Showing posts with label basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basketball. Show all posts

27 February 2019

Defunct Basketball Team Names



The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional men's basketball league, currently consisting of 30 teams in North America (29 in the United States and one in Canada).

The league began in New York City in 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). It adopted the name National Basketball Association (NBA) at the start of the 1949–50 season when it absorbed the National Basketball League (NBL).

At some point we will have posted about all the NBA teams' name origins. Some of them are fairly obvious; some are not. But an interesting side note is the now defunct basketball teams and their name origins.

There have been 15 defunct NBA franchises.

One of those defunct teams and names is the Providence Steamrollers. They were a BAA team based in Providence, Rhode Island. They were one of the original eleven Basketball Association of America teams, and they posted an all-time record of 46–122 (.274) before folding after three seasons.

The Steamrollers still hold the dubious NBA record for the fewest games won in a season with six, in the 1947–48 season.

During the 1947–48 season, the Steamrollers' coach Nat Hickey activated himself as a player for one game two days before his 46th birthday, setting a still-standing record as the oldest player in NBA history.

The team took its name from the NFL franchise that was also called the Providence Steamrollers. They won the NFL championship in 1928 and are the last NFL champion to no longer be in the league. The Providence Steam Roller (also referred to as the Providence Steam Rollers, the Providence Steamroller and the Providence Steamrollers) were a football  team from 1925 to 1931. Providence was the first New England team to win an NFL championship. Most of their home games were played in the small 10,000-seat stadium that was built for bicycle races called the Cycledrome.

The Providence team was established in 1916 by two staffers at the Providence Journal - sports-editor Charles Coppen and part-time sports-writer Pearce Johnson. During halftime of one game, Charles Coppen heard a spectator remark that the opposing Providence team was "getting steam-rolled." He liked that remark so much that he named his team the Steam Roller.

As of this writing, the Steamrollers remain the last professional sports franchise from one of the Big Four leagues to be based in Rhode Island.
One defunct team whose name has survived is the Denver Nuggets. The original Nuggets joined the NBL for the 1948–49 season, and then joined the NBA after the merger for the 1949–50 season. The Nuggets were the first major professional sports franchise in Colorado, and the first NBA franchise west of the Mississippi.

In 1950, the Nuggets were one of seven teams, including Anderson Packers, Chicago Stags, Sheboygan Red Skins, St. Louis Bombers, Washington Capitols, Waterloo Hawks, that dropped out of the National Basketball Association altogether.

When the Denver Rockets of the American Basketball Association (ABA) joined the NBA, a contest was held in 1974 to give the team a new nickname since the NBA already had the Houston Rockets. The "Nuggets" name, which referenced Colorados days of gold mining for nuggets, was selected for the new team.

The current Denver Nuggets also started out in the same venue as the original Nuggets, the Denver Auditorium Arena, playing there from 1967 to 1975. They now play their home games at Pepsi Center, which they share with the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League (NLL).

26 July 2010

Utah Jazz

Original logo
Deron Williams Jersey: adidas Blue Replica #8 Utah Jazz Jersey

The Utah Jazz is a professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is currently a member of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The franchise began in 1974 as the New Orleans Jazz, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, but the team moved to Utah in 1979 after just five seasons.

2010 logo
In New Orleans, the Jazz had $5 million in losses over five years. Original owner Sam Battistone decided to move to Salt Lake City, even though it was a smaller market than New Orleans at the time.

After the move to Utah, the team and fans thought it was odd that they kept the name "Jazz" despite the fact that the state of Utah has little to do with the jazz scene. "What's next? The New Orleans Saints will move to Utah and become the Utah Saints?"  But, the name stuck.

Though Salt Lake City was not known for any jazz music culture, the team decided to keep the name, as well as the team's original colors of green, purple and gold (the colors of Mardi Gras). Some musicians were offended by the Jazz keeping the franchise name after moving from New Orleans, citing it as a metaphor for the theft of Jazz from its cultural roots.

Stockton to Malone: The Rise of the Utah Jazz

 The Story of the Utah Jazz (The NBA: a History of Hoops)
 Stockton to Malone: The Rise of the Utah Jazz

24 April 2010

Chicago Bulls

Chicago Bulls 1991 NBA Champions - Learning to Fly    Derrick Rose Jersey: adidas Black Replica #1 Chicago Bulls Jersey - Large    Upper Deck Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan NBA Wall Stars

Why is the basketball team called the Chicago BULLS?

It comes from Chicago's reputation as a meatpacking and stockyard city and the beef that comes from that industry.

NBA Dynasty Series - Chicago Bulls - The 1990s