World Professional Basketball Tournament

World Professional Basketball Tournament
SportBasketball
Founded1939
Folded1948
CountryUnited States
Most titlesFort Wayne Zollner Pistons
(3 titles)

The World Professional Basketball Tournament was an annual invitational tournament held in Chicago from 1939 to 1948 and sponsored by the Chicago Herald American.[1] Many teams came from the National Basketball League, but it also included the best teams from other leagues and the best independent barnstorming teams such as the New York Renaissance and Harlem Globetrotters. Games for the WPBT were played at various sites within the city of Chicago, including the Chicago Coliseum, the International Amphitheater, and the Chicago Stadium.

The NBL champion usually won this tournament, with three exceptions: the New York Renaissance won the first WPBT in 1939,[2] while the Harlem Globetrotters—a strongly competitive squad in those days—won the following year.[3] In 1943, the Washington Bears (with many New York Renaissance players on their roster) won the tournament. The NBL's Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons won the most titles (three, from 1944 to 1946), while the NBL's Oshkosh All-Stars made the most finals appearances with five, winning only once (in 1942).

The last tournament was held in 1948, with the Minneapolis Lakers defeating the New York Renaissance 75–71 in the tournament final.[1][4] The following year, The Indianapolis News attempted to hold a similar tournament,[5] inviting the Wilkes-Barre Barons from the American Basketball League, three teams each from the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League, and one team that would remain unidentified until shortly before the seeded draw (though it was suggested the eighth team was to be the Montgomery Rebels, the regular season champions of the Southern Professional Basketball League).[6][7] Although the National Basketball League agreed to attend, the tournament did not come to fruition after the BAA declined the invitation.[8] Months after the cancellation of the 1949 WPBT in Indianapolis occurred, the NBL and BAA would officially merge operations to create the present-day National Basketball Association, which served as the official end to the tournament's existence for good since the NBA would take on the initial purpose the WPBT had at the time.

In addition to the World Professional Basketball Tournament in the spring, the Chicago Herald American also hosted what would originally be considered a companion event to the WPBT in the College All-Star Classic in the fall, though it later separated itself from the WPBT to become its own thing, with the College All-Star Classic operating from 1940 until 1954.[9] For the first eight years of the College All-Star Classic, the winners of the WPBT (or in the case of fall 1941, the runners-up of the WPBT due to the actual champions of the event that year not having a proper home venue to play in that season) would be pitted up against the players that were considered to be the elite seniors of college basketball from each year (the titular College All-Stars in question) that were selected from a poll of sports writers and coaches, with the College All-Stars team being housed and fed by Northwestern University and ordinarily being coached by a Big Ten Conference head coach like Dutch Lonborg from Northwestern University, Doug Mills from the University of Illinois, or Ray Meyer from DePaul University, with the players keeping special uniforms and sweat suits made for the event alongside medallioned wrist watches as mementos for the event in question.[10] From that period of time, it was considered a curtain raiser to begin a new professional basketball season during those periods of time.[11] However, once the WPBT went defunct, the College All-Star Classic would instead occur with the team that won the NBA Finals as the new equivalent of the WPBT champion for those later years, as noted by the College All-Stars going up against the Minneapolis Lakers in 1949 and 1950 (though only known records are shown to go as far back as 1950).[12] There would also be a spiritual successor program related to it called the World Series of Basketball Tour that the Harlem Globetrotters created in 1950 that lasted from 1950 until 1962 (though the original end of it was held in 1958 due to the Pan American Games affecting the years 1959 and 1960, with known results being shown once again for its return in 1961 and 1962 (though no known MVPs for both the Harlem Globetrotters and the College All-Americans players being confirmed in 1962[13]) before the event was confirmed to be defunct for good by 1963), where the Globetrotters competed against a team of College All-Americans selected by a poll from college coaches (similar to the past College All-Stars) in a multi-game series that ultimately ended with the Globetrotters winning over the College All-Americans every year that had been recorded there (with the closest time the College All-Americans upset the Harlem Globetrotters in a yearly series being in 1956 through a close 11–10 series, while the final year's event had Harlem winning every game outside of one game there for an overall 147–64 record by the Globetrotters there).[14][15]

All-time championship game scoring records

* Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
Player Team Games Pts PPG
Leroy Edwards Oshkosh 5 53 10.6
Bobby McDermott Ft. Wayne 3 49 16.3
Jake Pelkington Det/Ft. W 4 45 11.2
Buddy Jeannette Det/Ft. W 4 42 10.5
George Mikan Minneapolis 1 40 40
Pop Gates NY/Wash 3 37 12.3
Ed Sadowski Det/Ft. W 3 34 11.3
Jerry Bush Det/Ft. W 5 30 6.0
Nat Clifton NY 1 24 24.0
Gene Englund Oshkosh 3 22 7.3
Chick Reiser Ft. Wayne 3 22 7.3
Bob Tough Bkn/Ft. W 2 21 10.5
Duke Cumberland Harlem/NY 2 20 10.0
Jake Ahearn Detroit 2 20 10.0
George Sobek Toledo 1 20 20.0

All-time World Tournament team records

Team App. Gms W L 1st 2nd
Oshkosh All-Stars 9 30 20 10 1 4
New York Renaissance-Washington Bears 10 28 18 10 2 1
Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons 8 21 15 6 3 0
Harlem Globetrotters 7 20 13 7 1 0
Detroit Eagles 3 10 8 2 1 1
Chicago American Gears 2 9 7 2 0 0
Chicago Bruins-Ramblers 4 9 5 4 0 1
Toledo White Huts-Whites-Jeeps 4 10 5 5 0 1
Sheboygan Redskins 8 14 5 9 0 0
Anderson Chiefs-Duffey Packers 3 7 4 3 0 0
Minneapolis Lakers 1 3 3 0 1 0
Brooklyn Eagles 1 4 3 1 0 1
Long Island Grumman Flyers/Hellcats 2 5 3 2 0 0
Dayton Dive Bombers-Aviators-Acmes-Mickeys 4 9 5 4 0 1
Midland Dow Chemicals 3 6 3 3 0 0
Indianapolis Kautskys 5 7 3 4 1 0
Washington Heurich Brewers 1 3 2 1 0 0
Tri-Cities Blackhawks 2 5 2 3 0 0
Baltimore Bullets 2 6 2 4 0 0
  • Twenty-seven teams entered the tournament in various years but did not win a game; eight teams had one win.
  • The New York Celtics played in the initial tournament in 1939, but lost their only game. Another well-known team, the Philadelphia Sphas, had a win and a loss in their only appearance, in 1941 .

Recap by year

1939

Main article: 1939 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1940

Main article: 1940 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1941

Main article: 1941 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1942

Main article: 1942 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1943

Main article: 1943 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1944

Main article: 1944 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1945

Main article: 1945 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1946

Main article: 1946 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1947

Main article: 1947 World Professional Basketball Tournament

1948

Main article: 1948 World Professional Basketball Tournament

References

  1. ^ a b c Bill Carlson (12 April 1948). "Lakers 'World Champions' now". The Minneapolis Star. p. 23. Retrieved 15 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "New York Rens win net title". The South Bend Tribune. Associated Press. 29 March 1939. p. 21. Retrieved 5 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ a b "Globe Trotters win world's pro tourney title". The Oshkosh Northwestern. 21 March 1940. p. 23. Retrieved 4 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ John Schleppi (1989). "Chicago's World Tournament of Professional Basketball 1939—1948". LA84 Foundation. North American Society for Sport History. Retrieved 4 April 2022.
  5. ^ "News invites eight teams for World Pro Cage Tourney here". The Indianapolis News. 22 March 1949. p. 24. Retrieved 6 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "B.A.A. ponders bid to Pro Tourney". The Indianapolis News. 24 March 1949. p. 21. Retrieved 6 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Bill Kinney (26 March 1949). "Backward step". The Rock Island Argus. p. 14. Retrieved 6 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Jack Estell (31 March 1949). "News' Pro Peace Bid Seems Doomed to Fail". The Tipton Daily Tribune. International News Service. p. 4. Retrieved 6 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Triptow, Richard F. (1997). The Dynasty that Never Was: Chicago's First Professional Basketball Champions, The American Gears. Lake Bluff, Illinois: self-published. ISBN 0-9659280-0-4., p. 12
  10. ^ Triptow, Richard F. (1997). The Dynasty that Never Was: Chicago's First Professional Basketball Champions, The American Gears. Lake Bluff, Illinois: self-published. ISBN 0-9659280-0-4., pp. 12–13
  11. ^ Triptow, Richard F. (1997). The Dynasty that Never Was: Chicago's First Professional Basketball Champions, The American Gears. Lake Bluff, Illinois: self-published. ISBN 0-9659280-0-4., p. 13
  12. ^ Triptow, Richard F. (1997). The Dynasty that Never Was: Chicago's First Professional Basketball Champions, The American Gears. Lake Bluff, Illinois: self-published. ISBN 0-9659280-0-4., pp. 200–203
  13. ^ WORLD SERIES OF BASKETBALL 1950-58, 1961-62 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2004-10-14)
  14. ^ Steve Dimitry's World Professional Basketball Tournament Web Page at the Wayback Machine (archived 2005-04-28)
  15. ^ https://apbr.org/wrldsers.html
  16. ^ a b c "George Mikan placed on Pro All-Star team". The Birmingham News. 10 April 1946. p. 20. Retrieved 4 April 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
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