1) Golden State Warriors (Philadelphia, Oakland)
When the Warriors began play at the glitzy Chase Center in San Francisco in 2019, it was a notable shift from the franchise’s more nomadic and less glamorous past. They began in Philadelphia, a now basketball hotbed that then struggled to support an NBA franchise. Despite winning two championships in the league’s first decade, the Warriors headed out West in 1962, relocating to San Francisco. Well, close to it anyway, playing two seasons at the Cow Palace in nearby Daly City. They moved into San Francisco proper two years later but didn’t stay long, setting up shop across The Bay at the Oakland Coliseum starting in 1968. As they were still hosting some games in San Francisco, as well as other various other California locations as far south as San Diego, the team changed its name to Golden State Warriors in 1971. Even before they moved from Philly, the Warriors were notorious for playing neutral site games, most notably Hershey, PA being the site of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game.
2) Philadelphia 76ers (Syracuse)
Even though the Warriors had struggled financially there before leaving for California, it was still conventional wisdom in the early ’60s that Philadelphia deserved an NBA franchise. It had also become apparent that small and medium sized cities just didn’t have the built-in fan base to support teams as the league was expanding its business model. The Syracuse Nationals were the last small market team standing, having joined the NBA in 1949 as part of the BAA/NBL merger. Their financial success was directly tied to results on the court, reaching at least the Conference Finals in eight of their first 11 NBA seasons, and winning the title in 1955. Just as franchise legend Dolph Schayes was aging out of relevance in 1962, the Warriors’ move opened up an opportunity. Original owner Danny Biasone sold the Nationals to a pair of Philadelphia power brokers, one of whom was Wilt Chamberlain’s lawyer. They immediately relocated to Philadelphia and became the 76ers.
3) Los Angeles Clippers (Buffalo, San Diego)
Buffalo was the third and final upstate New York city to land an NBA franchise. The Rochester Royals had left for Cincinnati in 1957, followed by the Syracuse Nationals relocating to Philadelphia in 1963. Third time was decidedly not the charm. The Braves began play in 1970 and quickly built a contender around eventual league MVP Bob McAdoo. But behind the scenes, ownership was constantly battling for hosting priority in the newly built Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, creating an unbalanced schedule and deterring fan retention. When a move to Miami was blocked by a lawsuit from the city of Buffalo, owner John Brown took unprecedented measures, essentially trading the Braves to Irv Levin for the Celtics. Because attendance had dipped to the point where the Braves were able to break their lease with the arena, Levin was then able to move the franchise to San Diego and rename them the Clippers. He sold the franchise to Donald Sterling, who broke NBA protocol and relocated to Los Angeles in 1984.
4) Los Angeles Lakers (Minneapolis)
5) Utah Jazz (New Orleans)
Arguably the two most incongruous team names in major U.S. pro sports, the Lakers and Jazz have become such institutions that their joke monikers barely resonate anymore. Originally part of the NBL, the Lakers joined the NBA in 1948 and won five championships in their first six seasons. Bob Short purchased the franchise in the late ’50s with intentions of keeping it in Minnesota but was almost immediately overwhelmed by the financial drain. Inspired by the recently departed Brooklyn Dodgers, he moved the team to Los Angeles, becoming the first NBA franchise in California. The Jazz also started life in a city that has since succeeded with a different team. As the New Orleans Jazz, they had immediate arena issues, playing in numerous stadiums around the area and spending an entire month on the road during Mardi Gras. To make matters worse, the Jazz were a joke on the court, failing to build around their oft-injured, malcontent star Pete Maravich. They moved to Salt Lake City in 1979 and the Jazz named followed. Owner Sam Battistone supposedly wanted to rename them the Utah Stars in honor of the former ABA franchise in the city, but feared a lawsuit from a local hockey team so he stuck with Jazz.
6) Memphis Grizzlies (Vancouver)
Though the city of Vancouver failed to fully embrace pro basketball, the fans deserve only some of the blame for the franchise’s relocation to Memphis. The problems started with original owner Arthur Griffiths, who was quickly bled dry by cost overruns on the Rogers Arena and had to sell the franchise before they even began play. New owner John McCaw initially promised to keep the team in Vancouver but considered his hand forced by the late ’90s collapse of the Canadian dollar and decreased attendance figures after the 1998 lockout. A sale and subsequent move to St. Louis was scuttled by the league office in 1999 but two years later David Stern relented. New owner Michael Heisley took the team to Memphis in the first NBA franchise relocation in 16 years, a fact that Stern considered one of the biggest failures of his commissionership. Vancouver is still bandied about as a potential landing place for an NBA relocation or expansion, and reportedly came close to landing the Kings in 2012.
7) Washington Wizards (Chicago, Baltimore, Landover)
Something Chicago and Baltimore have in common: Two failed NBA endeavors. A franchise called the Chicago Stags reached the inaugural NBA Finals in 1947 but folded just three years later. The Chicago Packers were then added in 1961 as the NBA’s first expansion franchise, but struggled immensely and left the city after just two seasons, heading East and renaming themselves the Baltimore Bullets. The moniker was chosen in honor of the NBA team which won the 1948 title and then folded in 1955, but the franchises had no technical connection otherwise. Turns out that Baltimore was still a tough sell as well, and majority owner Abe Pollin soon after commissioned a new arena 30 miles south in the D.C. suburb of Landover, Maryland. They rebranded as the Capital Bullets starting in 1973, changed it a year later to Washington Bullets, but didn’t move into D.C. proper until 1997, with the opening of their current home, the Capital One Arena (then the MCI Center).
8) Brooklyn Nets (Teaneck, Long Island, Piscataway, East Rutherford, Newark)
Joining the NBA from the ABA was hard enough for the Nets in 1976, but contending in the new league became near impossible when they were forced to pay $4.8 million to the Knicks for “infringing” on New York. It was a familiar situation for the Nets, who intended to begin play in the ABA as the New York Americans in 1967 but were forced out of their Manhattan home by the Knicks before the season even started. They initially took the floor as the New Jersey Americans in Teaneck, then later found a stable home in Long Island. The Nets remained there for their first NBA season before returning to their roots in Jersey in 1977, first in Piscataway on the campus of Rutgers, then 60 miles north to East Rutherford in 1981. When the franchise was sold to Bruce Ratner in 2005, he immediately announced plans to build a new arena in Brooklyn. It took seven years, multiple lawsuits, and a two-year stopover in Newark to get there, but the Brooklyn Nets finally did take the court in ’12-’13.
9) Atlanta Hawks (Moline, Milwaukee, St. Louis)
Even before they joined the NBA in 1949 as part of the NBL merger, the Hawks had already moved and changed names once. They started as the Buffalo Bison in 1946 in the NBL before moving to Illinois and becoming the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. “Tri-Cities” in this context referred to the cities of Moline, Rock Island, and Davenport, which sit along the Illinois/Iowa border. They moved (supposedly at the league’s behest) to Milwaukee in 1951 and shortened their name to Hawks, as Blackhawks was a specific nod to the Native American history of the tri-cities area. Milwaukee fans were unimpressed by the Hawks finishing in dead last for four straight seasons and ticket sales reflected it. They moved again in 1955 to St. Louis, chosen by owner Ben Kerner when a neutral site game in the city drew huge crowds. 13 years, four NBA Finals appearances, and one championship (in 1958) later, the Hawks were on the move again, becoming the first NBA team in the U.S. South with a 1968 relocation to Atlanta.
10) New Orleans Pelicans (Charlotte, Oklahoma City)
11) Oklahoma City Thunder (Seattle)
According to official NBA records, the Pelicans has always resided in New Orleans but the truth is trickier. They were originally the Charlotte Hornets, who started play in 1988 and quickly struggled financially due to mismanagement from owner George Shinn. Instead of selling, Shinn moved the team to New Orleans in 2002, where the returns were initially successful until Hurricane Katrina threw everything into chaos. They were forced to temporarily set up shop in Oklahoma City and did so successfully, which unfortunately opened up the door for the SuperSonics to leave Seattle and relocate to OKC in 2008. Shinn finally relinquished the Hornets in 2010 to the league office, which in turn sold them to Tom Benson. Sensing a need to rebrand, Benson changed the name to Pelicans, a bird indigenous to the area. The Charlotte Bobcats, in turn, reclaimed the named Hornets. The NBA then reconstituted the Pelicans as an expansion franchise that started in 2002 and stitched together the various Charlotte franchise iterations as one. Will they make a similar move if Seattle gets a new team? For now, the Thunder are technically an extension of Sonics history, though the 1979 championship banner and trophy remain in Seattle.
12) Detroit Pistons (Fort Wayne)
Long before the Pistons, Detroit’s first NBA franchise was the Falcons, who competed in the inaugural ’46-’47 season before folding. The second attempt at an NBA franchise in the Motor City was obviously much more successful, with the Pistons winning three championships and recently celebrating their 60th season in the city. It all started in Fort Wayne, where auto parts magnate Fred Zollner started a works team to take on other automative Midwest titans like Goodyear and Chevrolet. The Pistons started play in the NBL in 1941 and won two championships before moving on to the NBA in 1948. Though they remained successful, reaching back-to-back NBA Finals in 1955 and 1956, it quickly became apparent that Fort Wayne wasn’t big enough to support a major pro franchise. Luckily Detroit, the world capital of auto manufacturing, was still a perfect place to retain the name Pistons. Fort Wayne has never received another NBA team but does now host the Mad Ants, a G-League affiliate of the Pacers.
13) San Antonio Spurs (Dallas)
One of the original 11 ABA franchises in ’67-’68, the Dallas Chaparrals became the first major pro basketball team in Texas, predating the Houston Rockets by four years. Though they were only competing with the Cowboys for pro sports dominance in the city at the time, the Chaparrals struggled to draw fans, and ownership attempted to rebrand as a team representing all of Texas, scheduling games all across the state. One the sites that occasionally hosted contests was San Antonio, where a group of businessmen teamed up in 1973 to purchase the team and permanently place them in the city. Initially called the Gunslingers, their name was changed to San Antonio Spurs right before the ’73-’74 ABA season and though they never won a league title, the Spurs were one of four franchises that joined the NBA after the 1976 merger. Dallas would soon after get its own NBA franchise in 1980, when the Mavericks joined as an expansion team.
14) Sacramento Kings (Rochester, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha)
After 35 seasons and counting in Sacramento, the Kings have no NBA Finals appearances to show for it, let alone a title. Casual fans may assume they’re a relatively recent expansion franchise that’s failed to ever build a contender but they are in actuality the oldest in the NBA, and were once a powerhouse team. Originally a semi-pro works team called the Rochester Seagrams, as in Seagram’s whiskey, they started barnstorming in 1923. They changed the name to Rochester Royals in 1945 upon joining the NBL, and reached the Finals three times but failed to win a title. In 1948 they joined the NBA and soon after won a championship in 1951 but with the NBA shifting away from small markets, the Royals moved to Cincinnati in 1957. They moved again to Kansas City in 1972 and renamed themselves the Kings, splitting home games with Omaha while waiting for the new Kemper Arena to be built. There were some successes in Kansas City, but fan interest waned quickly and new owners from Sacramento bought the team in 1983. Two years later, when lease was up on Kemper Arena, they moved to the Golden State. When the Kings were back up for sale in 2013, there were rumors they might move yet again to Anaheim, Seattle, or Norfolk, but Silicon Valley billionaire Vivek Ranadive purchased the team and vowed to keep it in Sacramento.
Next up in Geography and Relocation
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