NBA Historical Rosters

Select an era below to browse historical NBA rosters. The archive begins with the Basketball Association of America in 1946-47 and continues through the modern NBA.

Each section is organized by season and team. The early pages are particularly valuable because they include rosters for many franchises that no longer exist, as well as the original versions of several teams that remain in the NBA today.

The NBAHoopsOnline roster archive begins before the NBA itself officially existed.

The 1946-1950 section includes the first season of the Basketball Association of America in 1946-47. Eleven teams participated: the Boston Celtics, Chicago Stags, Cleveland Rebels, Detroit Falcons, New York Knickerbockers, Philadelphia Warriors, Pittsburgh Ironmen, Providence Steam Rollers, St. Louis Bombers, Toronto Huskies and Washington Capitols.

The archive follows those teams through the BAA years and into 1949-50, when the BAA and National Basketball League combined and the resulting league became known as the National Basketball Association.

Because of that history, these roster pages include many franchises and players that are rarely represented in modern NBA roster databases.

Browse the 1946-1950 roster archive »

One of the strengths of this archive is its coverage of teams that disappeared, relocated or changed identities during NBA history.

Early roster pages include clubs such as the Anderson Packers, Baltimore Bullets, Chicago Stags, Cleveland Rebels, Denver Nuggets of 1949-50, Indianapolis Jets, Indianapolis Olympians, Pittsburgh Ironmen, Providence Steam Rollers, Sheboygan Red Skins, St. Louis Bombers, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Waterloo Hawks and Washington Capitols.

Later pages document franchise moves and name changes that helped create the modern NBA. Browsing the rosters by season makes it possible to follow those franchises and their players through the league's expansion and relocation history.

The historical roster pages list the players who appeared on each team's roster during a season and, where available, their uniform numbers.

Players who changed teams during a season can therefore appear on more than one roster. Some players also changed uniform numbers during the same season; alternate numbers are preserved where they are known.

The archive is intended as a historical reference rather than simply a list of season-ending rosters. That distinction is important when researching players who were traded, waived, signed during a season or briefly appeared for a franchise.

NBA rosters provide more than a list of names. They show how franchises evolved, when players changed teams, how expansion altered the league and how professional basketball grew from the small BAA of the 1940s into the modern NBA.

The oldest seasons are especially important to preserve. Many players from the 1940s and 1950s had short professional careers, played for franchises that quickly disappeared, or changed teams several times during an era when professional basketball was far less stable than it is today.

NBAHoopsOnline's roster archive is designed to keep those players, uniform numbers, franchises and seasons accessible alongside the better-known teams and stars of later decades.

Historical rosters, especially from the BAA and early NBA seasons, can contain conflicting information about uniform numbers, transactions and brief player appearances.

If you have a correction, missing player, alternate uniform number or other roster information supported by a reliable historical source, please send it to NBAHoopsOnline.

Send corrections and additions to:
Rednecksbasketball@yahoo.com

Historical roster corrections will be reviewed before the NBAHoopsOnline archive is updated.