Sport | Basketball |
---|---|
Founded | 1961 |
Ceased | 1973 |
Country | United States |
The National Alliance of Basketball Leagues (NABL) (founded 1961) is the descendant of the industrial-based basketball clubs that formed into the National Basketball League (NBL) in the early 1930s.
The league was the brainchild of
Indianapolis grocer
Irv Kautsky, who sponsored the
Indianapolis Kautskys club team, and
Goodyear Tire Company, who originally sponsored the
Akron Wingfoots. After a false start in the early 1930s, the league was restarted in
1938, with the Wingfoots winning the initial NBL title. By
World War II, both the Wingfoots and the
Firestone Tire Company's Non-Skids had suspended play, but other seminal pro teams such as the
Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons (now the
Detroit Pistons),
Syracuse Nationals (now the
Philadelphia 76ers),
Rochester Royals (now the
Sacramento Kings),
Minneapolis Lakers (now the
Los Angeles Lakers), and
Tri-Cities BlackHawks (now the
Atlanta Hawks), all of whom are currently playing in the
NBA, had joined.
After World War II, the fledgling
Basketball Association of America was established by arena owners in large cities to try to capture the popularity of the NBL teams from the smaller communities. This attempt failed miserably as 13 of the 16 BAA teams folded. Undaunted, the remaining BAA teams, the
Philadelphia Warriors,
Boston Celtics, and
New York Knicks convinced the top NBL teams to join with them and they formed the NBA. Thus, the early NBA was composed mostly of teams brought over from the NBL and three BAA teams.
The remaining NBL teams reformed and changed the name to the National Industrial Basketball League (NIBL) where teams such as the Denver Truckers, Chicago Jamaco Saints, Akron Wingfoots, Phillips 66ers, Peoria Cats, Philadelphia Tapers, Lexington Marathon Oilers and Cleveland Pipers thrived as club teams. In the 1960s the league recognized the changing sponsorship of the teams away from the large industrial companies and renamed it the National AAU Basketball League (NABL).
1948 Milwaukee Harnischfegers
1949
Phillips 66ers
1950
Phillips 66ers
1951
Phillips 66ers
1952
Phillips 66ers
1953
Phillips 66ers
1954
Phillips 66ers and
Peoria Caterpillars
1955
Phillips 66ers
1956
Phillips 66ers
1957
Phillips 66ers
1958
Phillips 66ers and
Wichita Vickers
1959 Denver-Chicago Truckers
1960
Phillips 66ers
1961
Cleveland Pipers
During the early 1960s, the Pipers and the Tapers left to join the Hawaii Chiefs, Kansas City Steers, Los Angeles Jets and other teams to form the American Basketball League; when this venture folded, some of these teams returned to the NABL.
By the end of the 1970s, the NABL teams elected to adapt touring schedules rather than league schedules and the NABL format was mothballed until it was brought back in the 1990s when many of the legendary teams had been restarted under a new wave of sponsors. Today, the NABL teams are focused on preparing post-college players for the opportunity to play pro basketball overseas.
In 1966, the NABL organized the National Amateur Athletic Union Basketball League, with the league's champions playing at FIBA's Intercontinental Cup, as the North American Champions. The Akron Wingfoots won the title on the three occasions that they represented the country at the FIBA Intercontinental Cup.
1967:
Akron Wingfoots
1968:
Akron Wingfoots
1969:
Akron Wingfoots
1970:
1971:
Lexington Marathon Oil
1972:
Dayton Sanders Stone
1973:
Dayton Utopians
The following leagues were members of the NABL in the 90s and noughties.