Meet the 76ers P eople in Philadelphia take their basketball very seriously riously This has been true for more than a century long before before the National Basketball Association NBA came to town wn For more than 50 years the Philadelphia 76ers have been the hoops heartbeat of the City of Brotherly Love They are the oldest professional basketball team in town The 76ers know how to bring the home fans to their feet They attack the basket fight for loose balls and rebounds and make their opponents work hard for their points Players on the Sixers also like to add their own individual flair This book tells the story of the 76ers They are at their t best when they have a superstar leading the way but not just any superstar They look for skilled leaders who know how ow to make their teammates better It doesn’t hurt if they have a little a little attitude it’s Philly basketball after all Thaddeus Young and Michael Carter-Williams share a laugh during a 2013 14 game 5
Glory Days The 76ers have played in Philadelphia since the fall of 1963 h However the club is much older than that In fact it’s older than the NBA The team actually got its start in the 1930s thanks to Danny Biasone the owner of a bowling alley in Syracuse New York He called his club the Nationals or Nats for short In 1946 Biasone decided the Nats were good enough to join the National Basketball League NBL hldlh h f ll f l d 6 h 6 The NBL was made up primarily of teams from the Midwest Ohio Valley and Western New York Meanwhile a newer league the Basketball Association of America BAA placed teams in larger cities In 1949 50 the NBL and BAA joined forces to become the NBA The Nationals reached the NBA Finals in their first year in the league Player-coach Al Cervi led a club that starred two of pro basketball’s best young players guard Paul Seymour and center Dolph Schayes 6
The Nats hustled all over the court and played great defense Syracuse became one of the NBA’s best teams and won the 1954 55 title In addition to Schayes and Seymour the Nationals featured Red Rocha Earl Lloyd George King and Johnny Kerr One of the teams competing against the Nats at this time was the Philadelphia Warriors In 1962 the Warriors left Philadelphia for the West Coast where they still play today This move provided an opportunity for the Nationals They had loyal fans in Syracuse but the team needed to find a new home in a bigger city The Nats moved to Philadelphia in 1963 and were renamed the 76ers In 1965 the 76ers traded with the Warriors for Wilt Chamberlain the top-scoring center in the league Chamberlain had grown up in Philadelphia before joining his hometown team When the Warriors moved to California so did he Chamberlain’s return to Philadelphia was a huge success He was an All-Star LEFT Paul Seymour was one of the first stars for the Nats ABOVE Wilt Chamberlain throws down a dunk 7
