The Brooklyn Nets are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The Nets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games at Barclays Center. They are one of two NBA teams located in New York City; the other is the New York Knicks. The club was established in 1967 as a charter franchise of the NBA's rival league, the American Basketball Association (ABA). They played in New Jersey as the New Jersey Americans during their first season, before relocating to Long Island, New York, in 1968 and changing their name to the New York Nets. During this time, the Nets won two ABA championships. In 1976, the ABA merged with the NBA, and the Nets were absorbed into the NBA along with three other ABA teams, all of whom remain in the league to this day.
Kevin Joseph Aloysius "Chuck" Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. He is one of only 13 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played in both Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. With a 40-year film and television career, he is best known for his five-year role as Lucas McCain in the highly rated ABC series The Rifleman (1958–63).
The American Basketball League (ABL) was an early professional basketball league. During six seasons from 1925–26 to 1930–31, the ABL was the first attempt to create a major professional basketball league in the United States.
The Philadelphia Sphas, also stylized SPHAs or SPHAS, were an American basketball franchise that existed in professional, semi-professional, and exhibition forms. They played their home games in the ballroom of Philadelphia's Broadwood Hotel. The team's name is an acronym, derived from South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, and the team's players, at least in its earlier years, were primarily Jewish. Future Philadelphia Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb founded the team as an amateur group shortly after he and some close friends graduated from high school, and it later became a professional team. The Sphas played in many leagues around the Philadelphia area and the East Coast, most notably the Eastern Basketball League and the American Basketball League (ABL), between which the Sphas won 10 championships. The Sphas won a total of 12 championships, their first two coming from the early Philadelphia League and Philadelphia Basket Ball League.
The Original Celtics were a barnstorming professional American basketball team. At various times in their existence, the team played in the American Basketball League, the Eastern Basketball League and the Metropolitan Basketball League. The team has no relation to the NBA Boston Celtics, other than as an indirect inspiration. The franchise as a whole was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959.
Joseph R. Brennan was an American professional basketball player. He is mostly known for his time with the Brooklyn Visitations, which he joined in 1919 and led to three ABL championships. After his playing career, he coached St. Francis College in Brooklyn for 7 seasons from 1941 to 1948. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975.
Oscar Benjamin "Ossie" Schectman was an American professional basketball player. He is credited with having scored the first basket in the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which would later become the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The 1976–77 NBA season was the 31st season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Portland Trail Blazers winning their first NBA Championship in franchise history, beating the Philadelphia 76ers in six games in the NBA Finals.
Sports in the New York metropolitan area have a long and distinguished history.
Barney Sedran was an American professional basketball player in the 1910s and 1920s who is in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
John William Isaacs was a Panamanian-American professional basketball player. Born in Panama but raised in New York City, he was a member of the New York Renaissance, the Washington Bears, and various other teams.
The Brooklyn Visitations were an American basketball team based in Brooklyn, New York City, that was a member of the Metropolitan Basketball League and the American Basketball League. The Visitations' home court was Prospect Hall, where fans were made to check their guns at the door.
The New York Jewels were an American basketball team based in New York, New York that was a member of the American Basketball League.
Brooklyn has an active sports scene that spans over a hundred years. The borough is home of the Barclays Center and the National Basketball Association's Brooklyn Nets, and for many decades was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers of Major League Baseball before they moved to Los Angeles in 1957.
Jules Bender was an American collegiate and professional basketball player. He was an All-American at Long Island University, leading the Blackbirds to a 103–6 record over his career.
Bernard Fliegel was an American standout basketball player for the City College of New York (CCNY) during the late 1930s, and later, a professional in the American Basketball League. As a senior in 1937–38, he received the Haggerty Award, given to the best men's basketball player in the New York City metropolitan area, and remains the only winner from CCNY in the award's long history.
Morris C. Spahn was an American basketball player.
The St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers men's basketball program represented St. Francis College (SFC) in intercollegiate men's basketball up through the 2022–23 season, which was its last in intercollegiate competition. The team was a member of the Division I Northeast Conference. From late November 2022 until March 2023, the Terriers played home games at the Activity Resource Center at Pratt Institute in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. Through the 2021–22 season, they had played in the Daniel J. Lynch '38 Gym in the Generoso Pope Athletic Complex, located on SFC's former Brooklyn Heights campus. However, after the 2021–22 school year, SFC closed its Brooklyn Heights campus to move to a new campus on Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn. With the new campus lacking any athletic facilities, SFC arranged to use other nearby venues on at least a short-term basis. The Terriers' final game at the Pope Athletic Complex was held on November 19, 2022. The Terriers have also hosted home games at Madison Square Garden and at the Barclays Center. On March 20, 2023, St. Francis College announced that it would end intercollegiate athletics following the spring semester, making the 2022–23 season the program's final season in existence.
The Long Island Nets are an American professional basketball team in the NBA G League based in Uniondale, New York, and are affiliated with the Brooklyn Nets. The team plays its home games at the Nassau Coliseum in Nassau County, New York. The Nets became the twelfth Development League team to be owned by an NBA team when it was announced in 2015.
Morris "Tubby" Raskin was an American basketball player and coach. He played for the Brooklyn Arcadians in the American Basketball League (ABL). He later coached the men's basketball team at Brooklyn College, the Hartford Hurricanes in the ABL, the Israel men's national basketball team for Israel at the 1952 Summer Olympics, and the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal in the 1953 Maccabiah Games.
