On March 7, 1954, George McCann and his Lakers teammates entered the long-lost Minneapolis Auditorium. They have just rushed back to the home court from far away New York, ready to meet the challenge of Milwaukee Hawks.
The scene in front of us stunned everyone-the rim of the match was raised by two feet (about 60 centimeters), from 3.05 meters to 3.66 meters.
This is a trick prepared by the Alliance for McCann.
After McCann’s success, the basketball world has been trying to limit big players to prevent them from destroying basketball with the simple scoring method of hooking or throwing in the penalty area.
In 1951, NBA expanded its restricted area near the basket, the purpose of which was to force the center to shoot at a position farther from RIM, so as to reduce their scoring efficiency and give the little men more chances to decide the game.
In 1954, the voice of limiting the center by increasing the height of RIM intensified. Under this trend, NBA also came up with the idea of taking McCann to test the water.
So RIM up to 3.66 meters appeared……
The reported screenshot proves that RIM was raised from 10feet to 12feet.
The Lakers who have just returned to Ming state have not received the notice from the league in advance, and they can only play hard behind the grass and heat. In the past, the unstoppable McCann suffered a lot. The first ten shots were missed, and the hit rate in the whole game was less than 20%.
McCann attacked the dumb, and the situation of others was not ideal. The hit rate of both teams was only 30%, which was far lower than the average level of the league. The iron War ended with the Lakers winning 65-63.
But although the experiment limited McCann, it also produced other side effects. After a game, the feeling of the big man was not mentioned first. The little players who were expected to borrow rim higher profits had already complained bitterly. Lakers striker Jim Holstein revealed that his first layup was not enough in the basket. Eagle defender Bill kahorn, who got the highest score in the game, said that the game was a disaster.
The alliance’s experiment of using high RIM had to be stopped.
Competition technical statistics. PS: The average score of the 1953-54 season is 79 points, and the average hit rate is
But the wonderful story is not over yet. After finishing the game with the Lakers, the Eagle returned to Milwaukee, the home court. As for why they ran so anxious? Because they are preparing for another two matches with Baltimore Bullets the next day.
Yes, you are right, NBA, double matches a day.
This is the fantastic 1950 s.
In fact, this is not the alternative schedule for NBA’s earliest experiment. Earlier, NBA followed the Doubleheader model of college basketball, four teams will be arranged to play in the same field one after another (CBA games will be called to the professional team directly). However, the arrangement of two teams, such as Eagle and bullet, playing back-to-back in one day has only set a precedent in baseball.
If Popovich baby or Cole is the head coach of one of the teams, he may let the main players play in the first game and then take a break in the second game, which not only ensures the physical health of the players, there is no need to worry about the fans blaming him for not seeing the stars. However, the real situation is that the coach of the two teams did not understand the wisdom of load management, and the main force was defeated in both matches.
For some reason, the league shortened the duration of each game to ten minutes. The process of the two games was exactly the same. The two teams played hard in the first three quarters. The Eagle pulled the score together in the last quarter and finally won with a double-digit advantage.
However, since then, NBA has not arranged a one-day double match. Perhaps the League realized that basketball was not comparable with other sports. The duration of two consecutive battles and a total of 80 minutes would consume too much physical energy of basketball players. If there were more times than the previous ones, I’m afraid several players have to be carried out of the stadium.
After a one-day double race, the eagle still didn’t get the chance to breathe. On March 9th, they came to Indianapolis and played a regular season match with New York Knicks in neutral field. The next day, they fought with Rochester Royal in Omaha. At the end of this game, their journey of back-to-back and back-to-back in the one-day double match came to an end.
Then how did this schedule come from? This is to ask Eddie Gottlieb, the chairman of NBA rules committee at that time. He was the founder of the Eagle’s devil schedule and also the boss, general manager and head coach of Philadelphia Warriors.
Gottlieb
However, the eagle could not complain that Gottlieb used power for personal gain when making the schedule. After all, in terms of the schedule density arrangement alone, this man was even more ruthless to his team.
From February 21 to March 1, 1953, he arranged an intensive schedule for the Warriors for nine days and nine battles (the legendary back-to-back back back-to-back-to-back-to-back), eight of which were away, as a result, the team lost a lot of money in a row.
One year later, from February 8th to February 14th, he arranged seven days and seven matches for the Warriors, but different from last time, this time they didn’t have any home court. They had to travel seven cities in seven days to compete, back-to-back, back-to-back, back-to-back……
But fortunately, the team won three games at least this time.
Back-to-back, back-to-back, back-to-back, back-to-back
Back-to-back back back-to-back
Gottlieb’s ability to make a schedule (or selfless) has been highly recognized by NBA, and he has been in charge of this work until his death.
The two-foot increase in RIM, one-day double race and nine-day nine-day battle sounds incredible today. Similarly, playing alone can earn tens of millions of annual salary, which was like a fantasy 70 years ago. In different times, professional basketball has different positions and influences. Behind the seemingly absurd choices in the early years of the alliance is the difficulty in the early stage of entrepreneurship.
In 1949, BAA and NBL merged and NBA was born. There were 17 teams participating in the NBA in the first year. However, six teams went bankrupt in the past year, and there were only eight teams left in the mid-1950s.
At that time, basketball fans preferred college basketball and Harlem basketball team which paid attention to performance. Professional basketball was a vulgar symbol in the eyes of most people, and they were unwilling to spend the ticket money for it. They knew little about NBA and thought that the top amateur team could win the championship in NBA. Some sports journalists threatened in front of Boston Coach Reed Auerbach that the basketball team of St Cross College was enough to beat the Celts.
Before the 1960 s, Harlem basketball team was more popular than NBA. Chamberlain played for Harlem basketball team for one year before entering NBA.
Professional basketball, which lacks public attention and has no confidence, is often taken away from home by other projects. A temporary circus performance is enough to squeeze out NBA games with conflicting schedules. In order to ensure enough game session, the league had to passively arrange tight schedules, and wandering in various neutral venues became the survival way for most NBA teams to strive for the popularity of the audience.
The original motivation of professional basketball rule innovation is also to attract fans. The twenty-four seconds violation and the use of high rim are all attempts aimed at improving the appreciation of the competition. However, the former has a positive effect and is retained, while the latter is not popular and is abandoned.
Seventy years later, NBA has become one of the most popular professional sports leagues. No boss is worried about bankruptcy, no manager is worried about the venue, and players can take special planes away from the game, back-to-back games can also accept load management without any worries.
The history of worrying about food and clothing has passed. Today, when talking about professional basketball in the 1950 s, George McCann seems to be the only mark. Not many people know that NBA used 3.66-meter rim on March 7, 1954and the courage and determination of professional basketball pioneers to make this decision.
Of course, it’s not all courage and determination…… (Dog Head)
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