NBA

The National Basketball Association is a professional basketball league, currently comprising 30 franchises in the United States and Canada. The NBA is widely recognized as the best league in the world, featuring the top American and international players and paying the highest salaries.

The NBA was founded shortly after World War II in 1946 and originally featured 11 teams. Following the introduction of the 24-second shot-clock, the came sped up considerably and –partly due to a number of betting scandals in college basketball – quickly gained in popularity. From the second half of the 1950s until the late 1960s, the League was dominated by the Boston Celtics who won 11 titles in 13 years led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy. The 1970s was a decade of turmoil with no team able to separate itself from the pack and a new professional league – the ABA – also vying for attention. The 1980s saw a revival of NBA basketball with Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers and Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics winning eight of ten titles and enjoying a fierce rivalry. The 1990s belonged without a doubt to the Chicago Bulls who won six rings in a span of eight years with Michael Jordan becoming a global icon in the process. In the new millennium, Shaquille O’Neal’s Lakers and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs are the most successful franchises.

A group of young stars headed by the once-in-a-generation talent LeBron James has begun to re-establish the NBA’s appeal which had dipped after Jordan’s retirement. The last decade also saw the internationalisation of the NBA game with more and more international stars coming to the U.S. Yao Ming’s rise to stardom has attracted millions of Chinese to the NBA and Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki as MVP and France’s Tony Parker as Finals MVP in 2007 show that the world has caught up with America.

In terms of popularity, the NBA does not only compete against rival professional leagues like the NFL for American Football or the MLB for baseball, but faces tough competition even in the basketball community itself. Many viewers disapprove of the astronomic salaries earned by NBA players and accuse them of not playing hard every game – in contrast to unpaid student-athletes in college basketball.

Created by: Ole