Western Basketball Association
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Western Basketball Association was formed in 1978 and played for one season during 1978–79. Organized by Larry Creger, a former assistant coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and American Basketball Association (ABA), and real estate developer Neil Christianson.
Format
The team rosters were limited to 11 players with a nine-man travel squad and a $10,000 standard player salary and $82,000 roster maximum. The completed schedule was 48 games.
Teams
The seven-team league comprised the Fresno Stars, Montana Sky (Great Falls, Montana), Las Vegas Dealers, Reno Bighorns, Salt Lake City Prospectors, Tucson Gunners, and Washington (Tri-City) Lumberjacks.
Players and results
Tucson, coached by Herb Brown, went 32–16 during the regular season to finish first in the league's only season. Washington (29–19) and Reno (28–20) rounded out the top three.
In the finals, Brown's Gunners defeated Reno, which was coached by Bill Musselman, four games to three. Future Boston Celtic Gerald Henderson won the Most Valuable Player award for the playoffs.
Washington's Jeff Cook earned the Most Valuable Player award for the league.
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This entry incorporates text from “Western Basketball Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.