Customer Reviews

The National Basketball League: A History, 1935-1949

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This book gives a very detailed review of the NBL from its birth in the 1930s to its merger with the BAA in the late 1940s. How the league grew, the players, the teams, the rules changes, the financial aspects, and, most specifically, the games, were all covered in great detail. Read about the season ending NBL tournament, the world professional tournament in Chicago, the advent of inter-league games with the financially troubled BAA, and individual players. The real tragedy is that while the NBL was populated with both white and black players over the years, the late-arriving BAA was an exclusive "white boys league". When the two merged into what became the NBA, the NBL's progressive posture on race was and still is largely ignored by today's NBA. The author does a commendable job in researching and describing the "ins and outs" over those two decades of professional basketball.

If you know the players, you know what pioneers they were in an age BEFORE inflated salaries and egos. It was all about basketball, because there was little money to be made. Why are some of the kingpins (e.g., Leroy "Lefty" Edwards) not in the Naismith Hall of Fame? These and many more issues are raised by the author that make one long for the days when basketball was basketball. Needless to say, I highly recommend this book of basketball history.