1941–42 National Basketball League (United States) season

The 1941–42 NBL season was the seventh overall season for the U.S.A.'s National Basketball League (NBL) and its fifth season under that name after previously going by the Midwest Basketball Conference (a semipro or amateur precursor to the NBL) in its first two seasons of existence. Similar to the previous season, for the second straight season in a row, this season would see seven teams competing in the NBL without any divisional play in mind for them; while the Indianapolis Kautskys would return to the NBL this season (albeit on a temporary basis) when finding out that their barnstorming plans were a dud on their ends, the other team changes would also occur with the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets being promoted to the NBL following their success in the 1941 World Professional Basketball Tournament as the Toledo White Huts, the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons joining the NBL as a works team that wanted to compete against tougher teams on a regular basis, the Detroit Eagles leaving the NBL following their surprising upset championship victory in the 1941 WPBT, and both the two-time NBL champion Akron Firestone Non-Skids and the Hammond Ciesar All-Americans leaving the NBL due to financial difficulties. As a result of this situation at hand, the seven competing teams would see themselves play a total of either 23 or 24 scheduled NBL games against each other, with most of the teams playing two home and two road games against each other. Because there was no divisional play in mind for the second season in a row, the NBL Playoffs would involve the four best teams competing against each other (with the best team competing against the fourth-best team and the second-best team competing against the third-best team this time around), with the two best teams that won their semifinals matchups competing against each other in the championship series. In this case, the defending champion Oshkosh All-Stars would sweep the Indianapolis Kautskys two games to none and the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons would beat the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots two games to one, with the championship series matchup seeing the Oshkosh All-Stars defeating the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons two games to own to repeat as NBL champions themselves. An entire book focusing on the NBL's existence would be released in 2009 by historian and author Murry R. Nelson called "The National Basketball League: A History, 1935–1949", with an entire chapter being dedicated to this season of play.^[1]

Following its 12th season of existence as the NBL, the NBL and Basketball Association of America (the latter league not existing until 1946) merged operations to create the National Basketball Association. Despite the NBL continuing to exist until the 1948–49 NBL season as the longer-lasting operation, the NBL would not recognize the twelve NBL seasons (nor the two MBC precursor seasons nor even the one National Professional Basketball League season that inspired the league's creation) as a part of its own history (outside of certain circumstances), sometimes without comment. As such, none of the previous twelve NBL seasons nor even the two MBC seasons would officially be recognized by the NBA, with the NBA recognizing the 1946–47 BAA season as its first official season of play instead.

Of the seven NBL teams that competed in the league this season, three of these teams would end up playing in what can be considered the modern-day NBA, with only one of them still existing in the NBA to this very day (albeit under a different name). The Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons would move to the Basketball Association of America in the 1948–49 BAA season alongside the Indianapolis Kautskys, though both teams would have to change their team names to remove the business sponsorships they have to their respective team names for the Zollner Piston Company and Kautsky's Grocery, with Fort Wayne going with just the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Kautskys team going by the Indianapolis Jets name that season. Following that season's end, the Jets would fold operations, while the Pistons would continue existing as the Detroit Pistons. As for the third team in question, the Sheboygan Red Skins would only play for the 1949–50 NBA season before leaving the NBA to create their own rivaling professional basketball league called the National Professional Basketball League (which would not be related to the NPBL that the NBL had been inspired from, as well as ultimately lasted for only one season before being forced to close up operations early). While the two-time NBL champion Oshkosh All-Stars were also considered for the NBL-BAA merger that became the modern-day NBA, no other NBL team from this season would end up joining the NBA once the two leagues merged.

• While the NBL would start their season with seven teams without any divisions involved once again (similar to the previous NBL season played), the actual teams involved would be a lot different by comparison. Not only would the Indianapolis Kautskys return to the NBL (if only briefly) due to their experimentation as a barnstorming franchise failing on their ends and the Detroit Eagles ended up leaving the NBL to become a barnstorming team themselves due to them failing to utilize a proper home venue for their season following the rising conflicts of World War II coming about (which ended up causing them to shut down operations entirely a few seasons later^[2]), but the NBL would also see the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons works team (starting as a works team while under team owner Fred Zollner's Zollner Piston Company (hence their team name) before later became the present-day Detroit Pistons of the NBA) and the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets (who were the previously named Toledo White Huts in the 1941 World Professional Basketball Tournament before being allowed to change their team name to the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets as a condition by now-minority owner Sidney Goldberg for NBL scheduled games (primarily as a way of thanking new majority team owner Jim White for letting his team gain entry into the NBL for him) while retaining the original Toledo White Huts name for non-NBL scheduled matches, including the upcoming 1942 World Professional Basketball Tournament^[3]) replace both the Akron Firestone Non-Skids works team and the Hammond Ciesar All-Americans in order to continue not utilizing divisional formatting for a second straight season in a row.^[4]
• While the NBL scheduled a proper 24 game schedule for every NBL team similar to the previous season, this season would have two teams fail to utilize it once again, as both the Indianapolis Kautskys and the Chicago Bruins failed to play the fully scheduled 24th and final game they had against each other on February 24, 1942 (though it would not matter in terms of the divisional standings by that point in time since the Kautskys already qualified for the NBL Playoffs for the first time in franchise history (at least in terms of seasons played in the NBL name instead of the original MBC name), while the Bruins failed to qualify for the playoffs due to the losing record they had), meaning that only most of the NBL's teams and not every single NBL team would meet the proper standard of games played for this season.^[5]
• Due to the rising conflicts around the world due to World War II and the potential likelihood of the U.S.A. getting itself into the war on their ends, many (though not all) of the NBL's players would end up either joining reserve units or actually enlisted into the U.S.A.'s armed services, with many of those same reserve units and armed services stations beginning to create athletic teams for their bases of operations both in terms of keeping morale up for their troops and for helping represent the U.S. military in a more positive light for the general public; while those teams in question would play against both other military teams within the nation and even certain college basketball teams, they would never play matches against either the NBL's teams or other professional basketball teams in leagues like the rivaling American Basketball League, for example.^[2] Not only that, but NBL players leaving their teams to join the U.S. military (and by extension, play for basketball teams hosted throughout the various military locations at hand) would be seen as minimal in terms of damage caused throughout the season, though it would later become a problem as World War II continued onward.
• This season would mark the debut season of Bobby McDermott starting with his time spent with the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons (with him deciding to join the new Fort Wayne NBL team due to him wanting to help settle down with himself after first starting to play the game for money (either in a semipro or professional manner) by as early as 15 years old in order to enjoy family life with his wife and two sons and having him be able to work at owner Fred Zollner's Zollner Piston Company in the offseason to be a full-time, year-round job out in Fort Wayne, Indiana for him to acquire an extra solid pay job from it^[6]), who was officially considered the greatest player of the NBL's entire history, even more so than Leroy Edwards was for the Oshkosh All-Stars (as well as his brief tenures for the short-lived Indianapolis U.S. Tires and Dayton London Bobbys teams if you want to include his tenure in the short-lived MBC as well).^[7]
• The NBL would start their season on November 25, 1941 with the defending champion Oshkosh All-Stars barely defeating the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots works team 37–34; Oshkosh rookie Gene Englund would lead the team with either 9 or 10 points (depending on the source/newspaper in question), while Akron rookie George Glamack led the team with 9 points scored that night, with the games being broadcast for local fans in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on WHBY at least starting with this season of play for the All-Stars, if not earlier seasons before that season as well.^[8]
• On December 7, 1941, the same day that the Attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan occurred, two games were played by the NBL, with a third scheduled by this time between the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets and the Chicago Bruins resulting in one of the teams forfeiting their match to the other team (with a subsequent forfeiture occurring later on to have both teams win and lose a match to each other by declared forfeiture).^[5] The first game played on that day saw the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots and the Indianapolis Kautskys playing on that day when it was reported that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor through the stadium's loudspeaker that was in the stadium during that match.^[9] That match would later end with the Kautskys (who had gone undefeated before that point in time) losing to the Akron squad with a 46–30 beatdown, while the second match played that day between the two Wisconsin-based teams in the Oshkosh All-Stars and the Sheboygan Red Skins saw the All-Stars in Oshkosh crush the Red Skins with a 52–30 blowout win in their favor.^[10]
• The two matches where the Chicago Bruins and Toledo Jim White Chevrolets forfeited matches against each other before and after the U.S.A. entered World War II against the rest of the Axis powers in Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy (after already previously declaring war on the Empire of Japan) on December 10 & 22, 1941 respectively (with Toledo first forfeiting their match to Chicago on the 10th and then Chicago forfeiting their match to Toledo on the 22nd) would ultimately become the last matches in league history to forfeit matches in the NBL, with no further match forfeitures occurring in the history of the NBL (or their successor merger league in the NBA) going forward (and outside of two forfeitures in the American Basketball Association in the tiebreaker match for their inaugural 1968 ABA Playoffs debut between the Kentucky Colonels and the New Jersey Americans (now Brooklyn Nets) and an October 26, 1972 match between the Denver Rockets (now Denver Nuggets) and the Virginia Squires, no further forfeitures in professional basketball leagues have ever occurred since then).^[5]
• On December 11, 1941, the same day the U.S.A. declared war on both Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, the Oshkosh All-Stars would barely defeat the Sheboygan Red Skins in a rematch hosted in Sheboygan with a close 47–45 victory for the All-Stars, with Leroy Edwards leading Oshkosh with 16 points and Rube Lautenschlager leading Sheboygan with 15 points.^[10]
• Starting on December 17, 1941, the Chicago Bruins would lose access to playing home games at their original NBL home venue at the 132nd Regiment Armory due to the U.S.A. entering World War II (and by extension, start playing home games for their season on that date^[11][12]) and instead play at the larger International Amphitheatre for most of their season going forward.^[10] (The Bruins would later play home games at the Cicero Stadium near the end of their season instead.^[13]) Not only that, but the Chicago Tribune would give less coverage for the Bruins and the NBL games played than what had occurred there in the previous seasons they had, which led to the local franchise having a significant decline in intrigue for the season by comparison to the earlier seasons of play for them.^[14]
• By the middle of December, the Oshkosh All-Stars had gone undefeated, the Indianapolis Kautskys were in second place, and no other team having any record better than even an average .500 record (including the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets, who started out with a 2–1 record). However, the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons would end up getting a five-game winning streak to get a 6–2 before the end of the year 1941.^[15]
• During the season, the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots would have serious troubles attracting fans to the Goodyear Hall held at the location that hosts the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company company itself and instead would play some home games at the lower-hosting location known as the Akron Armory, the home location of the Akron Zips men's basketball team, which once hosted a total of 400 fans and had its layout be blamed by the Akron Beacon for such a poor attendance.^[16]
• At some point during this season, when World War II preparations were heating up for the U.S.A., Toledo Jim White Chevrolets minority owner Sidney Goldberg had insisted that the NBL be allowed to sign up players of other races in order to help solidify any talent that would be lost during the season due to the growing efforts and presence of World War II, similar to when the Buffalo Bisons in the MBC had Hank Williams (a black player) in the MBC's inaugural season. The NBL ended up accepting Goldberg's request, which led to the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets being the first integrated team in NBL history with them featuring not just African-American players throughout the season, but also a Latin American player as well in Al Alvarez.^[3]
• By the halfway point of the season, the four teams that were projected to be in the NBL Playoffs this season had the records of an undefeated record of a 10–0 start for Oshkosh, a 7–4 record by Akron, a 6–4 record by Fort Wayne, and a 6–6 record by Indianapolis respectively, with Oshkosh later having an 11–0 record in the NBL, which also had a 19-game winning streak to start out their season by going up against Fort Wayne.^[17]
• By the end of January, the Oshkosh All-Stars would lose their first two games of the season with a 53–43 loss to Akron and then a 43–36 defeat to Indianapolis, which led to Oshkosh getting a 12–2 record by this point in time for first place close to 2/3rds of a way into their season, with Akron catching up to them with a 10–7 record, followed by Fort Wayne being 8–6 and Indianapolis being 9–7 for the four teams with winning records near the end of the season.^[13]
• At one point near the end of the season, the Oshkosh All-Stars would have a four game lead with them being 14–3 over all three of Akron, Fort Wayne, and Indianapolis as 10–7, while Sheboygan had gone 6–9, Chicago had gone 4–10 (including a forfeited win and loss to Toledo), and Toledo had gone 2–13 (including a forfeited win and loss to Chicago) to round out how things were near the end of that period of time.^[18]
• Near the end of the season, on February 3, 1942, it was announced that the Oshkosh All-Stars would end their season with an NBL All-Star Game match-up against the rest of the NBL's All-Stars for the six remaining NBL teams this game, with this game in question later being played in either Oshkosh (the home venue of the team), Milwaukee (which held the largest venue at the time in the state of Wisconsin), or Sheboygan (who would host a new home venue for the Sheboygan Red Skins later on in the season), with details being announced as the event drew closer to action.^[18]
• The Oshkosh All-Stars would end up winning the regular season's championship with a February 11 victory over the Sheboygan Red Skins.^[19]
• Also near the end of the season, the Chicago Bruins' local newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, had ended up giving up on the Bruins team completely, if not just the Bruins' season since they had pulled a regular local reporter for the Bruins team, failed to cover their road games at all, and even gave minimal coverage for home games altogether. Not only that, but there were many times where the local newspaper in Chicago gave more coverage for upcoming games the Bruins had than they did the actual games themselves, which likely was done through coverage within the NBL's headquarters in Chicago itself (which they had used there since 1940 after previously using Akron, Ohio (the homes of both the former Akron Firestone Non-Skids and the current Akron Goodyear Wingfoots) as their local headquarters there), with the Bruins games that were being covered there being set behind more and more against local military basketball team matches they had against various other basketball teams like the all-black New York Renaissance.^[19]
• By the end of the season, on February 24, the Indianapolis Kautskys and Chicago Bruins would cancel a scheduled match against each other due to it not actually mattering towards the actual standings this season (since Indianapolis already was in the playoffs as the fourth seed for a 12–11 and Chicago was already eliminated as the sixth seed with a 8–15 record behind the Sheboygan Red Skins' 10–14 record and way ahead of the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets' 3–21 record, though a move like that being done without anything going on beyond a professional league's control (such as dealing with the aftermath of tragic attacks within the nation or a player risking death while the game itself was being played) is seen in more recent times as something very unprofessional being done and do little to develop fan loyalty to either certain teams or the league itself by comparison), while the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots would win a key 44–41 match over the Oshkosh All-Stars (who had finished their season with a 20–4 record) to gain a tied second place finish with the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons for a 15–9 record.^[20] However, an end of the season coin toss for second place in the NBL Playoffs would reward Fort Wayne with the second place, home court advantage spot of the NBL Playoffs properly over Akron.^[21]
• After the first non-divisional NBL Playoffs utilized the semifinal rounds to have the first place team going up against the third place team and the second place team going up against the fourth place team before the championship round went to a best of five series, the NBL would make some minor changes to that specific format akin to the Shaughnessy playoff system where the first place team would go up against the fourth place team instead and the second place team would go up against the third place team before the two best teams that remained went up against each other in a best of three championship series instead.^[22]
• Following the season's end where Oshkosh would repeat as NBL champions with their 2–1 series win over the new Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons addition, the NBL would announce that Fort Wayne's Bobby McDermott would win the National Basketball League's MVP award over Chuck Chuckovits of the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets, thus beginning the first of what would later become five straight NBL MVP honors that McDermott would earn.^[23]
• After the NBL Playoffs ended, almost every NBL team for this season (only the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots missed out on joining every other team, though the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets would return to their original Toledo White Huts team name akin to their 1941 World Professional Basketball Tournament appearance) would end up playing in the 1942 World Professional Basketball Tournament, an annual tournament that had been held in the city of Chicago with the Chicago Bruins, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, the Indianapolis Kautskys, the two-time NBL champions in the Oshkosh All-Stars, the Sheboygan Red Skins, and the aforementioned Toledo Jim White Chevrolets as the Toledo White Huts joined the former NBL team known as the Detroit Eagles alongside most other teams that were considered independently ran this season in a full-blown 16 team tournament. For this season, half of the NBL's teams in the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, Indianapolis Kautskys, and the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets as the Toledo White Huts would be eliminated in the first round (with Toledo's elimination coming from the defending WPBT champions in the Detroit Eagles), while the Sheboygan Red Skins and the Chicago Bruins were both defeated in the second round and the two-time defending NBL champion Oshkosh All-Stars would get their WPBT revenge over the WPBT defending champion Detroit Eagles after not being able to play against them all season long with Oshkosh barely defeating Detroit with a 43–41 victory to give Oshkosh a dual championship season that would only be repeated three different times in the WPBT's history.
• After the NBL Playoffs and the 1942 WPBT concluded with victories for the Oshkosh All-Stars, they would compete against the rest of the NBL's best players in what were considered the "NBL All-Stars" for the season to have the rest of the best players in the league competing against the best team in the NBL this season, similar to what would later be done in the American Basketball Association's final season of existence in the 1976 ABA All-Star Game during their final season of existence. Unlike that, however, this All-Star Game's match-up would take place on March 18, well after the NBL's season ended and nearly a week after Oshkosh claimed their dual championship for both the NBL and the WPBT, in Oshkosh's home venue at the South Park School Gymnasium over the newer Sheboygan Armory built in Sheboygan and a bigger venue held in Milwaukee. For that match, it would end up proving to be a close one between Oshkosh's All-Stars and the rest of the NBL's All-Stars, but the game would end with the NBL's All-Stars proving to be superior as a collective squad over Oshkosh's All-Stars in a close 45–43 victory for the NBL's All-Star team.^[24]

Due to this season abandoning the usage of divisions entirely for a second straight season, this season's playoffs would instead showcase the top four teams competing against each other (with the top team competing against the fourth-best team and the second-best team competing against the third-best team in the league this time around) in a best of three format, with the two best teams remaining competing against each other in the NBL Championship series, which would also be in a best of three format similar to the NBL's inaugural championship held under the National Basketball League name. Following the new playoff formatting held for this season, the defending champion Oshkosh All-Stars were considered the best team in the NBL and would compete against a returning NBL franchise making their playoff debut in the Indianapolis Kautskys (who had left the NBL the previous season to experiment as a barnstorming franchise), while the tied formatting between the two works teams that represented the NBL by this time in the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots and the newly joined Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons led to those two teams competing against each other instead (with Fort Wayne having home court advantage) to see who would compete for the NBL championship. As a result, Oshkosh would sweep the Kautskys 2–0 following Indianapolis' (first) brief return to the NBL, while the newly established Zollner Pistons (representing team owner Fred Zollner's local piston manufacturing business) would defeat the Goodyear Wingfoots 2–1 due to the home games that Fort Wayne had, leading to the All-Stars competing against a new works team held in Fort Wayne, Indiana that was considered the #2 seed in the NBL following their victory over the Goodyear Wingfoots in their final NBL playoff year in their quest to repeat as NBL champions. Fortunately for them, home court advantage would be favorable for them, as the All-Stars would beat the Zollner Pistons 2–1 to officially have Oshkosh repeat as back-to-back NBL champions.

Note: Prior to the 1969–70 NBA season, league leaders in points were determined by totals rather than averages. Also, rebounding and assist numbers were not recorded properly in the NBL like they would be in the BAA/NBA, as would field goal and free-throw shooting percentages.

• NBL Most Valuable Player: Bobby McDermott, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons
• NBL Coach of the Year: Lon Darling, Oshkosh All-Stars
• NBL Rookie of the Year: George Glamack, Akron Goodyear Wingfoots

^[34]

For the fourth World Professional Basketball Tournament ever hosted, it would feature a total of sixteen teams competing in the event held in Chicago on March 8–12, 1942, with every one of the remaining NBL teams from this season outside of the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots competing in this event (though the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets would play under their original Toledo White Huts name while in the WPBT, similar to what they had done the previous season before joining the NBL, due to a condition that minority owner Sidney Goldberg had when placing his Toledo squad into the NBL under new majority ownership), with every other team competing in the event being independently ran primarily due to World War II beginning to take hold upon the United States of America. Of the six NBL teams participating in this event, the Toledo White Huts (a.k.a., the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets) would be beaten down badly by the former NBL turned defending WPBT champion independent barnstorming Detroit Eagles franchise with a 46–29 blowout loss and the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons would be upset by the Aberdeen Army Ordnance Training Center (which was a military team in Aberdeen, Maryland composed of players such as Moe Becker training at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds during World War II) with a 56–42 defeat on March 8, while the Chicago Bruins would defeat the Detroit AAA team with a 56–46 victory, the Sheboygan Red Skins would defeat the Columbus Bobb Chevrolets (not related to the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets) with a low-scoring 34–26 victory, the Oshkosh All-Stars would beat down the Davenport Central Turner Rockets 44–29, and the Indianapolis Kautskys being blown out in a 54–32 loss to the Long Island Grumman Flyers (which was composed of star players from the rivaling American Basketball League, the all-black New York Renaissance, and even the all-black (at the time) Harlem Globetrotters working at the Grumman Aircraft Company (who specialized as a war industry defense plant that wasn't subjected to military call-ups^[35]) in Long Island, New York) the following day afterward to showcase three remaining NBL teams from this current season (alongside one former NBL team) still competing in the quarterfinal round. After the defending WPBT champion Detroit Eagles previously beat the Aberdeen Army Ordnance Training Center with a 40–34 final score on March 9, the three current season NBL teams would play their quarterfinal matches the following day afterward, with the world famous Harlem Globetrotters defeating the Sheboygan Red Skins 37–32, the Chicago Bruins suddenly ending their NBL run with a 48–38 upset loss to the Long Island Grumman Flyers, and the Oshkosh All-Stars upsetting the all-black New York Renaissance (who were considered the 100% serious versions of the Harlem Globetrotters) with a 44–38 victory led to the All-Stars from Oshkosh being the only NBL team left in this entire event. Luckily for them, the Oshkosh All-Stars would see themselves upset the world famous Harlem Globetrotters with a 48–41 victory (after the defending WPBT champion Detroit Eagles barely survived against the surprise team of the event in the Long Island Grumman Flyers with a 44–43 victory on March 11), with Oshkosh finally getting revenge for the failure they had in the previous year's event the day after that semifinal round's day (with the Long Island Grumman Flyers upsetting the Harlem Globetrotters for a third place finish with a close 43–41 victory) thanks to a close 43–41 victory securing them not just the WPBT championship that they had sought after for almost as long as their first NBL championship (with the All-Stars' Ed Riska being named the MVP of the event this year and the Oshkosh All-Stars players also being given golden wrist watches for their victory), but also becoming the first NBL team to acquire multiple championships in the same season with them being defending champions for both the NBL and the WPBT this time around.

• National Basketball League (United States)

• NBL Standings, 1937–1949 on apbr.org
• National Basketball League III – 1941–42 NBL Season Overview on retroseasons.com