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The National Basketball League (NBL) was a professional basketball league in the United States. Established in 1935 as the Midwest Basketball Conference , it changed its name to the NBL in 1937. After the 1948–49 season, its twelfth, it merged with the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to form the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The Detroit Gems were an American professional basketball team based in Detroit, Michigan. It played one season, 1946–47, in the Western Division of the National Basketball League , [ 1 ] a predecessor organization to the National Basketball Association .
The club would turn professional in 1941 as a member of the National Basketball League (NBL), where they won two NBL championships (1944 and 1945). The Pistons later joined the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1948. The NBL and BAA merged to become the NBA in 1949, and the Pistons became part of the merged league.
Fred Zollner (January 22, 1901 – June 21, 1982), nicknamed "Mr. Pro Basketball", was the founder and owner, along with his sister Janet, of the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons (now the Detroit Pistons) and a key figure in the merger of National Basketball League (NBL) and Basketball Association of America (BAA) into the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1949.
The franchise was founded in 1946 as the Detroit Gems, led by founder/owner C. King Boring and his business partner Maurice Winston, and played in the National Basketball League (NBL) during the 1946–47 season where it finished last in the league with only 4 wins in 44 games.
When the BAA was founded, there were two established professional leagues in the United States: the American Basketball League (ABL) in the East, founded 1925, and the National Basketball League (NBL) in Midwestern industrial cities, founded 1937. However, most of the ABL and NBL teams played in small arenas, and in some cases even ballrooms or ...
The Lakers began in 1947 when Ben Berger and Morris Chalfen bought the Detroit Gems of the National Basketball League for $15,000 and relocated it to Minneapolis and renamed it the Lakers. They hired a general manager, Max Winter , and a coach, John Kundla , then began the hunt for players.
The franchise was founded in 1946 as the Detroit Gems and played in the National Basketball League (NBL) during the 1946–47 season where it finished last in the league with only 4 wins in 44 games.