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The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) is a professional men's basketball league in the United States. It is affiliated with USA Basketball, the sport's governing body in the United States. more...

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History

The CBA can date its origins back to April 23, 1946, when it was called the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League (1946-47). The league began with six franchises - five in Pennsylvania (Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Allentown, Lancaster and Reading) and a sixth team in New York (Binghamton, who later moved in mid-season to Pottsville, Pa.). In 1948, it was renamed the Eastern Professional Basketball League. Over the years, it would later add franchises in several other Pennsylvania cities, including Williamsport, Scranton and Sunbury, as well as place teams in New Jersey (Trenton, Camden, Asbury Park), Connecticut (New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport), Delaware (Wilmington) and Massachusetts (Springfield).

The Eastern League continued as a centralized minor league until the 1970-71 season, when the league rebranded itself as the Eastern Basketball Association, operating both as a professional Northeastern League and as a feeder system to the NBA and ABA. On June 1, 1978, the league again rebranded itself, this time as the Continental Basketball Association, the name it uses to this day. Tracing the league's operation back to its Pennsylvania origins, the CBA is the oldest professional basketball league in the world (the NBA's predecessor, the Basketball Association of America, began operations in June 1946, two months after the CBA was formed). The CBA's first commissioner was Harry Rudolph, the father of Mendy Rudolph, one of the first great referees of the National Basketball Association.

Notable CBA accomplishments

Integration

In the 1946-47 Eastern League season, the Hazleton Mountaineers had three African-American players on their roster during the season - Bill Brown, Zack Clayton and John Isaacs. Isaacs previously played with an all-black touring squad, the Washington Bears, while Brown and Clayton were alumni of the Harlem Globetrotters.

In the 1955-56 season, the Hazleton Hawks Eastern League team were the first professional league franchise with an all-black starting lineup: Tom Hemans, Jess Arnelle, Fletcher Johnson, Sherman White and Floyd Lane.

Three-point line

Although the 1961-63 American Basketball League used a three-point scoring line, the Eastern League added a three-point line for the 1964-65 season. In that year, Brendan McCann of the Allentown Jets led the league with 31 completed 3-pointers for the year. Although three-point plays in the 1960s were very few and far-between, the Eastern League did develop several scorers who used the three-point shot to their advantage, including sharpshooters Stan Pawlak and Rich Cornwall.

Read more at Wikipedia.org