The Continental Basketball Association is a rival minor-league basketball association that was founded in April 1946, making it the oldest professional basketball league in the world.
The CBA served as an unofficial feeder system to the NBA and the original American Basketball Association, until the NBA announced the creation of it's own feeder system league, the National Basketball Association Development League, or NBA D-League for short.
The CBA and the new ABA became rivals after numerous ABA teams left to join the CBA, and both leagues fought for the greater number of teams, a battle the ABA would ultimately win.
The CBA would also schedule games against ABA teams in the 2008-2009 season in an attempt to remain solvent as it was undergoing financial issues.
The EPBL kept the name until the 1970-1971 season when it branded itself the Eastern Basketball Association. In the 1976-1977 season, the league established a franchise in Anchorage, Alaska, which garnered national attention and press coverage. The league would finally name itself the Continental Basketball Association the following season.
The league was famous for it's many halftime antics, such as the "One-Million Dollar Shot" contest and the "2,000 Pennies Free Throw" contest. One antic challenged random fans, all representing their respective CBA teams, to fly a large paper airplane over a Ford Thunderbird.
After being bought by NBA super star Isaiah Thomas in 1999 (the same year the new ABA was founded), the league went under, eventually postponing operations and eventually declaring bankruptcy in the middle of the 2000-2001 season.
In 2001, the International Basketball Association restarted the CBA and ran the league until the 2008-2009 season, when it went on hiatus and has yet to return.
Legacy[]
The CBA was known to be the training place for future NBA players such as Bruce Bowen, Anthony Mason, and David Weasley.
It has always been called the "second chance" of basketball leagues, and the manager for the Portland Trailblazers said, "If your goal is to be in the NBA, then there's no better place to be."