All about the history of the NBA

By Salam Batha, Staff Reporter, The P

The National Basketball Association, or NBA, is an American professional basketball league with one team from Canada (Toronto Raptors). There are several leagues in Europe and Asia, but the National Basketball Association is widely regarded as one of the world’s best. The NBA is a 70-year-old organization that was founded on innovation. In June 1946, Boston Garden owner Walter Brown realized in New York City that major ice hockey arenas that were empty most nights could be used to host basketball games. Today, the NBA is the most innovative league in sports, helping drive the growth of the game around the globe. The NBA playoffs are a postseason tournament held to determine the league champion. The NBA playoffs are an annual best-of-seven elimination tournament held after the league’s regular season and its preliminary postseason tournament, the NBA Play-In Tournament. All Standard leagues play with a fixed 19-week regular season. After that, the playoffs begin. The top six teams in each conference (East and West), ranked in order by win–loss records, qualify for the playoffs.

The Boston Celtics are the greatest franchise in NBA history, owing largely to the team’s dominance in the 1960s. During the 1964-65 NBA season, the Celtics were the epitome of greatness. The Celtics finished the regular season with a 62-18 record, led by head coach Red Auerbach, legendary center Bill Russell (who averaged an astounding 24.1 RPG), shooting guard Sam Jones (who averaged a team-high 25.9 PPG), and a young John Havlicek (who averaged 18.3 PPG). In NBA history, the Boston Celtics have achieved the most NBA championships, having 17 championships. In 1983, the Detroit Pistons beat the Denver Nuggets 186-184 in triple overtime. It was, and remains, the highest-scoring game in NBA history. The Charlotte Hornets had the most assists by a team in 2021-22, with 2,302 assists. The Toronto Raptors have blocked the most shots by a team in a game, with 23 blocks against the Hawks on March 23, 2001.  In Wilt Chamberlain’s 14 year career, he has had a total of 23,924 rebounds. Which is a record that sensibly could never be broken. The Nigerian, Hakeem Olajuwon recorded 3,830 blocks in his career, the most of all time. Second on the list is Dikembe Mutombo, with 3,289. Chris Paul has 10,977 career assists, ranking third all-time. In second place is Jason Kidd, with 12,091. And at the top, well above the others, is John Stockton, with 15,806 assists. John Stockton is known to be the best passer of all time. John Stockton had an amazing talent for stealing the ball. In addition to his assist record, Stockton also has a record for the most steals of all time, with 3265 steals. Stephen Curry holds the record for the most three point shots made, currently he has 3,117 three-pointers, but he will continue to add and will likely finish his career with around 3,500 threes. LeBron James holds an unbreakable record, as he has scored 7,361 points in the playoffs, LeBron has made the playoffs 15 times. Kevin Durant is the closest to LeBron James, with 4,559 points. Michael Jordan was a 10-time scoring champion, more than any other player in history. His unbelievable records of averaging 30.1 points per game. Kareem Abduljabaar, has scored 38,387 points, which is the record for the most points scored by a player. At age 22, Rose was and still is named the youngest MVP in NBA history.

The total value of NBA teams in 2022 is $74.4 billion. Despite the fact that the Covid-19 outbreak reduced the league’s revenue by 19%, the value of NBA teams increased by 11.7%. In 2022, the six-game series averaged 12,402,000 viewers, making it the most-watched NBA Finals in three years. The highest rated and most watched NBA Finals series was the 1998 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz, which averaged an 18.7 rating / 33 share and 29.04 million viewers on NBC.

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