1948 BAA draft

The 1948 BAA draft was the second annual draft of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which later merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) to become the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on May 10, 1948, before the 1948–49 season. In this draft, eight BAA teams along with four teams who moved from the NBL, took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players. Originally, this BAA draft was meant to be a joint draft venture with the NBL similar to what had meant to occur in the BAA's inaugural league draft (as well as what the National Football League would later do in the late 1960s with the American Football League). However, on May 9, the day before the draft was meant to begin for both leagues, the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (who were a part of the NBL at the time) would sign consensus All-American prospect and NCAA scoring champion Murray Wier from the University of Iowa, which caused BAA commissioner Maurice Podoloff to object to the Blackhawks' early signing attempt and endangered what was already a strenuously held truce between the two leagues. Before the draft officially began on May 10, the Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, and Indianapolis Kautskys announced they were leaving the NBL for the BAA (albeit with the Fort Wayne team officially dropping the "Zollner" part of the Pistons name and the Indianapolis team renaming the Kautskys to the Indianapolis Jets in order for both of them to be admitted in since the BAA did not allow for teams to promote local businesses as team names); the desertion of those four NBL teams led to the planned joint draft to be withdrawn on the NBL's end and subsequently led to the NBL breaking off all relations with the BAA at the time. As such, each league would conduct their own draft instead, with the BAA officially selecting 113 collegiate players and the NBL being slated to have chosen 125 total collegiate players themselves.

Draft selections and draftee career notes

Due to what could be seen as last-minute additions for this BAA draft by having four teams from the rivaling National Basketball League joining their league in time for entry into the BAA draft (as opposed to utilizing a combined BAA-NBL draft between the two leagues as they had originally planned for at the time), the BAA would have to work in the four new teams that they had just acquired into the draft system where they had the other eight teams already set beforehand. In the case of the Indianapolis franchise that joined (going from the Kautskys to the Jets), despite them (barely) being an NBL playoff team in their final season in that league, their 24–35 record would cause them to have the #2 pick of the draft due to it being behind every other BAA team that season outside of the lowly Providence Steamrollers (with the Boston Celtics having a 20–28 record that previous season being a better overall win percentage by comparison). As for the other three NBL-turned-BAA franchises in Fort Wayne, Minneapolis, and Rochester, they would each obtain the eighth, ninth, and tenth overall picks due to their overall records that previous season being better than every other team in the BAA, though with the caveat of having the BAA's division champions in the Philadelphia Warriors (Eastern) and Washington Capitols (Western) holding the eleventh and twelfth picks in the first round respectively instead.

Andy Tonkovich from Marshall University was selected first overall by the Providence Steamrollers. Four of the first round picks, George Kok, George Hauptfuhrer, Bob Gale and Chuck Hanger, never played in the BAA. Four players from this draft, Harry Gallatin, Dolph Schayes, Bobby Wanzer and Alex Hannum have been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Interestingly, the first round selection of Bobby Wanzer by the Rochester Royals could be considered a cheating selection for the franchise's first ever draft pick in the BAA/NBA since Wanzer had previously played for the Royals in the 1947–48 season back when they were a part of the rivaling National Basketball League. However, it was agreed between the Royals and the BAA that the Rochester franchise could either waive their territorial draft pick rights or their regular draft turn in order for them to retain Wanzer, with the Royals deciding to waive their territorial draft pick rights in order to retain Wanzer onto their team for good.

Draft

Other picks

The following list includes other draft picks who have appeared in at least one BAA/NBA game.

Notable undrafted players

These players were not selected in the 1948 draft but played at least one game in the BAA/NBA.

Notes

See also

• List of first overall NBA draft picks
• NBA records

General

• . basketball-reference.com.
• . The Association for Professional Basketball Research. from the original on July 4, 2010.

Specific

External links