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| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | April 23, 1946; 79 years ago (1946-04-23) |
| Ceased | June 1, 2009; 16 years ago (2009-06-01) |
| Country | USA |
| Continent | FIBA Americas (Americas) |
| Last champion | Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry (3rd title) |
| Most titles | Allentown Jets Wilkes-Barre Barons (8 titles each) |
TheContinental Basketball Association (CBA), originally known as theEastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as theEastern Professional Basketball League and theEastern Basketball Association, was a men's professionalbasketballminor league in the United States from 1946 to 2009.[1]
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The Continental Basketball Association was founded on April 23, 1946, under its previous name, the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League.[2] It was organized on inHazleton, Pennsylvania by Eddie White ofWilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Robert Jamelli of Hazleton and Ron Regar ofReading, Pennsylvania. George Z. Keller of Wilkes-Barre was the league's first commissioner.[3] It went on to bill itself as the "World's Oldest Professional Basketball League", since its founding pre-dated the founding of theNational Basketball Association by two months. The league fielded six franchises, five of which were inPennsylvania:Allentown, Hazleton,Lancaster, Reading, and Wilkes-Barre. A sixth team,Binghamton, was located inNew York, but moved toPottsville in Pennsylvania mid-season. The first season opened on December 1, 1946.[3]
The following season, Allentown withdrew from the EPBL, and the Wilkes-Barre team was sold toWilliamsport. Teams were added inPhiladelphia,Harrisburg andSunbury, making eight teams in the EPBL that year.[3]
In 1948, the league was renamed the Eastern Professional Basketball League, and additional franchises were added in three additional Pennsylvania cities,Williamsport,Scranton, andSunbury, threeNew Jersey cities,Trenton,Camden, andAsbury Park, three inConnecticut,New Haven,Hartford,Bridgeport, and inWilmington, Delaware, andSpringfield, Massachusetts.
From the 1950s through the 1960s, many NBA teams had unofficial quotas on the number of black players on their teams. Many players joined other professional leagues, including the EPBL. The league was fast and physical, often played in tiny, smoke-filled gyms across theNortheastern United States, and featuring the best players who could not make manyNBA teams because of the quotas.
Following the lead of theAmerican Basketball League (1961–1962) in adding a three-point line, the Eastern League added a three-point line for its 1964–65 season. Although three-point shots during the 1960s were few and far between, the Eastern League developed several scorers who used the three-point shot to their advantage.
For the 1970–71 season, the league rebranded itself the Eastern Basketball Association, operating as a professional Northeastern regional league and as an unofficial feeder system to the NBA andABA. The CBA's first commissioner was Harry Rudolph, father of NBA refereeMendy Rudolph.Steve A. Kauffman, currently a basketball agent, succeeded Rudolph as commissioner in 1975. Kauffman executed a plan to bring theAnchorage Northern Knights into the league beginning with the 1977–78 season. Kauffman kept the league name because he felt having a team in the Eastern League from Alaska might get the league additional notice and recognition. The establishment of the Anchorage franchise garnered national media attention, including a feature story inSports Illustrated.[4]
Kauffman served as commissioner until 1978, when his deputy commissioner,Jim Drucker, took the reins. Drucker's eight-season reign was the longest in the league's history. Drucker, son of NBA refereeNorm Drucker, continued as commissioner until 1986.
As commissioner, the league was renamed the Continental Basketball Association in 1978,[5] eventually leading to expansion across the country.
During Drucker's term, the league expanded from 8 to 14 teams, landed its first national TV contracts and saw franchise values increase from $5,000 to $500,000, an aggregate increase in equity value from $24,000 to $7 million. The league instituted novel rule changes including sudden-death overtime, a no foul-out rule and a change in the way league standings were determined. Under the "7-Point System", seven points were awarded each game: three points for winning a game and one point for every quarter a team won. As a result, a winning team would wind up with four to seven points in the standings, while a losing team could collect from zero to three points. This made for at least some fan interest even in the late stages of games that were otherwise blowouts; the trailing team could still get a standings point by winning the final quarter, especially if the team that was leading chose to rest some or all of its starters. The league used this method to calculate division standings from its implementation in 1983 until the league's end in 2009.
AfterDarryl Dawkins shattered twobasketball backboards during the 1979–80 NBA season, the NBA used the CBA to test an innovation as part of the basket, thebreakaway rim, in the 1980–81 CBA season. Three designs were chosen to be used in games, being chosen from ten prototype designs. Several college basketball players were asked to try to break the rims before being introduced in the CBA. When force was placed upon the spring-loaded rim, it would be pulled down, then spring safely back in place.[6] The NBA and CBA adopted the most resilient design among the three for the 1981–82 season.[7]
Also during this time, the CBA created a series of halftime promotions. The most successful was the "1 Million Dollar CBA Supershot". In an era where the typical basketball halftime promotion, even inNCAA Division I and the NBA, featured a winning prize worth less than $100, the CBA's Supershot, created in 1983, offered a grand prize of $1 million if a randomly selected fan could hit one shot from the far foul line, 69.75 feet (21.26 m). No one won the insured prize, but the shot attracted national media coverage inSports Illustrated,The New York Times, andThe Sporting News.
In 1984, the CBA signed acable television contract withBET with 10 CBA games televised on a tape delay.[8] For national media attention, the league created the "CBA Sportscaster Contest" to select a color commentator for its BET telecasts. With tryouts nationwide, the promotion was featured on theNBC Nightly News,Entertainment Tonight,Sports Illustrated and other media. The contest was won by a NJ high school basketball coach, Bill Lange, who later coached the Philadelphia Spirit minor league team in the United States Basketball League.
After two tape-delayed seasons on BET, CBA games moved toESPN, with 13 games televised live. ESPN sportscasterBob Ley did the play-by-play and former NBA player and coachKevin Loughery provided color commentary. Drucker left as Commissioner, and his TV production company, Global Sports, produced the ESPN telecasts.
In 1985, the CBA followed with the "Ton-of-Money Free Throw", which featured a prize of 2,000 pounds (910 kg) of pennies ($5,000) if a randomly selected fan could make just one free throw. Two of fourteen contestants were successful. The next year, the league featured the "Easy Street Shootout". In that shootout, 14 contestants, one from each CBA city, were selected and the person making the longest shot won a $1,000,000zero-coupon bond. The winner was Don Mattingly of theEvansville Thunder, unrelated to theNew York Yankee baseball player. After the league's 1985 All-Star Game inCasper, Wyoming, the CBA invited fans to make a paper airplane from the centerfold of their game program, each identified with a unique serial number, and attempt to throw it through the moon roof of a newFord Thunderbird parked at mid-court. Four fans were successful and a tie-breaker determined the winner who drove home with the new $17,000 car.
In August 1999, the CBA's teams were purchased by an investment group led by former NBA starIsiah Thomas. The group bought all of the individually owned franchises of the CBA, in a $10 million acquisition. Over the course of the next 18 months, Thomas was faced with a plethora of business troubles, losing the league's partnership with the NBA and ultimately abandoning the league into a blind trust that left teams unable to meet payroll or pay bills. The combined-ownership plan was unsuccessful and, by 2001, the CBA had declared bankruptcy and ceased operations; it folded on February 8, 2001, without managing to complete the 2000–01 season.
Before the 2000–01 season, the CBA signed a television contract with BET to broadcast up to 18 games, including the CBA All-Star Game, although the CBA folded midway through the season.[9] Several of its teams briefly joined the now-defunctInternational Basketball League.
Highlights of Thomas's ownership of the CBA included:
In fall 2001, CBA and IBL teams merged with theInternational Basketball Association and purchased the assets of the defunct CBA (including its name, logo and records) from the bankruptcy trustee and resumed operations as the CBA, assuming the former league's identity and history. The league obtained eight new franchises (for a total of ten) for the 2006 season. The Atlanta Krunk Wolverines and Vancouver Dragons deferred their participation until the 2007–2008 season and the Utah Eagles folded on January 25, 2007. The CBA's 2007–08 season began with 10 franchises, the greatest number of teams to start a CBA season since the 2000–01 season. In addition to six returning franchises the CBA added three expansion teams – theOklahoma Cavalry, theRio Grande Valley Silverados andEast Kentucky Miners; theAtlanta Krunk joined the league after sitting out the 2006–07 season.
The 2008–2009 season began with only four teams, instead of the expected five. ThePittsburgh Xplosion folded under unclear circumstances, and the league scheduled games againstAmerican Basketball Association (ABA) teams for the first month of the season in an attempt to stay solvent.[12] The maneuver was not enough. On February 2, 2009, the league announced a halt to operations, turning a scheduled series between theAlbany Patroons andLawton-Fort Sill Cavalry into the league-championship series.[13]
During the 1946–47 Eastern League season, theHazleton Mountaineers had threeAfrican-American players on their roster during the season – Bill Brown, Zack Clayton andJohn Isaacs. Isaacs previously played with an all-black touring squad (the Washington Bears), while Brown and Clayton were alumni of theHarlem Globetrotters. During the 1955–56 season, the Hazleton Hawks Eastern League team was the first integrated professional league franchise with an all-black starting lineup: Tom Hemans,Jesse Arnelle, Fletcher Johnson,Sherman White and Floyd Lane. The all-black Dayton Rens competed in the 1948–49 National Basketball League.
During the early years of the CBA, when it was known as the EPBL, the league's relationship with the NBA was frosty at best. The NBA sent several players to the Eastern League for extra playing time, and for several seasons two Eastern League teams played the opening game of a New Year's Eve doubleheader at Madison Square Garden (with the NBA playing the nightcap game). Although the NBA played exhibition games with the Eastern League during the late 1940s and early 1950s, the exhibition games ceased in 1954 when the Eastern League signed several college basketball players involved inpoint-shaving gambling scandals during their college years, includingJack Molinas,Sherman White,Floyd Layne, andAl Roth. The Eastern League also signed 7-foot centerBill Spivey, the formerUniversity of Kentucky standout who was accused of point-shaving; although Spivey was acquitted of all charges, the NBA still banned him from the league for life.
After a few seasons, however, the NBA and EPBL resumed exhibition games in the 1950s (including a 1956 matchup in which the NBA'sSyracuse Nationals lost to the EPBL'sWilkes-Barre Barons at Wilkes-Barre's home court). Other EPBL-NBA exhibition matchups include an October 1959 contest in which theNew York Knicks defeated the Allentown Jets 131–102 at Allentown; and a contest in April 1961, in which theBoston Celtics also played an exhibition contest against Allentown (defeating the Eastern Leaguers soundly). The Eastern League became a haven for players who wanted to play professionally, but were barred from the NBA because of academic restrictions. Even thoughRay Scott had left the University of Portland two months after his matriculation, the NBA could not sign Scott to a contract until Scott's class graduated. The EPBL, however, could sign him and Scott played 77 games for the Allentown Jets before later joining the NBA'sDetroit Pistons.
By the 1967–68 season, the Eastern League lost many of its players when the upstartAmerican Basketball Association formed. Players such as Lavern "Jelly" Tart,Willie Somerset,Art Heyman andWalt Simon (all of whom were all-stars in the Eastern League a year before) were now in ABA uniforms. The ABA continued to siphon off NBA and Eastern League players, leaving the Eastern League with only six teams in 1972 and four teams in 1975. Only theABA-NBA merger in June 1976 kept the Eastern League alive, as an influx of players from defunct ABA teams joined the league.
In 1979, the NBA signed four players from the newly renamed CBA. The CBA, receiving no compensation from the NBA for these signings, sued the NBA. The suit was settled and in exchange for the right to sign any CBA player at any time, the NBA paid the CBA $115,000; it also paid the CBA $80,000 to develop NBA referees in the CBA. During this time, the NBA created the "10-day-contract", where an NBA team could sign a CBA player for 10 days, at thepro rata NBA minimum salary (as per the NBA'scollective bargaining agreement). The NBA team could re-sign him to a second 10-day contract. After the second 10-day contract, the team had to either return the player to his CBA team or sign him for the balance of the NBA regular season. The CBA teams, in turn, received compensation for each 10-day contract.
By 1980, the CBA had become the official development league of the NBA.[14] CBA teams had exclusive rights to players released by their NBA affiliated teams. NBA teams could sign players from any CBA team.[15] By 1986, 54 former CBA players were playing in the NBA.
In 1987 the CBA announced that teams were allowed to sign players banned for drug use by the NBA.Mitchell Wiggins, who was suspended by the NBA forcocaine use, was one of the first players signed in the CBA under the new rule that was implemented in conjunction with the NBA andNBA Players Association.[16]
During the 1993–94 season, the NBA–CBA affiliate relationship was replaced by an annual draft of NBA players. The draft gave CBA teams exclusive negotiating rights with NBA players in the event of their release from an NBA roster. The CBA team owned exclusive rights to the draftee in perpetuity.[17]
During the 1980s and 1990s, the NBA's relationship with the CBA grew to the point where dozens of former CBA stars found their way onto NBA rosters, includingTim Legler (Omaha Racers),Mario Elie (Albany Patroons), andJohn Starks (Cedar Rapids Silver Bullets). The CBA also sent qualified coaches to the NBA, includingPhil Jackson (Albany Patroons),Bill Musselman (Tampa Bay Thrillers),Eric Musselman (Rapid City Thrillers),Flip Saunders (LaCrosse Catbirds) andGeorge Karl (Montana Golden Nuggets). In 2001, the NBA formed its own minor league, theNational Basketball Development League (the NBDL or "D-League"). At the end of the 2005–2006 season, three current and one expansion CBA franchises jumped to the NBDL. During the 2006–07 season no players were called up from the CBA to the NBA, ending a streak of over 30 seasons of at least one call-up per year. That soon led to the beginning of the end for the CBA.
The first affiliated team withNBA franchises was Baltimore Metros (Washington Bullets,Atlanta Hawks,Milwaukee Bucks) in the 1978-79 season, the first under the CBA name, and Billings Volcanoes became the second in 1981 (Chicago Bulls,Phoenix Suns,Utah Jazz). In the 1983-84 season there were 12 CBA teams affiliated withNBA franchises and it went on until the1992-93 season with a record of 17 affiliations. After 1993 there was no CBA club affiliated toNBA which lasted until 2009.
The CBA followed largely the same basketball rules as theNBA and most other professional leagues. Sometimes rules adopted by the CBA on an experimental basis later became permanent in that league and were adopted by other levels of basketball as well; others remained unique to the CBA. From 1978 through 1986, CBA commissioner Jim Drucker created several new rules to raise fan interest, which were then adopted by the league:
The CBA established a draft in 1985, following the NBA's decision to reduce itsdraft from 10 rounds to 7.[24] This allowed the CBA teams to have a wider selection of players: the selection criteria were the same as the NBA draft.[24] As with the NBA draft, players had to renounce their college eligibility if they wanted to declare early.[25] While initially the draft was limited to players who were not drafted in the NBA,[24] this later changed, and on several occasions players were drafted by both the NBA and the CBA. Some examples includeNick Van Exel (1993,Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA andRapid City Thrillers of the CBA),[26][27]Dontonio Wingfield (1994,Seattle SuperSonics and Rapid City Thrillers),[28][29]Stephen Jackson (1997,Phoenix Suns andLa Crosse Bobcats),[30][31] andJason Hart (2000,Milwaukee Bucks andIdaho Stampede).[32][33]
CBA franchises usually selected players who had the higher chance to sign for them instead of signing overseas or in the NBA, even though some teams used their picks in the later rounds to select players who were likely to be drafted in the NBA, in the event these players were cut in the preseason.[34] Some teams also used their picks for publicity: for example,Cheryl Miller, a female player who played forUSC in college, was selected by the Rockford Lightning with the 57th pick in the 1986 CBA draft;[35][36] in the 1994 CBA draft Mexican soccer playerJorge Campos was drafted by theMexico Aztecas, despite his ineligibility.[28] In 1997,Lamar Odom, then a highly recruited high school prospect, was given the opportunity to enter the CBA draft and choose the team he wanted to play for, reversing the traditional drafting process;[37] Odom, however, decided not to hire an agent and opted to play in college.[38]
CBA draft first overall picks
In the 1988-89 season every franchise had a salary cap of $80,000 for its entire roster.[39]
It was reported that in 1993 that thesalary cap was $130,000 for a 10-player active roster, while a top rookie could earn from $13,000 to $15,000. Seven years later, in 2000, the cap had increased to $220.000 for a 10-player roster, meaning that an average player would make roughly $22,000 a year.[40]
In 1949, the league selected an All-Star teamEPBL All Star Game against thePottsville Packers. It continued for many years until 31 December 1988, facing theRockford Lightning in the All-Star Game. A CBA All-Star team also played the Soviet Union on October 28, 1986, a team led byVladimir Tkachenko andSarunas Marculionis (Arvydas Sabonis did not play due to a heel injury). The CBA All-Stars lost 77-72 (Kenny Natt 16 pts,Billy Goodwin 12,Derrick Rowland 13Lowes Moore 10 - Tkachenko 18, Marculionis 18).[43]
The matches
CBA era (1978-2009).
| Season | Average |
|---|---|
| 1978-79 | 885 |
| 1979-80 | 841 |
| 1980-81 | 917 |
| 1981-82 | 943 |
| 1982-83 | 1,255 |
| 1983-84 | 1,397 |
| 1984-85 | 1,141 |
| 1985-86 | 1,555 |
| 1986-87 | 2,296 |
| 1987-88 | 2,738 |
| 1988-89 | 3,170 |
| 1989-90 | 2,896 |
| 1990-91 | 3,260 |
| 1991-92 | 3,435 |
| 1992-93 | 3,369 |
| 1993-94 | 3,667 |
| 1994-95 | 3,767 |
| 1995-96 | 3,336 |
| 1996-97 | 3,707 |
| 1997-98 | 3,780 |
| 1998-99 | 3,809 |
| 1999-00 | 3,304 |
| 2000-01 | 2,786 |
| 2001-02 | 2,373 |
| 2002-03 | 2,577 |
| 2003-04 | 2,454 |
| 2004-05 | 2,409 |
| 2005-06 | 2,426 |
| 2006-07 | |
| 2007-08 | |
| 2008-09 |
The commissioners of the CBA were:[44]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
