenings. According to UCLA player and future Olympian Frank Lubin, Works was "more of an honorary coach" with little basketball knowledge. Wilbur Johns was the UCLA basketball head coach from 1939 to 1948, guiding the Bruins to a 93-120 record. From 1948 to 1975, John Wooden, nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood", served as UCLA's head coach, he won ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including a run of seven in a row that shattered the previous record of only two consecutive titles. Within this period, his teams won a men's basketball-record 88 consecutive games. Prior to Wooden's arrival, UCLA had only won two conference championships in the previous 18 years. In his first season, Wooden guided a UCLA team that had finished with a 12–13 record the previous year to a 22–7 record—then the most wins in a season in program history—and the Pacific Coast Conference Southern Division championship.
In his second season, Wooden led the Bruins to a 24 -- the PCC championship. The Bruins would win the division title in each of the next two seasons and the conference title in the latter season. Up to that time, UCLA had won only two division titles since the PCC began divisional play, it had not won a conference title of any kind since winning the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1927. In 1955–56, Wooden guided the Bruins to their first undefeated PCC conference title and a 17-game winning streak that only came to an end in the 1956 NCAA Tournament at the hands of a University of San Francisco team that featured Bill Russell. However, UCLA was unable to maintain this level of performance over the immediate ensuing seasons, finding itself unable to return to the NCAA Tournament as the Pete Newell-coached California teams took control of the conference at the end of the decade. Hampering the fortunes of Wooden's team during that time period was a probation imposed on all UCLA sports in the aftermath of a scandal involving illegal payments made to players on the school's football team, along with USC, Cal and Stanford, resulting in the dismantling of the PCC conference.
By 1962 the probation was no longer in place and Wooden had returned the Bruins to the top of their conference. This time, they would take the next step, go on to unleash a run of dominance unparalleled in the history of college sports. A narrow loss due to a controversial foul call in the semifinal of the 1962 NCAA Tournament convinced Wooden that his Bruins were ready to contend for national championships. Two seasons the final piece of the puzzle fell into place when assistant coach Jerry Norman persuaded Wooden that the team's small-sized players and fast-paced offense would be complemented by the adoption of a zone press defense; the result was a dramatic increase in scoring, giving UCLA a powerhouse team led by Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich that went undefeated on its way to the school's first basketball national championship. Wooden's team repeated as national champions the following season before the squad fell in 1966 when it finished second in the conference to Oregon State. UCLA was ineligible to play in the NCAA tournament that year because in those days only conference champions went to the tournament.
However, the Bruins' incarnation returned with a vengeance in 1967 with the arrival of sophomore All-America and MVP Lew Alcindor. The team reclaimed not only the conference title but the national crown with an undefeated season. In January 1968, UCLA took its 47-game winning streak to the Astrodome in Houston, where Alcindor squared off against Elvin Hayes in the Game of the Century, the nation's first nationally televised regular season college basketball game. Houston upset UCLA 71-69 behind Hayes' 39 points. In a post-game interview, Wooden stated, "We have to start over." They did, went undefeated the rest of the year, avenging Houston 101-69 in the semi-final rematch of the NCAA tournament en route to the national championship. Hayes, who had bee
NBA Finals
The NBA Finals is the championship series of the National Basketball Association. The Eastern and Western conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion; the winners of the Finals are awarded the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy, which replaced the Walter A. Brown Trophy in 1983; the series was known as the BAA Finals prior to the 1949–50 season when the Basketball Association of America merged with the National Basketball League to form the NBA. The competition oversaw further name changes to NBA World Championship Series from 1950 to 1985, as well as a brief stint as the Showdown, before settling on NBA Finals in 1986; the NBA Finals was structured to harbor a 2-2-1-1-1 format. In 1985, it was changed to a 2–3–2 format to ease the amount of cross country travel until 2013, where the first two and last two games of the series were played at the arena of the team who earned home-court advantage by having the better record during the regular season. In 2014, the 2–2–1–1–1 format was restored.
The first two are played at home for the higher-seeded team, the following two at the home of the lower-seeded team. The following three are played at each team's home arena alternately. A total of 18 franchises have won the NBA Finals, with the Golden State Warriors the current champion; the Boston Celtics hold the record for the most victories, having won the competition 17 times, as well as winning the competition the most times in a row, winning it eight times from 1959 to 1966. The Los Angeles Lakers have contested the NBA Finals the most times, with 31 appearances; the Eastern Conference has provided the most champions, with 38 wins from ten franchises. The Boston Celtics went 11–1 in the NBA Finals during 13 seasons, they won eight straight NBA championships from 1959 through 1966. This period marks the largest stretch of seasons that a single team made up over 65% of Finals appearances, includes the only time the NBA Finals was decided in double overtime. With the establishment of the Celtics dynasty in 1957 spearheaded by center Bill Russell, the team saw great success, only encountering difficulty when up against teams led by Wilt Chamberlain.
However, for most of the late 1950s and 1960s, the Celtics and Russell managed to have an upper hand on Chamberlain's teams. In 1964, who had moved to the state of California alongside his team, led the San Francisco Warriors to a Western Conference championship, but again failed to conquer the Celtics; the following season, he returned to the Eastern Conference to join the Philadelphia 76ers, who were the former Syracuse Nationals that had relocated to the city to cover the vacancy created with the departure of the Warriors. The first clash between the two stars in the playoffs was in 1966, with Boston winning the series 4–1. In the following season, Philadelphia coach Alex Hannum instructed Chamberlain to provide an increased focus on playing a team game, to avoid drawing the double-teams that troubled Chamberlain during the Finals; this tactical change brought the team to a new record of 68 wins the following season, as well as defeating the Celtics before winning the Finals. In 1968, Boston overcame a 3–1 deficit against Philadelphia to once again arrive in the Finals.
They went on to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals to again become NBA Champions. In 1969, the Celtics faced great difficulty entering the postseason, as they had an aging team and multiple injuries to a number of players, they qualified for the playoffs as the fourth and final seed in the East, while the Lakers, who had added Chamberlain in the offseason to join stars Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The Lakers won the West and were prohibitive favorites to become Champions for the first time since relocating to Los Angeles. Despite holding a 2-1 advantage going into Game 4, the Lakers led 87–86 and had the ball with 10 seconds to play, but after a turnover, Sam Jones scored tying the series. The series was tied 3-3 going into Game 7 in Los Angeles, with Lakers owner Jack Cooke hanging balloons in the arena in anticipation of a Lakers victory. West picked up injuries to his thigh and hamstring during the series, returned to play for the final game. Russell utilized this newly lacking mobility in West to organize fast breaks at every opportunity for the Celtics, which allowed them to gain an early lead.
They held off a furious Lakers comeback to win 108–106 and win the series, win their eleventh championship in 13 years. As many stars either declined or retired following this win, it is recognized as the last NBA Finals conducted by the Celtics dynasty; the 1970s saw. In 1970, a classic final featured the Knicks against the Lakers. In the waning moments of Game 3, with the series tied, Jerry West hit a basket from 60 feet to tie the game, a shot which became one of the most famous ever. However, the Knicks won in overtime and continued their momentum for a 4–3 win, becoming the first team after the Celtics dynasty to win an NBA championship; the Milwaukee Bucks won their first franchise title, defeating the Baltimore Bullets in 1971. Two seasons after losing in the Finals, the Lakers got a measure of revenge by winning 33 straight games, the longest such streak in NBA history. By season's end, they broke the record for most wins in a season with 69, one more than the 1966–67 Philadelphia 76ers, before taking home the championship for the first time since relocating to Los Angeles.
The Knicks returned to win the championship round again a season to record their second victorious season. Despite the rise of the Knicks, the
Phoenix Suns
The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Suns compete in the National Basketball Association, as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division, are the only team in their division not based in California; the Suns play their home games at the Talking Stick Resort Arena. The franchise began play in 1968 as an expansion team, their early years were shrouded in mediocrity, but their fortunes changed in the 1970s, after partnering long-term guard Dick Van Arsdale and center Alvan Adams with Paul Westphal, the Suns reached the 1976 NBA Finals, in what is considered to be one of the biggest upsets in NBA history. However, after failing to capture a championship, the Suns would rebuild around Walter Davis for a majority of the 1980s, until the acquisition of Kevin Johnson in 1988. Under Johnson, after trading for perennial NBA All-Star Charles Barkley, combined with the output of Tom Chambers and Dan Majerle, the Suns reached the playoffs for a franchise-record thirteen consecutive appearances and remained a regular title contender throughout the 1990s, reached the 1993 NBA Finals.
However, the team would again fail to win a championship, entered into another period of mediocrity until the early part of the 2000s. In 2004, the Suns reacquired Steve Nash, returned into playoff contention. With Nash, Shawn Marion, Amar'e Stoudemire, under head coach Mike D'Antoni, the Suns became renowned worldwide for their quick, dynamic offense, which led them to tie a franchise record in wins in the 2004–05 season. Two more top two Conference placements followed, but the Suns again failed to attain an NBA championship, were forced into another rebuild; the Suns own the NBA's seventh-best all-time winning percentage, have the second highest winning percentage of any teams to have never won an NBA championship. 10 Hall of Famers have played for Phoenix, while two Suns—Barkley and Nash—have won the NBA Most Valuable Player award while playing for the team. The Suns were one of two franchises to join the NBA at the start of the 1968–69 season, alongside the Milwaukee Bucks from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
They were the first major professional sports franchise in the Phoenix market and in the entire state of Arizona, remained the only one for the better part of 20 years until the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League relocated from St. Louis in 1988; the Suns played its first 24 seasons at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, located northwest of downtown Phoenix. The franchise was formed by an ownership group led by Karl Eller, owner of a public enterprise, the investor Donald Pitt, Don Diamond, Bhavik Darji, Marvin Meyer, Richard Bloch. Other owners with a minority stake consisted of entertainers, such as Andy Williams, Bobbie Gentry and Ed Ames. There were many critics, including then-NBA commissioner J. Walter Kennedy, who said that Phoenix was "too hot", "too small", "too far away" to be considered a successful NBA market; this was despite the fact that the Phoenix metropolitan area was growing and the Suns would have built-in geographical foes in places like in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle.
After continual prodding by Bloch, in 1968 the NBA Board of Governors granted franchises to Phoenix and Milwaukee on January 22, 1968 with an entry fee of $2 million. The Suns nickname was among 28,000 entries that were formally chosen in a name-the-team contest sponsored by The Arizona Republic, with the winner awarded $1,000 and season tickets for the inaugural season. Suns was preferred over Scorpions, Thunderbirds, Mavericks, Tumbleweeds and Cougars. Stan Fabe, who owned a commercial printing plant in Tucson, designed the team's first iconic logo for a mere $200. However, they were disappointed with the results. In the 1968 NBA Expansion Draft, notable Suns' pickups were future Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich and Dick Van Arsdale. Jerry Colangelo a player scout, came over from the Chicago Bulls, a franchise formed two years earlier, as the Suns' first general manager at the age of 28, along with Johnny "Red" Kerr as head coach. Unlike the first-year success that Colangelo and Kerr had in Chicago, in which the Bulls finished with a first-year expansion record of 33 wins and a playoff berth, Phoenix finished its first year at 16–66, finished 25 games out of the final playoff spot.
Both Goodrich and Van Arsdale were selected to the All-Star Game in their first season with the Suns. Goodrich returned to his former team, the Lakers, after two seasons with the Suns, but Van Arsdale spent the rest of his playing days as a Sun and a one-time head coach for Phoenix; the Suns' last-place finish that season led to a coin flip for the number-one overall pick for the 1969 NBA draft with the expansion-mate Bucks. Milwaukee won the flip, the rights to draft UCLA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, while Phoenix settled on drafting center Neal Walk from Florida; the 1969–70 season posted better results for the Suns, finishing 39–43, but losing to the eventual Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. The next two seasons, the Suns finished with 48- and 49-win seasons, but did not qualify for the playoffs in either year, did not reach the playoffs again until 1976; the 1975–76 season proved to be a pivotal year for the Suns as they made several key moves, including the offseason trade of former All-Star guard Charlie Scott to the Boston Celtics in exchange for guard
College basketball
College basketball today is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including the United States's National Collegiate Athletic Association, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, the United States Collegiate Athletic Association, the National Junior College Athletic Association, the National Christian College Athletic Association. Governing bodies in Canada include the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association; each of these various organizations are subdivided into from one to three divisions based on the number and level of scholarships that may be provided to the athletes. Each organization has different conferences to divide up the teams into groups. Teams are selected into these conferences depending on the location of the schools; these conferences are put in due to the regional play of the teams and to have a structural schedule for each to team to play for the upcoming year. During conference play the teams are ranked not only through the entire NCAA, but the conference as well in which they have tournament play leading into the NCAA tournament.
The history of basketball can be traced back to a YMCA International Training School, known today as Springfield College, located in Springfield, Massachusetts. The sport was created by a physical education teacher named James Naismith, who in the winter of 1891 was given the task of creating a game that would keep track athletes in shape and that would prevent them from getting hurt; the date of the first formal basketball game played at the Springfield YMCA Training School under Naismith's rules is given as December 21, 1891. Basketball began to be played at some college campuses by 1893; the first known college to field a basketball team against an outside opponent was Vanderbilt University, which played against the local YMCA in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 7, 1893. The second recorded instance of an organized college basketball game was Geneva College's game against the New Brighton YMCA on April 8, 1893, in Beaver Falls, which Geneva won 3–0; the first recorded game between two college teams occurred on February 9, 1895, when Hamline University faced Minnesota A&M. Minnesota A&M won the game, played under rules allowing nine players per side, 9–3.
The first intercollegiate match using the modern rule of five players per side is credited as a game between the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa, on January 18, 1896. The Chicago team won the game 15-12, under the coaching of Amos Alonzo Stagg, who had learned the game from James Naismith at the Springfield YMCA. However, some sources state the first "true" five-on-five intercollegiate match was a game in 1897 between Yale and Penn, because although the Iowa team that played Chicago in 1896 was composed of University of Iowa students, it did not represent the university, rather it was organized through a YMCA. By 1900, the game of basketball had spread to colleges across the country; the Amateur Athletic Union's annual U. S. national championship tournament featured collegiate teams playing against non-college teams. Four colleges won the AAU tournament championship: NYU, Butler and Washburn. College teams were runners-up in 1915, 1917, 1920, 1921, 1932 and 1934.
The first known tournament featuring college teams was the 1904 Summer Olympics, where basketball was a demonstration sport, a collegiate championship tournament was held. The Olympic title was won by Hiram College. In March 1908, a two-game "championship series" was organized between the University of Chicago and Penn, with games played in Philadelphia and Bartlett, Illinois. Chicago swept both games to win the series. In March 1922, the 1922 National Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament was held in Indianapolis – the first stand-alone post-season tournament for college teams; the champions of six major conferences participated: Pacific Coast Conference, Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Western Pennsylvania League, Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association and Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association. The Western Conference and Eastern Intercollegiate League declined invitations to participate. Wabash College won the 1922 tournament.
The first organization to tout a occurring national collegiate championship was the NAIA in 1937, although it was surpassed in prestige by the National Invitation Tournament, or NIT, which brought six teams to New York's Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1938. Temple defeated Colorado in the first NIT tournament championship game, 60–36. In 1939, another national tournament was implemented by the National Collegiate Athletic Association; the location of the NCAA Tournament varied from year to year, it soon used multiple locations each year, so more fans could see games without traveling to New York. Although the NIT was created earlier and was more prestigious than the NCAA for many years, it lost popularity and status to the NCAA Tournament. In 1950, following a double win by the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team, the NCAA ruled that no team could compete in both tournaments, indicated that a team eligible for the NCAA tournament should play in it. Not long afterward, assisted by the 1951 scandals based in New York City, the NCAA tournament had become more prestigious than before, with conference champions and the majority of top-ranked teams competing there.
The NCAA tournament overtook the NIT by 1960. Through the 1960s and 1970s, with UCLA leading the way as winner
Coin flipping
Coin flipping, coin tossing, or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air and checking which side is showing when it lands, in order to choose between two alternatives, sometimes used to resolve a dispute between two parties. It is a form of sortition; the party who calls the side wins. The historical origin of coin flipping is the interpretation of a chance outcome as the expression of divine will. Coin flipping was known to the ancient Chinese as 撒大苏打, as some coins had a ship on one side and the head of the emperor on the other. In England, this was referred to as pile; the expression Heads or Tails results from heads and tails being considered complementary body parts. During a coin toss, the coin is thrown into the air such that it rotates edge-over-edge several times. Either beforehand or when the coin is in the air, an interested party calls "heads" or "tails", indicating which side of the coin that party is choosing; the other party is assigned the opposite side. Depending on custom, the coin may be caught.
When the coin comes to rest, the toss is complete and the party who called or was assigned the upper side is declared the winner. It is possible for a coin to land on its edge by landing up against an object or by getting stuck in the ground; however on a flat surface it is possible for a coin to land on its edge, with a chance of about 1 in 6000 for an American nickel. Angular momentum prevents most coins from landing on their edges unsupported if flipped; such cases in which a coin does land on its edge are exceptionally rare and in most cases the coin is re-flipped. The coin may be any type. Larger coins tend to be more popular than smaller ones; some high-profile coin tosses, such as the Cricket World Cup and the Super Bowl, use custom-made ceremonial medallions. Three-way coin flips are possible, by a different process – this can be done either to choose two out of three, or to choose one out of three. To choose two out of three, three coins are flipped, if two coins come up the same and one different, the different one loses, leaving two players.
To choose one out of three, either reverse this, or add a regular two-way coin flip between the remaining players as a second step. Note that the three-way flip is 75% to work each time it is tried, does not require that "heads" or "tails" be called. A famous example of such a three-way coin flip is dramatized in Friday Night Lights, three high school football teams use a three-way coin flip. A legacy of this coin flip was to reduce the use of coin flips to break ties in Texas sports, instead using point-systems to reduce the frequency of ties. Coin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In a game theoretic analysis it provides odds to both sides involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle, it is used in sports and other games to decide arbitrary factors such as which side of the field a team will play from, or which side will attack or defend initially. Factors such as wind direction, the position of the sun, other conditions may affect the decision.
In team sports it is the captain who makes the call, while the umpire or referee oversees such proceedings. A competitive method may be used instead of a toss in some situations, for example in basketball the jump ball is employed, while the face-off plays a similar role in ice hockey. Coin flipping is used to decide which end of the field the teams will play to and/or which team gets first use of the ball, or similar questions in football matches, American football games, Australian rules football and other sports requiring such decisions. In the U. S. a specially minted coin is flipped in National Football League games. The XFL, a short-lived American football league, attempted to avoid coin tosses by implementing a face-off style "opening scramble," in which one player from each team tried to recover a loose football; because of the high rate of injury in these events, it has not achieved mainstream popularity in any football league, coin tossing remains the method of choice in American football.
In an association football match, the team winning the coin toss chooses which goal to attack in the first half. For the second half, the teams switch ends, the team that won the coin toss kicks off. Coin tosses are used to decide which team has the pick of going first or second in a penalty shoot-out. Before the early-1970s introduction of the penalty shootout, coin tosses were needed to decide the outcome of tied matches; the most famous instance of this was the semifinal game of the 1968 European Championship in Italy between Italy and the Soviet Union, which finished 0-0 after extra time. Italy won, went on to become European champions. In cricket the toss is significant, as the decision whether to
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league in North America. It is considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world; the NBA is an active member of USA Basketball, recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player; the league was founded in New York City on June 1946, as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League; the league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in New Jersey; the Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title. Prior to the 1948–49 season, however, NBL teams from Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester jumped to the BAA, which established the BAA as the league of choice for collegians looking to turn professional.
On August 3, 1949, the remaining NBL teams–Syracuse, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan and Waterloo–merged into the BAA. In deference to the merger and to avoid possible legal complications, the league name was changed to the present National Basketball Association though the merged league retained the BAA's governing body, including Podoloff. To this day, the NBA claims the BAA's history as its own, it now reckons the arrival of the NBL teams as an expansion, not a merger, does not recognize NBL records and statistics. The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today.
The process of contraction saw. The Hawks shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, to St. Louis in 1955; the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati in 1957 and the Pistons relocated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957. Japanese-American Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, he remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
If a team does not attempt to score a field goal within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent. In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, went on to lead the club to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single game records in scoring and rebounding. Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports; the 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966; this championship streak is the longest in NBA history. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969; the domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises; the Chicago Packers (now Wa
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as the sport's most complete library, in addition to promoting and preserving the history of basketball. Dedicated to Canadian-American physician and inventor of the sport James Naismith, it was opened and inducted its first class in 1959; as of the induction of the Class of 2018, the Hall has formally inducted 389 individuals. The Naismith Hall of Fame was established in 1959 by Lee Williams, a former athletic director at Colby College. In the 1960s, the Basketball Hall of Fame struggled to raise enough money for the construction of its first facility. However, during the following half-decade the necessary amount was raised, the building opened on Feb. 17, 1968, less than one month after the National Basketball Association played its 18th All-Star Game. The Basketball Hall of Fame's Board named four inductees in its first year.
In addition to honoring those who contributed to basketball, the Hall of Fame sought to make contributions of its own. In 1979, the Hall of Fame sponsored a pre-season college basketball exhibition; this Tip-Off Classic has been the start to the college basketball season since, although it does not always take place in Springfield, Massachusetts it returns every few years. In the 17 years that the original Basketball Hall of Fame operated at Springfield College, it drew more than 630,000 visitors; the popularity of the Basketball Hall of Fame necessitated that a new facility be constructed, in 1985, an $11 million facility was built beside the scenic Connecticut River in Springfield. As the new hall opened, it recognized women for the first time, with inductees such as Senda Berenson Abbott, who first introduced basketball to women at Smith College. During the years following its construction, the Basketball Hall of Fame's second facility drew far more visitors than anticipated, due in large part to the increasing popularity of the game but to the scenic location beside the river and the second Hall's interesting modern architecture.
In 2002, the Basketball Hall of Fame moved again—albeit 100 yards south along Springfield's riverfront—into a $47 million facility designed by renowned architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates. The building's architecture features a metallic silver, basketball-shaped sphere flanked by two symmetrical rhombuses; the dome is illuminated at night and features 80,000 square foot, including numerous restaurants and an extensive gift shop. The second Basketball Hall of Fame was not torn down but rather converted into an LA Fitness health clubs; the current Basketball Hall of Fame features Center Court, a full-sized basketball court on which visitors can play. Inside the building there are a game gallery, many interactive exhibits, several theaters, an honor ring of inductees. A large theater for ceremonies seats up to 300; the honorees inducted in 2002 included the Harlem Globetrotters and Magic Johnson, a five-time NBA champion, three-time NBA finals MVP and Olympic gold medalist. As of 2011, the current Basketball Hall of Fame has exceeded attendance expectations, with basketball fans traveling to the Hall of Fame from all over the world.
Despite the new facility's success, a logistical problem remains for the Basketball Hall of Fame and the City of Springfield. The two entities are separated by the Interstate 91 elevated highway—one of the eastern United States' busiest highways—which inhibits foot-traffic and other interaction between the Basketball Hall of Fame and Springfield's lively Metro Center. Both the Hall and Springfield have made public statements about cooperating further so as to facilitate more business and recreational growth for both. Urban planners at universities such as UMass Amherst have called for the I-91 to be moved, or to be re-configured so as to be pedestrian-friendly to Hall of Fame visitors. In 2010, the Urban Land Institute announced a plan to make the walk between Springfield's Metro Center and the Hall of Fame easier. In contrast to the Pro Football and the National Baseball Halls of Fame, Springfield honors international and American professionals, as well as American and international amateurs, making it arguably the most comprehensive Hall of Fame among major sports.
From 2011 to 2015 seven committees were, as of 2016 six committees are employed to both screen and elect candidates. Four of the committees screen prospective candidates: North American Screening Committee Women's Screening Committee International Screening Committee Veterans Screening Committee, with "Veterans" defined as individuals whose careers ended at least 35 years before they are considered for election. Since 2011, the Veterans and International Committees vote to directly induct one candidate for each induction class. Three committees were formed in 2011 to directly elect one candidate for each induction class: American Basketball Association Committee - This committee was permanently disbanded in 2015 because it had fulfilled its purpose over the previous five years. Contributor Direct Election Committee Other committees may choose to elect contributors. For example, the 2014 class included two contributors. Early African-American Pioneers of the Game CommitteeIndividuals who receive at least seven votes from the North American Screening Committee or five votes from one of the other screening committees in a given year are eligible to advance to an Honors Committee, composed of 12 members plus rotating groups of 12 specialists (one group for
