1) National Basketball League (NBL), 1937-1949

Long before shoe contracts, MVP awards, national TV games, mascots, All-Star Games, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, or anything related to the NBA, there was the National Basketball League. Founded in 1937 as a collection of what were previously essentially semi-pro, corporate-sponsored, barnstormer teams, the NBL preceded the NCAA championship by two years and the NBA by a full decade. It was mostly based in the Midwest, often in smaller markets (the Oshkosh All-Stars won the first five titles, defeating teams from Akron, Fort Wayne, and Sheboygan) but undeniably had all the top pro talent in the country, like Leroy “Cowboy” Edwards and Bobby McDermott. Just as the BAA was getting started after the end of World War II, the NBL was expanding, adding key franchises like the Minneapolis Lakers, Syracuse Nationals, and Rochester Royals, plus superstar players like George Mikan and Bob Davies. Despite still attracting the best talent, the NBL struggled financially against the BAA, whose owners had bigger markets, better venues, and, for the most part, income flowing in already from their hockey franchises. Teams started to flee the NBL for the BAA in 1947, and two years later the league folded altogether, merging with the BAA to form the NBA. Current NBA franchises that started in the NBL are the Lakers (then Minneapolis), 76ers (Syracuse Nationals), Pistons (Fort Wayne), Kings (Rochester Royals), and Hawks (Buffalo Bisons). Post merger, a former NBL franchise won the first eight NBA titles, essentially codifying the league’s talent superiority. The NBL is also notable for being the first pro basketball league to allow Black players, as the NBA color barrier wasn’t broken until after the merger.

2) American Basketball League (ABL), original, 1925-1955

Though the NBL is credited as the first legitimate pre-war pro basketball league, the ABL technically predated it by over a decade. It was founded by Joseph Carr, who was an early president of the NFL, and team owners included other football legends like George Halas (Chicago Bruins) and George Preston Marshall (Washington Palace Five). The league struggled to keep any kind of consistency, and semi-pro and barnstorming teams tended to come and go, including the legendary Original Celtics and the Philadelphia SPHAs. When the 1929 stock market crash caused attendance to crater, the league suspended operations for two years before coming back with a new alignment. The second iteration of the original ABL was less popular and successful, and contracted to just the East Coast, but managed to last for 24 seasons before finally folding. It was a direct rival to the NBA in the final few years, and ABL teams were able to draw away some of the talent that either couldn’t quite make it in the NBA or were blackballed from the league for various reasons. One notable franchise in the later years was the Baltimore Bullets, who won two ABL titles before leaving for the BAA, where they won another title before finally folding in 1955. The ABL was also the first pro league to utilize lane violations, foul outs, and double-dribble calls.

3) American Basketball League (ABL), second version, 1961-1963

Though he had no official ties with the NBA, Abe Saperstein was arguably the most powerful person in professional basketball in the ’50s. His Harlem Globetrotters consistently outdrew NBA games and the league practically begged Saperstein to schedule exhibition contests with his entertaining crew as doubleheaders with NBA games to juice interest. In return, Saperstein felt he deserved an NBA franchise of his own, in Los Angeles. Inspired by the league spurning him (allowing the Minneapolis Lakers to move to L.A. instead of expanding) and the success of the new AFL in football, he opted to instead start his own renegade basketball league. Saperstein poached eight teams from either the AAU ranks, or the National Industrial Basketball League, including the Cleveland Pipers, owned by George Steinbrenner. Following the lead of Al Davis and the AFL, Saperstein and the ABL attempted to make a splash with flashy coaching hires, like Celtics legend Bill Sharman, and the first black pro coach, John McLendon, signing aging and/or retired NBA stars like George Yardley, and stealing away NBA-level talent that was either blackballed from the league (like Connie Hawkins), disillusioned by the league’s racism (like Bill Bridges) or looking for leverage in a contract dispute (Jerry Lucas). It was also the first pro league to sanction the three-point line and the wider foul line, which were both later adopted by the NBA. Though the ABL had some success, the gambles didn’t pay off as the U.S. ultimately proved incapable of supporting two major pro basketball leagues. Ironically, it was the centerpiece franchise, Saperstein’s Los Angeles Jets, that struggled the most, while teams in Hawaii, Kansas City, and Cleveland did surprisingly well. Halfway through the second season, the league folded, with the Kansas City Steers, in first place at the time, declared as the champions. 

4) World Basketball League (WBL), 1988-1992

If you can’t challenge the NBA on pure basketball talent, then a hook is necessary to draw in fans. The WBL had a unique such novelty in 1988: only players 6’5″ and shorter need apply. Appropriately, the 6’1″ Bob Cousy was one of the founders and the league started play in the summer of 1988 with six teams across the U.S. and Canada, including one in Las Vegas, which won the inaugural championship. All told, there were 18 WBL franchises in the five-year history of the league, plus a group of international clubs from Europe and the Caribbean that would face off in tournaments against the standard WBL teams and have their contests count in the standings as a composite “international teams.” Despite the strange height rule, many notable NBA players did get their start in the WBL, including John Starks, Scott Brooks, Mario Elie (who was named 1st-Team All-WBL for the Youngstown Pride), and Tim Legler. The height restriction was changed to 6’7″ for the 1992 season but by then the league’s financial woes were compounded when Youngstown owner Michael Monus was found to have been embezzling money from his drugstore empire to fund the WBL. The league was forced to disband and Monus eventually served 10 years in prison.

5) Continental Basketball Association (CBA), 1946-2009

Originally known as the Eastern League and founded two months before the BAA, the CBA survived legal challenges from the NBA, player drain from the ABA, and almost constant franchise turnover and relocation. But it just couldn’t endure being owned by Isiah Thomas. It was a disappointing end for a league that lasted over six decades despite an inauspicious start. Featuring only teams from Pennsylvania in its first few seasons, the Eastern League eventually branched out across the East Coast in the mid ’50s. It was a disrupter of NBA talent from the beginning, bringing in players black balled from the more prestigious league either due to gambling (like Jack Molinas), lack of college play, or their skin color (the CBA broke the color barrier before the NBA, and had the first all-Black starting lineup for an integrated pro basketball team in 1955). Nevertheless, the NBA would often stage doubleheaders with the Eastern League, and the secondary association thrived until the late ’60s, when the ABA started poaching talent. New commissioner Jim Drucker rebranded it as the CBA in 1978 and really started expanding across the country, including teams in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The ’80s were a boon time for the league in general, with a national TV contract and Drucker constantly innovating with new regulations (like breakaway backboards, a points system for the standings, and “clear path” fouls) and promotions (the league made especially clever use of halftime fan contests). With the league starting to struggle again in the late ’90s, an investment group led by Thomas swooped in and the Pistons Hall of Famer installed himself as commissioner and ran the CBA into the ground with a series of poor business and personnel decisions. He was ousted after just two years but the damage was done, with the CBA forced to merge with the International Basketball League and the NBA establishing the D-League to take over as its biggest talent funnel. The CBA trudged along until 2009, when it was forced to fold mid-season. 

6) National Industrial Basketball League (NIBL), 1947-1961

As the NBL dissolved in the late ’40s and was eventually swallowed up by the BAA, to form the NBA, it was inevitable that numerous teams would left out of the new pro basketball hegemony. For the most successful NBL franchises that never made it to the NBA, a new league of their own seemed like the best recourse. The National Industrial Basketball League (NIBL) was formed in 1947 to cater to corporate sponsored AAU and NBL franchises that wanted to technically remain amateurs. For owners, the semi-pro league allowed them to keep their company names plastered on team jerseys, as corporate team names were not allowed in the NBA. Such was the case for the Fort Wayne General Electrics, Akron Goodyear Wingfoots, Phillips 66ers, and numerous others. The main selling point for the players was that they could retain their amateur status and remain eligible for Olympics participation (Olympics teams back then pulled more from AAU player pools than from NCAA ones). An NIBL contract was also technically a more stable job than an NBA one in the late ’40s and early ’50s, as players were guaranteed a position within the sponsoring company. These factors did convince numerous top flight players to join the NIBL over the NBA for a while, most notably future Hall of Famers George Yardley, Vern Mikkelsen, and Gus Johnson. But this waned in the mid ’50s when the NBA quickly grew in popularity and player salaries rose along with it. The NIBL folded in the early ’60s, with most remaining franchises joining one of two newly formed leagues: either the National Alliance of Basketball Leagues or the American Basketball League. The NIBL ultimately handed out 14 championships, 10 of them to the Phillips 66ers, who were based out of Bartlesville, Oklahoma and run by the Phillips Petroleum Company. Its final title was won in 1961 by the Cleveland Pipers, whose owner, George Steinbrenner, then took the team to the ABL and attempted to steal Dick Barnett from the NBA.

7) National Professional Basketball League (NPBL), 1950-1951

When the BAA and NBL merged in 1949, 17 teams were part of the newly formed NBA, but six of them folded at season’s end. Two of those franchises closed up shop completely due to financial issues but four of them were simply rejected from the NBA for playing in markets considered too small (supposedly at the behest of the Knicks, Warriors, and Celtics owners, who preferred not to have to travel to these small cities). The owners of the Anderson Packers, Sheboygan Redskins, Denver Nuggets, and Waterloo Hawks responded by starting their own National Professional Basketball League (NPBL). To fill out the league and raise their public profile, they added four more charter teams in the larger Midwest markets of Louisville, Grand Rapids, St. Paul, and Kansas City. NPBL play started in November of 1950 and logistical and financial issues were immediately apparent. Scheduling was a major issue, with teams spending weeks playing nothing but home games or road games. The former NBA franchises had a major competitive advantage over the charter teams, causing many games to end in blowouts. St. Paul, Grand Rapids, and Kansas City were hurt financially by virtue of struggling in the standings, and all folded before the end of the calendar year when they could no longer afford rent on their arenas or the salaries of their players (the last straw for the Grand Rapids Hornets was when their team bus crashed on the way to a game, injuring several players). Desperate to keep things going, the core NPBL teams recruited several other franchises to join over the course of the season, including a bible school-sponsored team from Evansville, Illinois called the Agogans. With the league down to just four teams by the end of February, they scrapped a planned postseason and both Sheboygan and Waterloo claimed themselves as champions. It was a sad end especially for the Sheboygan Red Skins, who had a long successful history in the barnstorming ranks and the NBL. Their owner attempted to start another new league in 1951 but failed to get enough funding to get things off the ground. After one year of independent play, returning to their barnstorming roots, the Red Skins discontinued operations in 1952.

8) American Basketball Association (ABA), 1967-1976

15 years after its formation as a merger of the BAA and NBL, the NBA had grown exponentially in the public sphere by the mid ’60s, but still seemed vulnerable enough for a rival league to challenge it. NBA games were rarely on national TV, the league was still limited to just eight franchises in the traditional biggest cities, and the game was perceived as already growing stale. Enter the American Basketball Association (ABA), a loose consortium of upstart owners emboldened by the success of the American Football League. Their stated goal from the beginning was a merger with the NBA but along the way they changed basketball forever. ABA innovations include the three-pointer, the slam dunk contest, early entry draft eligibility, and pro basketball franchises in cities like New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Memphis, Houston, Dallas, and Miami long before the NBA was ever present there. Though the ABA did draw some decent players early on, most notably Rick Barry, it obviously couldn’t compete with the NBA in terms of overall talent. When lawsuits against the NBA didn’t improve the situation, the ABA got more creative in its talent recruitment, drawing in players like Moses Malone, Julius Erving, George McGinnis, and Spencer Haywood whom the NBA had blackballed or overlooked due to archaic eligibility rules or latent racism in the scouting process. The ABA finally did get its merger in 1976, with four franchises – the Nets, Spurs, Nuggets, and Pacers – joining the NBA.