Edward Gottlieb
Encyclopedia
Edward Gottlieb known as "Mr. Basketball" and "The Mogul", was the first coach and manager of the Philadelphia Warriors
in the National Basketball Association
(NBA), and the former owner and coach of the team from 1951 to 1962 (when he sold the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco). A native of Kiev
, Ukraine
, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on April 20, 1972. The NBA Rookie of the Year
"Eddie Gottlieb Trophy" is named after Gottlieb.
Gottlieb organized, and played for, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association teams in the 1920s. Along with a few other sports promoters, he organized the Basketball Association of America
, 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. When he died at age 81, he had been solely in charge of NBA scheduling for three decades. In 1971, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. "Gottlieb was about as important to the game of basketball as the basketball," fellow Hall of Famer Harry Litwack
said.
Gottlieb took on many duties. He started teams and organized leagues. He was in charge of semipro baseball in Philadelphia, and made the schedule for the Negro National League
. He also helped coordinate the overseas tours of the Harlem Globetrotters
.
The NBA might have been able to get started without him, but it probably wouldn’t have survived. Sportswriter Mike Lupica
wrote in a eulogy, "They used to joke that if he got hit by a car and died, the NBA died with him."
,
he moved with his family to Philadelphia at the turn of the century. 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. By 1918, he had changed his name to Edward,; that year, when he was 19, he organized a team of mostly Jewish players representing the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, which supplied the team with uniforms for three years. 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 team wore uniforms with the acronym SPHAs stenciled across the chest in Hebrew letters. Even after the association stopped providing the uniforms, the team kept the unusual name. Having no home court, the team nicknamed themselves "the Wandering Jews".
In the early days of the SPHAs, a game was as much a social event as anything. "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."
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. In about six weeks, Gottlieb’s team had won nine of 11 contests against the most celebrated squads in basketball.
For the next two years Gottlieb devoted his energy to the Philadelphia Warriors, a 1926–27 ABL
entry. The Warriors, who featured former SPHAs stars Chick Passon and Stretch Meehan, competed in the ABL
for two seasons, posting winning records both years. The ABL
, its decline hastened by the Great Depression
, shut down two seasons later, in 1931. Meanwhile, Gottlieb had rebuilt the SPHAs in 1929 with younger talent, and in 1933 the team joined the ABL, which had reorganized as a smaller, regional circuit after a two-year hiatus.
The clubs in this reincarnation of the ABL played in small arenas, armories, and dance halls, much as teams had in the early 1920s. The SPHAs were the premier team, winning championships in three of the league’s first four seasons and taking titles in 7 of 15 years. The club stayed together for 31 years, until 1949, when Gottlieb became too involved with the new Basketball Association of America. Gottlieb sold the SPHAs to Red Klotz
in 1950.
, which had formally ended in September 1945. Peace brought the population leisure time and money for entertainment, and basketball was ripe for a move to the big time. College basketball had grown immensely in popularity during the previous 10 years, and there was no professional basketball circuit (as hockey had with the National Hockey League
).
The National Basketball League was operating primarily in the Midwest, and did not attract the attention of other cities where basketball was popular, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston
—which, for nearly half a century, had been the hotbeds of barnstorming teams and fly-by-night leagues. The owners or operators of major arenas in some of the country’s biggest cities were looking for events to help fill their schedules. They met in New York City in 1946 and created the 11-team Basketball Association of America
. The league was fashioned after the National Hockey League, with a 60-game schedule followed by championship playoffs.
Of the original 11 teams, only three still survive in the present-day NBA: the Boston Celtics
, the New York Knickerbockers
, and the Golden State (then Philadelphia) Warriors
. Gottlieb was the coach and general manager of the Philadelphia Warriors
. Besides coaching, he made sure the team stayed afloat during the rocky days of the BAA and the NBA. "He promoted the team on street corners and he sold tickets and then he counted the cold house," Mike Lupica wrote after Gottlieb’s death.
Gottlieb coached the Warriors for a total of nine seasons, compiling a 263-318 regular-season career record and going 15-17 in the playoffs. The Warriors finished at .500 or better in four of their first six campaigns, but in Gottlieb’s last three seasons they compiled losing records and failed to make the playoffs. During his coaching years, from 1946/47 to 1954/55, his teams included such early NBA standouts as Paul Arizin and Neil Johnston
.
Gottlieb won his lone championship with the Warriors in the first term of the BAA, 1946–47. Behind "Jumping Joe" Fulks
, who led the league with 23.2 points per game, the Warriors logged a 35-25 regular-season record, second to the Washington Capitols in the Eastern Division. In the playoffs the Warriors defeated New York, the St. Louis Bombers, and the Chicago Stags for the title.
In the league’s second season the BAA lost four teams and picked up another one. The Warriors edged the Knicks by a single game in the regular season and then lost in six in the BAA Finals to the league’s newest entrant, the Baltimore Bullets
. For the 1949/50 season, the BAA merged with the NBL to form the NBA, a marriage in which Gottlieb was influential. "When anyone inside the league or outside had a question, they went to Gotty", said Leonard Koppett, who covered the NBA for the New York Post and The New York Times. For the next three seasons the Warriors lost in the first round of the playoffs without winning a game.
Gottlieb, who was instrumental in helping original Warriors owner Pete Tyrell launch the franchise, bought the club in 1952 for $25,000. He also had a major role in shaping the league’s rules, serving as chairman of the rules committee for 25 years. He was there when Syracuse Nationals
owner Danny Biasone came up with the idea of a 24-second shot clock in 1954, and he helped to implement a rule that gave a bonus free throw after six team fouls in a quarter. The new rules supplied the framework for a more fast-paced and exciting game and were pivotal in the continued existence and eventual success of the NBA.
"I probably was responsible for more rule changes in pro basketball than any other man," Gottlieb told the Associated Press late in his life. "They call me in now because I’m the only one left who can connect things to the past, who knows why this rule was put in or why that one was thrown out."
Gottlieb was behind the NBA’s "territorial draft" rule, which gave teams the right to claim a local college or high school player in exchange for giving up their first-round draft pick. The rule was particularly advantageous for Philadelphia, which landed Overbrook High School’s Wilt Chamberlain
in 1959 after his stints with the University of Kansas
and the Harlem Globetrotters
.
Chamberlain furthered the franchise’s success. An immediate drawing card, he led the NBA in scoring and rebounding as a rookie and helped the Warriors to a 49-26 record and a trip to the division semifinals. With the Warriors for five full seasons (he was traded during his sixth season), Chamberlain took the team to the playoffs four times. In 1961/62 Philadelphia fell to Boston in seven games in the Eastern Division Finals.
Before the 1962/63 season the Warriors moved west. Gottlieb, who had purchased the franchise 10 years earlier, sold it for a $600,000 profit to a credit card company, which kept 33.3 percent of the ownership while Franklin Mieuli
put together a group of almost 40 Bay Area investors to purchase the remainder of the team. The move to San Francisco followed the Minneapolis Lakers'
migration to Los Angeles two seasons earlier, and helped open the west to professional basketball.
Gottlieb remained involved with the team in San Francisco before "retiring" in 1964. However, he retained his leadership position with the NBA. His role was crucial: the job of planning the league schedule had become solely his. "They joked that Eddie Gottlieb carried the NBA around in his briefcase," Lupica wrote.
In any July or August, a visit to Gottlieb’s office would find him in front of stacks of paper, a yellow legal pad, and graph paper. "Gottlieb’s skin would be the color of the yellow paper, and his eyes would look like black holes," Lupica wrote. "But he was making a season, as always."
Gottlieb was the force behind the NBA schedule until shortly before his death. While other sports leagues used computers, the NBA relied on Gottlieb. For 1978/79, the season prior to his death, he reluctantly gave up his duties as schedule maker to a software program.
A life-long bachelor, Gottlieb remained employed by the NBA until his death in December 1979, traveling from Philadelphia to New York a few times a week as a coordinator and consultant. "Eddie Gottlieb was one of the real pioneers of professional round ball," Red Smith wrote in The New York Times. Wrote Lupica, "Eddie Gottlieb loved basketball. Maybe no one ever loved basketball quite the way he did."
His story is featured in The First Basket
, the first and most comprehensive documentary on the history of Jews and Basketball.
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
in the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
(NBA), and the former owner and coach of the team from 1951 to 1962 (when he sold the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco). A native of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on April 20, 1972. The NBA Rookie of the Year
NBA Rookie of the Year Award
The National Basketball Association's Rookie of the Year Award is an annual National Basketball Association award given since the 1952–53 NBA season, to the top rookie of the regular season. The winner receives the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy, which is named in honor of the Philadelphia Warriors head...
"Eddie Gottlieb Trophy" is named after Gottlieb.
Biography
A small, overweight, balding man with deep eyes and penchant for wearing bow ties, Gottlieb was described by Red Smith as "a wonderful little guy about the size and shape of a half-keg of beer."Gottlieb organized, and played for, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association teams in the 1920s. Along with a few other sports promoters, he organized the Basketball Association of America
Basketball Association of America
The Basketball Association of America was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. The league merged with the National Basketball League in 1949, forming the National Basketball Association ...
, the league that later became the NBA.
Gottlieb coached the original Philadelphia Warriors
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
, 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. When he died at age 81, he had been solely in charge of NBA scheduling for three decades. In 1971, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. "Gottlieb was about as important to the game of basketball as the basketball," fellow Hall of Famer Harry Litwack
Harry Litwack
Harold "Chief" Litwack was a college men's basketball coach. He served as head coach of Temple University from 1947 to 1973, compiling a 373-193 record....
said.
Gottlieb took on many duties. He started teams and organized leagues. He was in charge of semipro baseball in Philadelphia, and made the schedule for the Negro National League
Negro National League (the first)
The Negro National League was one of the several Negro leagues which were established during the period in the United States in which organized baseball was segregated. Led by Rube Foster, owner and manager of the Chicago American Giants, the NNL was established on February 13, 1920 by a...
. He also helped coordinate the overseas tours of the Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney family.Over...
.
The NBA might have been able to get started without him, but it probably wouldn’t have survived. Sportswriter Mike Lupica
Mike Lupica
Michael Lupica is an American newspaper columnist, best known for his provocative commentary on sports in the New York Daily News and his appearances on ESPN.-Biography:...
wrote in a eulogy, "They used to joke that if he got hit by a car and died, the NBA died with him."
Early life
Gottlieb was involved with sports throughout his life. Born Isadore Gottlieb in 1898 in KievKiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
,
he moved with his family to Philadelphia at the turn of the century. 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. By 1918, he had changed his name to Edward,; that year, when he was 19, he organized a team of mostly Jewish players representing the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, which supplied the team with uniforms for three years. 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 team wore uniforms with the acronym SPHAs stenciled across the chest in Hebrew letters. Even after the association stopped providing the uniforms, the team kept the unusual name. Having no home court, the team nicknamed themselves "the Wandering Jews".
In the early days of the SPHAs, a game was as much a social event as anything. "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."
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
American Basketball League (1925-1955)
The American Basketball League was an early professional basketball league. During six seasons from 1925-26 to 1930-31, the ABL was the first attempt to create a major professional basketball league in the United States...
, 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
Cleveland Rosenblums
The Cleveland Rosenblums was an American basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio that was one of the original members of the American Basketball League...
. The SPHAs then defeated two of the game’s best touring squads, the New York Original Celtics
Original Celtics
The Original Celtics were a barnstorming professional basketball team in the 1920s. There is no relation to the modern Boston Celtics. The Original Celtics are often credited with extending the reach of basketball across America and for establishing the importance of aggressive defensive play...
and the New York Renaissance Five (Rens)
New York Renaissance
The New York Renaissance, also known as the Renaissance Big Five and as the Rens, was an all-black professional basketball team established February 13, 1923, by Robert "Bob" Douglas in agreement with the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom...
, in best-of-three series. In about six weeks, Gottlieb’s team had won nine of 11 contests against the most celebrated squads in basketball.
For the next two years Gottlieb devoted his energy to the Philadelphia Warriors, a 1926–27 ABL
American Basketball League (1925-1955)
The American Basketball League was an early professional basketball league. During six seasons from 1925-26 to 1930-31, the ABL was the first attempt to create a major professional basketball league in the United States...
entry. The Warriors, who featured former SPHAs stars Chick Passon and Stretch Meehan, competed in the ABL
American Basketball League (1925-1955)
The American Basketball League was an early professional basketball league. During six seasons from 1925-26 to 1930-31, the ABL was the first attempt to create a major professional basketball league in the United States...
for two seasons, posting winning records both years. The ABL
American Basketball League (1925-1955)
The American Basketball League was an early professional basketball league. During six seasons from 1925-26 to 1930-31, the ABL was the first attempt to create a major professional basketball league in the United States...
, its decline hastened by the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, shut down two seasons later, in 1931. Meanwhile, Gottlieb had rebuilt the SPHAs in 1929 with younger talent, and in 1933 the team joined the ABL, which had reorganized as a smaller, regional circuit after a two-year hiatus.
The clubs in this reincarnation of the ABL played in small arenas, armories, and dance halls, much as teams had in the early 1920s. The SPHAs were the premier team, winning championships in three of the league’s first four seasons and taking titles in 7 of 15 years. The club stayed together for 31 years, until 1949, when Gottlieb became too involved with the new Basketball Association of America. Gottlieb sold the SPHAs to Red Klotz
Red Klotz
Louis Herman "Red" Klotz is a former NBA point guard with the original Baltimore Bullets, who is best known for forming the teams that play against and tour with the Harlem Globetrotters: the Washington Generals and the New York Nationals.-Background:Klotz was born in Philadelphia on October 21,...
in 1950.
The BAA and the NBA
In the spring of 1946, the United States was celebrating the end of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, which had formally ended in September 1945. Peace brought the population leisure time and money for entertainment, and basketball was ripe for a move to the big time. College basketball had grown immensely in popularity during the previous 10 years, and there was no professional basketball circuit (as hockey had with the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
).
The National Basketball League was operating primarily in the Midwest, and did not attract the attention of other cities where basketball was popular, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
—which, for nearly half a century, had been the hotbeds of barnstorming teams and fly-by-night leagues. The owners or operators of major arenas in some of the country’s biggest cities were looking for events to help fill their schedules. They met in New York City in 1946 and created the 11-team Basketball Association of America
Basketball Association of America
The Basketball Association of America was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. The league merged with the National Basketball League in 1949, forming the National Basketball Association ...
. The league was fashioned after the National Hockey League, with a 60-game schedule followed by championship playoffs.
Of the original 11 teams, only three still survive in the present-day NBA: the Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...
, the New York Knickerbockers
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
, and the Golden State (then Philadelphia) Warriors
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
. Gottlieb was the coach and general manager of the Philadelphia Warriors
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
. Besides coaching, he made sure the team stayed afloat during the rocky days of the BAA and the NBA. "He promoted the team on street corners and he sold tickets and then he counted the cold house," Mike Lupica wrote after Gottlieb’s death.
Gottlieb coached the Warriors for a total of nine seasons, compiling a 263-318 regular-season career record and going 15-17 in the playoffs. The Warriors finished at .500 or better in four of their first six campaigns, but in Gottlieb’s last three seasons they compiled losing records and failed to make the playoffs. During his coaching years, from 1946/47 to 1954/55, his teams included such early NBA standouts as Paul Arizin and Neil Johnston
Neil Johnston
Donald Neil Johnston was an American Hall of Fame basketball player at the center position who played 8 years in the NBA from 1951 to 1959....
.
Gottlieb won his lone championship with the Warriors in the first term of the BAA, 1946–47. Behind "Jumping Joe" Fulks
Joe Fulks
Joseph Franklin "Jumping Joe" Fulks was an American professional basketball player, sometimes called "the first of the high-scoring forwards". He was one of the first players, albeit posthumously, enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978...
, who led the league with 23.2 points per game, the Warriors logged a 35-25 regular-season record, second to the Washington Capitols in the Eastern Division. In the playoffs the Warriors defeated New York, the St. Louis Bombers, and the Chicago Stags for the title.
In the league’s second season the BAA lost four teams and picked up another one. The Warriors edged the Knicks by a single game in the regular season and then lost in six in the BAA Finals to the league’s newest entrant, the Baltimore Bullets
Washington Wizards
The Washington Wizards are a professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C., previously known as Washington Bullets. They play in the National Basketball Association .-Early years:...
. For the 1949/50 season, the BAA merged with the NBL to form the NBA, a marriage in which Gottlieb was influential. "When anyone inside the league or outside had a question, they went to Gotty", said Leonard Koppett, who covered the NBA for the New York Post and The New York Times. For the next three seasons the Warriors lost in the first round of the playoffs without winning a game.
Gottlieb, who was instrumental in helping original Warriors owner Pete Tyrell launch the franchise, bought the club in 1952 for $25,000. He also had a major role in shaping the league’s rules, serving as chairman of the rules committee for 25 years. He was there when Syracuse Nationals
Philadelphia 76ers
The Philadelphia 76ers are a professional basketball team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association . Originally known as the Syracuse Nationals, they are one of the oldest franchises in the NBA...
owner Danny Biasone came up with the idea of a 24-second shot clock in 1954, and he helped to implement a rule that gave a bonus free throw after six team fouls in a quarter. The new rules supplied the framework for a more fast-paced and exciting game and were pivotal in the continued existence and eventual success of the NBA.
"I probably was responsible for more rule changes in pro basketball than any other man," Gottlieb told the Associated Press late in his life. "They call me in now because I’m the only one left who can connect things to the past, who knows why this rule was put in or why that one was thrown out."
Gottlieb was behind the NBA’s "territorial draft" rule, which gave teams the right to claim a local college or high school player in exchange for giving up their first-round draft pick. The rule was particularly advantageous for Philadelphia, which landed Overbrook High School’s Wilt Chamberlain
Wilt Chamberlain
Wilton Norman "Wilt" Chamberlain was an American professional NBA basketball player for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers; he also played for the Harlem Globetrotters prior to playing in the NBA...
in 1959 after his stints with the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
and the Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney family.Over...
.
Chamberlain furthered the franchise’s success. An immediate drawing card, he led the NBA in scoring and rebounding as a rookie and helped the Warriors to a 49-26 record and a trip to the division semifinals. With the Warriors for five full seasons (he was traded during his sixth season), Chamberlain took the team to the playoffs four times. In 1961/62 Philadelphia fell to Boston in seven games in the Eastern Division Finals.
Before the 1962/63 season the Warriors moved west. Gottlieb, who had purchased the franchise 10 years earlier, sold it for a $600,000 profit to a credit card company, which kept 33.3 percent of the ownership while Franklin Mieuli
Franklin Mieuli
Franklin Mieuli was a San Francisco Bay Area radio and television producer who was best known as the principal owner of the Golden State Warriors from 1962 to 1986. The pinnacle of his twenty-four years with the franchise was its National Basketball Association Championship in 1975...
put together a group of almost 40 Bay Area investors to purchase the remainder of the team. The move to San Francisco followed the Minneapolis Lakers'
Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California. They play in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
migration to Los Angeles two seasons earlier, and helped open the west to professional basketball.
Gottlieb remained involved with the team in San Francisco before "retiring" in 1964. However, he retained his leadership position with the NBA. His role was crucial: the job of planning the league schedule had become solely his. "They joked that Eddie Gottlieb carried the NBA around in his briefcase," Lupica wrote.
In any July or August, a visit to Gottlieb’s office would find him in front of stacks of paper, a yellow legal pad, and graph paper. "Gottlieb’s skin would be the color of the yellow paper, and his eyes would look like black holes," Lupica wrote. "But he was making a season, as always."
Gottlieb was the force behind the NBA schedule until shortly before his death. While other sports leagues used computers, the NBA relied on Gottlieb. For 1978/79, the season prior to his death, he reluctantly gave up his duties as schedule maker to a software program.
A life-long bachelor, Gottlieb remained employed by the NBA until his death in December 1979, traveling from Philadelphia to New York a few times a week as a coordinator and consultant. "Eddie Gottlieb was one of the real pioneers of professional round ball," Red Smith wrote in The New York Times. Wrote Lupica, "Eddie Gottlieb loved basketball. Maybe no one ever loved basketball quite the way he did."
His story is featured in The First Basket
The First Basket
The First Basket is a 2008 documentary film on professional basketball's influence on Jewish culture.It is narrated by Peter Riegert. The film includes interviews and narratives provided by, and footage of, well known Jewish basketball personalities including Ossie Schectman, Red Auerbach, Sidney...
, the first and most comprehensive documentary on the history of Jews and Basketball.