| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | April 23, 1946 |
| Claim to fame | "The oldest professional basketball league in the World" |
| Country(ies) | United States |
| Continent | FIBA Americas (Americas) |
| Most recent champion(s) | Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry (3rd title) |
| Most titles | Allentown Jets Wilkes-Barre Barons (8 titles each) |
| Official website | www.CBAWorldHoops.com |
The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) was a professional men's basketball league in the United States, which has been on hiatus since the 2009 season.
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The Continental Basketball Association was a professional basketball minor league from 1946 to 2009. It billed itself as the "World's Oldest Pro Basketball League", since its founding on April 23, 1946, pre-dated (by two months) the founding of the National Basketball Association. The league's original name was the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League; it fielded six franchises – five in Pennsylvania ( Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Allentown, Lancaster, and Reading) – with a sixth team in New York ( Binghamtom, which moved in mid-season to Pottsville, Pennsylvania). In 1948, the league was renamed the Eastern Professional Basketball League. Over the years it would add franchises in several other Pennsylvania cities, including Williamsport, Scranton, and Sunbury, as well as teams in New Jersey ( Trenton, Camden, Asbury Park), Connecticut ( New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport), Delaware ( Wilmington) and Massachusetts ( Springfield).
For the 1970-71 season the league rebranded itself the Eastern Basketball Association, operating both as a professional northeastern regional league and as an unofficial feeder system to the NBA and ABA. After its expansion to Anchorage, Alaska in 1977, the league was renamed the Continental Basketball Association for the 1978-79 season. The CBA's first commissioner was Harry Rudolph (father of Mendy Rudolph, one of the first referees in the NBA). Coincidentally, 32 years later in 1977, Jim Drucker (son of Norm Drucker, another top NBA referee) began a 12-year association with the CBA as its deputy commissioner, commissioner (1978-86), general counsel and president of CBA Properties.
During Drucker's term the league expanded from 8 to 14 teams, landed its first national TV contract (with BET) and saw franchise values increase from $5,000 to $500,000. The league also instituted a series of 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. The league used this method to calculate division standings from its implementation in 1983 until the league's end in 2009.
Also during this time, the CBA created a series of spectacular (for that time) halftime promotions. The most successful was the "1 Million Dollar CBA Supershot". In an era where the typical basketball halftime promotion would feature a winning prize of less than $100, the CBA's Supershot (created in 1983) offered a grand prize of one million dollars 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 for the league in Sports Illustrated, the New York Times and The Sporting News. 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 one free throw. Two of fourteen contestants were successful. The next year, the league featured the "Easy Street Shootout". In that contest, 14 contestants were selected (one from each city), and the person making the longest shot was awarded a $1,000,000 zero-coupon bond. The winner was Don Mattingly (no relation to the New York Yankee baseball player), representing the Evansville (Indiana) Thunder. After the league's 1985 All-Star Game in Casper, 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 the paper airplane through the moon roof of a new Ford Thunderbird parked mid-court. Four fans were successful and a tie-breaker determined the winner, who drove home with the new $17,000 personal luxury car.
In 1984, 17 years before the television program American Idol made it common to find an "unknown" and make them a star, the league created the "CBA Sportscaster Contest" to select a color commentator for its weekly game of the week televised on BET. With tryouts in cities nationwide, the promotion gained the league national attention on the NBC Nightly News, Entertainment Tonight, in Sports Illustrated and other media.
During the 1946-47 Eastern League season, the Hazleton Mountaineers had three African-American players on their roster during the season – Bill Brown, Zack Clayton and John Isaacs. Isaacs previously played with an all-black touring squad (the Washington Bears), while Brown and Clayton were alumni of the Harlem Globetrotters. During the 1955-56 season, the Hazleton Hawks Eastern League team was the first professional league franchise with an all-black starting lineup: Tom Hemans, Jesse Arnelle, Fletcher Johnson, Sherman White and Floyd Lane.
Although the 1961-63 American Basketball League used a three-point scoring line, the Eastern League added a three-point line for its 1964-65 season. That year, Brendan McCann of the Allentown Jets led the league with 31 completed 3-pointers. Although three-point plays during the 1960s were few and far between, the Eastern League developed several scorers who used the three-point shot to their advantage.
After Darryl Dawkins shattered two basketball backboards during his 1979-80 NBA season, the CBA tested a collapsible hinged rim. Eventually other leagues converted their rims over to the collapsible hinged model, which is still in use today.
During the early 1980s, the CBA and NBA entered into an agreement whereby CBA players would be signed to 10-day NBA contracts (mostly to replace an injured player or to test a CBA prospect). Under the 10-day-contract rule, a player is signed at the pro rata league minimum salary for 10 days. If the NBA team liked the player, the team could sign him to a second 10-day contract. After the second 10-day contract expires, the team must either return the player to the CBA or sign him for the rest of the NBA regular season. Even though the CBA is no longer active, this 10-day contract rule still exists in the NBA to this day.
In 1999, the CBA's teams were purchased by an investment group led by former NBA star Isiah Thomas. The combined-ownership plan was unsuccessful and by 2001, the CBA had declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. Several of its teams briefly joined the now-defunct International Basketball League.
Below is a timeline of Thomas' ownership of the CBA:
In fall 2001, CBA and IBL teams merged with the International Basketball Association and purchased the assets of the defunct CBA (including its name, logo and records from the bankruptcy court) and resumed operations, calling itself the CBA. 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 - the Oklahoma Cavalry, the Rio Grande Valley Silverados and East Kentucky Miners; the Atlanta 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. The Pittsburgh Xplosion folded under unclear circumstances, and the league scheduled games against American Basketball Association (ABA) teams for the first month of the season to stay solvent. [1] The maneuver was not enough and on February 2 the league announced a halt to operations, turning a scheduled series between the Albany Patroons and Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry into the league-championship series.[2] Jim Coyne, league commissioner, said in June 2009 that only two of the league's teams committed to playing basketball the following year; the league would not play in 2010, instead going out of business.[3]
| Team | City | Arena | Founded |
| Albany Patroons | Albany, NY | Washington Avenue Armory | 1982 |
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 would send several players to the Eastern League for extra playing time, and for several seasons two Eastern League teams would play 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 in point-shaving gambling scandals during their college years (including Jack Molinas, Sherman White, Floyd Layne and Ed Roth). The Eastern League also signed 7-foot center Bill Spivey, the former University 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's Syracuse Nationals lost to the EPBL's Wilkes-Barre Barons at Wilkes-Barre's home court). Other EPBL-NBA exhibition matchups include an October 1959 contest in which the New York Knicks defeated the Allentown Jets 131-102 at Allentown; and a contest in April 1961, in which the Boston 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 though Ray 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's Detroit Pistons.
By the 1967-68 season, the Eastern League lost many of its players when the upstart American Basketball Association formed. Players such as Lavern "Jelly" Tart, Willie Somerset, Art Heyman and Walt 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 the ABA-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, filed a lawsuit against the NBA. The suit was settled and in exchange for the right to sign any player at any time, the NBA paid the CBA $115,000; it also paid the CBA $80,000 to help develop NBA referees at CBA games. NBA/CBA relations grew tense again in 1982, when the CBA added the Detroit Spirits franchise to their league roster. Since the Spirits played in the same city as the NBA's Pistons, the NBA did not renew its year-to-year agreement with the CBA. The CBA then began binding individual NBA teams to a form contract, permitting those teams to sign CBA players to 10-day contracts. The CBA player could sign a second 10-day contract; after the completion of the second 10-day contract, the NBA team would have to sign the player for the rest of the season or return him to the CBA. The CBA teams, in turn, would receive compensation for each 10-day contract. After one year, the NBA and CBA negotiated a league-wide agreement.
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 (including Tim Legler (Omaha Racers), and Mario Elie (Albany Patroons)). The CBA also sent qualified coaches to the NBA, including Phil Jackson (Albany Patroons), Bill Musselman (Tampa Bay Thrillers), Eric Musselman (Rapid City Thrillers), Flip Saunders (LaCrosse Catbirds) and George Karl (Montana Golden Nuggets). In 2002 the NBA formed its own minor league, the National Basketball Development League (the NBDL or "D-League"). At the end of the 2005–2006 season, three current and one expansion CBA franchise 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.
The CBA follows the same basketball rules as does the NBA and most other professional leagues. However, from 1978 through 1986, CBA commissioner Jim Drucker created several new rules to raise fan interest which were adopted by the league:
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