Pittsburgh Pirates (NBL)
| Pittsburgh Pirates / Raiders | |
|---|---|
| Leagues | National Basketball League |
| Founded | 1937 |
| Dissolved | 1950 |
| History |
|
| Location | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
The Pittsburgh Pirates were an American professional basketball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team was one of the thirteen founding members of the National Basketball League (NBL), which formed in 1937.[1]
Franchise history
[edit]The team was founded in 1937 as one of the founding teams of the National Basketball League. The team never played in the playoffs in their three seasons on the league. From inception and through its first 2 seasons the team was named the "Pirates" until the franchise was inactivated from the summer of 1939 until the summer of 1944, reappearing as the Pittsburgh Raiders for a final season in 1944–45.[2] Despite them leaving the NBL, the Raiders would still participate in the 1946 World Professional Basketball Tournament as an independent team, with the NBL even being interested in bringing back the Pittsburgh franchise for the 1946–47 season at one point in time before a new team in Toledo, Ohio (though some sports historians believe that it was actually the same Toledo NBL franchise that first came on board from before/during the World War II era in the Toledo White Huts/Jim White Chevrolets, just being ran by completely different ownership instead) called the Toledo Jeeps essentially bought out the NBL spot that would have been for the Raiders, which subsequently ended any future attempts for the NBL to return to the city of Pittsburgh (especially since the Pittsburgh Ironmen of the Basketball Association of America would hold a professional basketball spot there in a newfound, rivaling league that season).[3] Even with that in mind, the Raiders would still exist as a franchise until 1950, with later years for them as a franchise having them exist in a minor basketball league of sorts called the AAL for a few seasons before disbanding for good due to how great the competitive scale had grown with the (at the time) newly-formed National Basketball Association taking shape as a professional basketball league.[4]
Year-by-year
[edit]| Year | Record | Reg. Season | Playoffs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1937/38 | 8-5 (.615) | 3rd, Eastern | No playoff |
| 1938/39 | 13-14 (.481) | 4th, Eastern | No playoff |
| No team 1939–44 | |||
| 1944/45 | 7-23 (.233) | 3rd Eastern | No playoff |
References
[edit]- ^ Grasso, John (2010). Historical dictionary of basketball. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810867635.
- ^ "NBL Standings". nbahoopsonline.com. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
- ^ "Syracuse Gains Post in National League; Hanson May Coach". Syracuse Herald-Journal. July 2, 1946. p. 25. Retrieved August 19, 2025.
- ^ https://nbahoopsonline.com/History/Leagues/NBL/Teams/Pittsburgh2/index.html
 | This article about a basketball team in Pennsylvania is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |