The National Basketball Association is the premier men’s professional basketball league in North America. With 30 teams, the NBA is one of the largest professional sports in the United States and Canada. The league is ranked among the top five professional sports in the world. The league is composed of many different professional sports, but its main focus is basketball.
The NBA began its full-blown explosion into American society and pop culture during the 1980s, when it first became a part of pop culture. The great Magic-Bird rivalry in particular drove fans to the arenas. The league’s finances are under some threat from the trend away from live sports and toward internet viewing.
The league is split into two conferences. Teams in the western United States play in the western conference, while teams in the eastern part of the country play in the eastern conference. Teams are further divided into six divisions according to their geographical location, with the western conference teams in the western region and the eastern conference teams in the eastern portion of the country. The top eight teams in the regular season earn playoff spots, while three teams are wildcards. The postseason is much more competitive than the regular season and the stakes are much higher.
The NHL’s regular season concludes around April, when voting for individual awards and honorary post-season teams begins. Each conference’s top vote-getters select their starters and reserves, while the coaches vote on the remaining 14 All-Stars. Each team will then draft its own team from among its player pool. The top vote-getter in each conference earns the first pick.
The NBA had a reputation for being a small market. At one time, seven cities did not have an NHL, MLB, or NBA team. However, the merger of the BAA and the NBL brought several small cities and towns into the league. Hawkins’ case lasted for five years, during which time the NBA experienced a boom in expansion.
The triple-double is one of the most impressive stats in modern NBA. A triple-double is when a player gets ten categories of the NBA’s five categories. Early box scores are often incomplete, with blocks and rebounds not being kept until the 1970s. Nonetheless, a player with a triple-double is an impressive player.
The NBA has also embraced international players, including Lithuanian basketball player Sarunas Marciulionis, who was the first player from the Soviet Union to sign with an NBA club. Marciulionis also helped lead the league’s internationalization efforts in the late 1990s. Another example is Croatian-born basketball player Toni Kukoc, who won three NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls and was named as one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.
The NBA is one of the most profitable professional sports leagues in the world, and makes over $8 billion dollars per season. This revenue comes from television, merchandising, ticket sales, and sponsorship deals. In 2018-19, the league boasted 30 teams, with each one having an average valuation of $2 billion.