1949–50 NBA season


The 1949–50 NBA season was the inaugural season of the National Basketball Association, which was created in 1949 by merger of the 3-year-old BAA and 12-year-old NBL. The postseason tournament at its conclusion, ended with the Minneapolis Lakers winning the NBA Championship, beating the Syracuse Nationals 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals.
Commonly 1949–50 is counted as the fourth NBA season. It recognizes the three BAA seasons as part of its own history, sometimes without comment.

Notable occurrences

In this inaugural NBA season only, the ten surviving teams from 1948-49 BAA season played a heavy schedule of games with each other and a light schedule with the seven NBL participants in the merger that created the league, and vice versa.

Eastern Division

Syracuse played a heavy schedule of 44 games against Western Division teams: on average just over seven games each, same as they played each other. The Western Division teams were generally weaker on the court; none of the teams there won half of its games played outside the division. Yet Syracuse won at the same 80% rate against the East and Central as they did against the West.

Central Division

To define first and third place, the Lakers played one game against the Royals, while the Stags played one against the Pistons, preliminary to the 1950 NBA Playoffs.
The five Central Division teams and five Eastern teams beside Syracuse — that is, the ten former BAA teams – uniformly played 68 games: six games in each pairing among themselves and two games each against each of the Western teams and Syracuse.

Western Division

The six Western Division teams and Syracuse—that is, the seven NBL participants in the merger—uniformly played two games each against every one of the ten BAA 1949 teams, the East and Central teams except Syracuse. They played seven or nine games in each pairing among themselves.

Statistics leaders

Note: Prior to the 1969–70 season, league leaders in points and assists were determined by totals rather than averages.

NBA awards