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Eddie Gottlieb
Edward Gottlieb (born Isadore Gottlieb; September 15, 1898 – December 7, 1979) was an American professional basketball coach and executive. Nicknamed "Mr. Basketball" and "the Mogul", he was the first coach and manager of the Philadelphia Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and later became the owner of the team from 1951 to 1962. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on April 20, 1972. The NBA Rookie of the Year Award, the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy, was formerly named after him before being renamed after superstar center Wilt Chamberlain by 2022 after the final Eddie Gottlieb Trophy was given out to Scottie Barnes of the Toronto Raptors that year.
Gottlieb organized, and played for, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association teams in the 1920s. He was in charge of semipro baseball in Philadelphia, financed and partly owned the Negro league Philadelphia Stars, and made the schedule for the Negro National League. He also helped coordinate the overseas tours of the Harlem Globetrotters. Along with a few other sports promoters, he organized the Basketball Association of America (BAA), the league that later became the NBA. Gottlieb coached the original Philadelphia Warriors, bought the team, and sent it to San Francisco in order to expand the game westward. He headed the NBA rules committee for 25 years and was solely in charge of NBA scheduling for the last three decades of his life. Fellow Hall of Famer Harry Litwack stated: "Gottlieb was about as important to the game of basketball as the basketball."
Gottlieb was involved with sports throughout his life. Born Isadore Gottlieb in 1898 in Kiev, he moved with his family to Philadelphia at the age of ten. He graduated from South Philadelphia High School in 1916 for whom he played quarterback. By the time he was a young adult he had not only played on but had also coached, owned, and operated neighborhood sports teams.
He was, by his own admission, a born promoter and organizer, and changed his name to Edward. In 1917, when he was 19, Gottlieb alongside two of his old high school basketball teammates in Edwin "Hughie" Black and Herman "Chickie" Passon organized a team of mostly Jewish players (including themselves during at least their first season of play) representing the Young Men's Hebrew Association, which supplied the team with uniforms for three years (though only using the local Y.M.H.A. name for only their first season of play). The players later found a new sponsor with the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, a social club from which the team derived its new identity, the Philadelphia Sphas. The team wore uniforms with the acronym SPHAs sewn across the chest in Hebrew letters. Even after the association stopped providing the uniforms, the team kept the unusual name. Having no home court during this time, the team nicknamed themselves "the Wandering Jews".
In the early days of the SPHAs, a game was as much a social event. "We played in a lot of dance halls in those early years", Gottlieb told The Associated Press. "It was basketball, then dancing. A very nice Saturday evening for yourself and your date. We used to let the girls in for free, because you couldn't have a dance after the game without the girls. We had no trouble getting the guys to pay for the basketball game when they heard that news."[citation needed]
The SPHAs became one of the powerhouses of basketball in the East. The team entered the Philadelphia League and won two consecutive championships, the final two in the league's history. The SPHAs then joined the Eastern League, which went out of business in the same season, forcing the team to book its own games.
Gottlieb, an entrepreneur and future schedule maker, had no trouble lining up a series of exhibition games against teams from both New York's Metropolitan League and the American Basketball League, which in 1925–26 began operation as the country's first major professional basketball league.
The SPHAs won five of six games against ABL teams in 1925–26, losing only to the league's top club, the Cleveland Rosenblums. The SPHAs then defeated two of the game's best touring squads, the New York Original Celtics and the New York Renaissance Five (Rens), in best-of-three series.[citation needed] In about six weeks, Gottlieb's team had won nine of 11 contests against the most celebrated squads in basketball.
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Eddie Gottlieb
Edward Gottlieb (born Isadore Gottlieb; September 15, 1898 – December 7, 1979) was an American professional basketball coach and executive. Nicknamed "Mr. Basketball" and "the Mogul", he was the first coach and manager of the Philadelphia Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and later became the owner of the team from 1951 to 1962. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on April 20, 1972. The NBA Rookie of the Year Award, the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy, was formerly named after him before being renamed after superstar center Wilt Chamberlain by 2022 after the final Eddie Gottlieb Trophy was given out to Scottie Barnes of the Toronto Raptors that year.
Gottlieb organized, and played for, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association teams in the 1920s. He was in charge of semipro baseball in Philadelphia, financed and partly owned the Negro league Philadelphia Stars, and made the schedule for the Negro National League. He also helped coordinate the overseas tours of the Harlem Globetrotters. Along with a few other sports promoters, he organized the Basketball Association of America (BAA), the league that later became the NBA. Gottlieb coached the original Philadelphia Warriors, bought the team, and sent it to San Francisco in order to expand the game westward. He headed the NBA rules committee for 25 years and was solely in charge of NBA scheduling for the last three decades of his life. Fellow Hall of Famer Harry Litwack stated: "Gottlieb was about as important to the game of basketball as the basketball."
Gottlieb was involved with sports throughout his life. Born Isadore Gottlieb in 1898 in Kiev, he moved with his family to Philadelphia at the age of ten. He graduated from South Philadelphia High School in 1916 for whom he played quarterback. By the time he was a young adult he had not only played on but had also coached, owned, and operated neighborhood sports teams.
He was, by his own admission, a born promoter and organizer, and changed his name to Edward. In 1917, when he was 19, Gottlieb alongside two of his old high school basketball teammates in Edwin "Hughie" Black and Herman "Chickie" Passon organized a team of mostly Jewish players (including themselves during at least their first season of play) representing the Young Men's Hebrew Association, which supplied the team with uniforms for three years (though only using the local Y.M.H.A. name for only their first season of play). The players later found a new sponsor with the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, a social club from which the team derived its new identity, the Philadelphia Sphas. The team wore uniforms with the acronym SPHAs sewn across the chest in Hebrew letters. Even after the association stopped providing the uniforms, the team kept the unusual name. Having no home court during this time, the team nicknamed themselves "the Wandering Jews".
In the early days of the SPHAs, a game was as much a social event. "We played in a lot of dance halls in those early years", Gottlieb told The Associated Press. "It was basketball, then dancing. A very nice Saturday evening for yourself and your date. We used to let the girls in for free, because you couldn't have a dance after the game without the girls. We had no trouble getting the guys to pay for the basketball game when they heard that news."[citation needed]
The SPHAs became one of the powerhouses of basketball in the East. The team entered the Philadelphia League and won two consecutive championships, the final two in the league's history. The SPHAs then joined the Eastern League, which went out of business in the same season, forcing the team to book its own games.
Gottlieb, an entrepreneur and future schedule maker, had no trouble lining up a series of exhibition games against teams from both New York's Metropolitan League and the American Basketball League, which in 1925–26 began operation as the country's first major professional basketball league.
The SPHAs won five of six games against ABL teams in 1925–26, losing only to the league's top club, the Cleveland Rosenblums. The SPHAs then defeated two of the game's best touring squads, the New York Original Celtics and the New York Renaissance Five (Rens), in best-of-three series.[citation needed] In about six weeks, Gottlieb's team had won nine of 11 contests against the most celebrated squads in basketball.