Eastern and Western teams in what cities?

One East:

1 Atlantic Division:

1) Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics were born in 1946, the same year the NBA's predecessor, the Basketball Association of America (BAA), was founded.

Walter Brown, who was the leader of the Boston Garden Arena Corporation at the time, wanted a new name for the team.

After hearing the news, many Bostonians were eager to name the team, including the Cyclones, Olympians and Unicorns.

However, Brown chose the Celtics. In response, Brown explained that the Celtics came from the traditional New York 1914-1939 Celtics. Also, Boston has a lot of Irish descendants.

2 New Jersey Nets

In 1967, the New Jersey Americans became an up-and-coming force in the ABA league. A year later, they moved to New York and changed their name to the New York Nets after one of the most important components of the basketball court.

The name was, of course, meant to be pronounced by New Yorkers. At the time, New York had another professional baseball team, the Mets (METS), and a professional football team, the Jets (JETS), in addition to the Yankees of the Major League Baseball. Brown, the team's owner, took a reporter's advice that the pronunciation of Nets rhymed with Mets and Jets and changed Americans to Nets.

With the annexation of the ABA by the NBA in 1976, the New York Nets joined the NBA.Since the NBA already had such a symbol in the NBA at that time as the New York Knicks, the Nets had a hard time commercially competing with the Because the NBA already had a symbol like the New York Knicks, it was difficult for the Nets to compete commercially with the Knicks in the same city, so they chose to move to New Jersey, which is 40 miles and a river away from New York City, and changed their name to the New Jersey Nets.

③ New York Knicks

The name Knicks comes from the English word "KNICKERBOCKER". The word refers to the descendants of Dutch immigrants, that is, the descendants of the early Dutch immigrants in New York. The original meaning of the word refers to a type of lantern pants that were gathered and tied at the lower part of the knee. In the 17th century, early Dutch immigrants in New York often rolled their pants up near their knees to facilitate labor. Over time, this became synonymous with the descendants of Dutch immigrants.

You can see that the name "KNICKERBOCKER" has long been synonymous with New York City. So when the BAA (Basketball Association of American Basketball Association) decided to form a team in New York City in 1946, the team's patriarch and American basketball legend Ned Ehlers decided to call the team "KNICKERBOCKER". ".

But Fred Podesta, the general manager of the Rose Garden Arena, who died in 1999 at age 86, recalled during his lifetime, "The name came out of a hat. There was a voting ceremony in the office one day between Ehlers, Lester Scott and a couple of other members of our staff. Each of us wrote a name on a slip of paper and threw it in the hat. At the end of the day, after counting, the majority of the people wrote KNICKERBOCKER, and the name of the team was decided. Shortly afterward, we created the team mascot, Papa Lantern, and KNICKERBOCKER was shortened to KNICKS."

4 Philadelphia 76ers

The 76ers, formerly known as the Syracuse Nationals, were the NBA's one of the "founding fathers."

In the spring of 1963, Philadelphians Yves Koslov and Ike Richmond bought the Syracuse Nationals.The NBA league approved the purchase on May 22nd.

On Aug. 3, 1963, the team met to prepare for a name change. Out of 500 suggestions, the team picked 76ers as the team name with a view to honoring the signing and proclamation of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. Similar to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, it commemorates the era when gold was discovered in San Francisco.

And Walt Steinberg, who came up with the name, won himself a luxury trip to the West Coast of the United States with his little slip of paper and the explanation of the team name on it, which consisted of just 25 words.

5 Toronto Raptors

The NBA is now the sports league of choice. But the NBA's predecessor, the BAA, is less well known, and even less is known about the BAA league's inaugural game, in which the New York Lanterns (the predecessor of the Knicks) defeated the landlord's team, the Toronto Eskimos, on Nov. 1, 1946, at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.

The Eskimos folded after that season. It took nearly 50 years before Canada got its second NBA team.

On April 23, 1993, the NBA announced that they had received an application from Basketball Canada Limited. The application stated that Pro Basketball Canada wanted to be the owner of the new NBA franchise. On September 30 of the same year, it was decided in the expanded meeting of the NBA league that the team formed by Canadian Professional Basketball Ltd. would become the 28th team in the NBA league and would be able to play in the NBA beginning with the 95-96 season.

So a nationwide name contest roared across Canada. The vast majority of the 10 finalists were animal names: Beavers, Bobcats, Dragons, Grizzlies, Hogs, Raptors, Scorpions, T-Rex, Tarantulas, and Tarantulas. Tarantulas, and Terriers.

In fact, Raptors correctly refers to the fastest of the dinosaurs, the Tachycephalosaurus, and on May 15, 1994, the Canadian Professional Basketball Association (CPBA) decided to go with the name Tachycephalosaurus. The reason for this was that the movie Jurassic Park and the dinosaur craze were trending among young people at the time. The team's colors were also set to be bright red, purple, black and silver.

Peak Central Division

1) Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons originated in the city of Fordwynn and were founded in 1941 by local automotive piston magnate Fred Tschulner. The original name was the Fordwynn Zollner Pistons, a name the owner coined as an advertisement for himself.

The team joined the NBL when it was founded, and in 1948 the Pistons jumped to league rival BAA. 1949 Fred Zollner set up a "good thing" between the NBL and BAA, merging the two leagues into the NBA, and the Pistons became a member of the NBA's Central Division.

In 1957, the Pistons moved to Detroit and changed their name to the Detroit Pistons, which happens to be the Motor City of America.

2 Indiana Pacers

The name of this ABA "founding father" team was decided by a group of investors.

Indiana attorney Richard Tinkham explained the name by saying that Walking Horses represented the state's tradition of light-duty horse racing on the one hand, and the Indy 500 on the other.

Tinkham recalls that when the name was being discussed the Walking Horses name was decided at once and was not a point of contention. There was a long debate over whether it should be called the Indiana Walking Horses or, the Indianapolis Walking Horses, a name they followed in 1976 when the team joined the NBA league.

3) Milwaukee Bucks

The Bucks entered the NBA league in 1968. The name for this one was selected out of more than 1,400 names. The winner was R. D. Trebrix, who lived in Whitefish Bay. Trebrix also received a new automobile as a reward for having his proposed team name chosen.

John Eriksson, the Bucks' general manager at the time, said the judges chose the name that most closely resembled local life in Wisconsin. For that reason, the team chose Stags as its name because of the deer's numerical superiority among local wildlife.

④ Chicago Bulls

Richard Klein, the first owner of the Bulls, chose Bull as the name of the team he owned. The Bulls entered the NBA in 1966 and were the league's 10th team.

Why did Klein choose the Bulls? It's in the Chicago Bulls encyclopedia:

The Bulls name expresses power and strength. And, the name is tied to Chicago's meat-processing industry and bullring. And, the Bulls' name shares a characteristic with all the names of Chicago's other professional teams in that the team's main name is all one syllable in the English language, such as BEARS, WHITE SOX, CUBS, and BLACK HAWKS.

Klein said at the time, "We are the meat capital of the world. At first, I considered using matador. But the word matador has at least three syllables. For that reason, I sat in my room and discussed the names with my wife and children. It was, my youngest son, Mark, who said, 'Daddy, there's a whole bunch of bulls there!' I said, 'Let's go with bulls!' So we told them our team was going to use the name Bulls."

5 Cleveland Cavaliers

In 1970, a Cleveland newspaper called THE PLAIN DEALER held a name contest for the city's fledgling basketball team.

The contest winner, Jerry Donk, wrote in his bid letter that the Knights represented a team of bold, fearless men. These knights never give in, never surrender, win or lose.

However, the Cavaliers' English name, CAVALIERS, is often simplified to CAVS.

3 Southeast Division

1 Miami Heat

In 1988, Miami had an NBA team. Team officials wanted a name that would appeal to fans in south Florida, so they decided to have a team name contest.

Eager fans provided more than 5,000 names, including Sharks, Palms, Beach, Heat, Barracudas, Flamingos, Dark Skins, Cyclones, and Floridians.

Bufman, the team's longtime president, said, "We picked the name Heat. Because when you think of Miami, you think of Heat first."

② Orlando Magic

In April 1987, NBA officials decided through a meeting to approve Orlando's team to join the league. Unlike other teams, the city of Orlando had already decided on its team's name with eight months to go before joining the league.

Orlando businessman Jim Hewitt and former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Pat Williams were the original promoters of the team. They decided at the outset of the team's formation that they wanted to start with a strong name for the team, whether or not the NBA league could agree to a franchise.

So they called on the residents of the city to name the team, and then they chose four out of the total 4296 names to be considered, which were - Heat, Theme, Juice and Magic.

Just as the arbitration panel was about to pick one of those four names, Pat Williams' youngest daughter, 7, traveled from Philadelphia to Orlando to visit her father. When the little girl finished her trip was about to say goodbye to the city. Pat Williams asked her at the airport what she remembered about the city with Disneyland.

"I really like it here. It's as wonderful as magic here."

The little girl's words made Pat Williams' mind up. So eight months later, the NBA league added a new team called the Orlando Magic.

3 Washington Wizards

The Wizards have the most name changes in the NBA, and in 1946 the NBA league authorized Baltimore to form an NBA team, the Bullets, out of a nearby arms foundry. But the team announced its dissolution shortly afterward.

The Chicago Packers - later known as the Chicago Westerwinds - then moved to Baltimore, and in 1963 they changed the team's name back to the Bullets.In 1974 the Baltimore Bullets moved to Washington, D.C., and changed their name to the Washington Bullets.

Because of the Bullets' violent tendencies, owner Abe Bolling decided in 1996 to adopt a name that did not carry a symbol of violence, and on May 15, 1997, after a fan vote, "Wizards" won out of the final three names to be chosen.

4 Abe Bolling, owner of the Baltimore Bullets, said that "Wizards" was a name that would not carry a symbol of violence.

4 Atlanta Hawks

In 1946, the National Basketball League (NBL) authorized the creation of a team in three cities along the Mississippi River. The three cities were Moraine, Illinois, Rock Island, and Davenport, Iowa.

Because Black Hawk, the chief of the Indian Sauks, operated in Rock Island and because the Black Hawk War of 1831 was fought in the neighborhood, the team was named the BLACKHAWK, which included all three cities.

In 1949, the Blackhawks joined the NBA, and in 1951, the Blackhawks settled in Milwaukee, where the team's name was changed to the Hawks, and in 1955, the team moved to St. Louis, where the name remained the Hawks, and in 1868, the team moved to Atlanta, where the name remained the Hawks.

5 Charlotte Bobcats

The Bobcats are the youngest team in the NBA league. The team's Bobcat logo depicts the spirit of this new team and shows the team's aggressive spirit and desire.

The team's logo highlights the two special ears of the Bobcats and also shows the neatness and sleekness of the Bobcats, along with the ears of the Bobcats standing up and their teeth showing as if they are ready to launch an offense.

The Bobcats logo maintains the image of the bobcat. The strong orange color, which is unlike that of a bobcat, is the main color of the Bobcats' logo. Meanwhile, bright blue, black and silver, along with Bobcat orange, make up the team's four colors.

The bobcat is native to the Carolina region of the eastern United States, but can often be found in other parts of the country as well. Bobcats are diurnal, sneaky, fierce and quick, often launching offenses with their ability to leap 10 feet, making them the most desirable representation of Charlotte's new NBA team.

Two West

1 Pacific Division

1 Los Angeles Lakers

In 1947, the Minneapolis Lakers joined the NBL. A year later, the team moved to the BAA, the predecessor of the NBA league.

The name Lakers comes from another name for Minneapolis, the Land of a Thousand Lakes. While there aren't any major lakes within Los Angeles, when the Lakers moved to L.A. in 1960, they didn't change their original name.

② Sacramento Kings

The Kings were formerly known as the Rochester Royals, who joined the NBL in 1947. In 1957 the team moved to Cincinnati, but at that time the team's name was still the Royals.

In 1972 they moved again to Kansas City. Since the name of the local baseball team in Kansas was the Royals, they changed the name to the Kansas City, Omaha Kings.

Three years later, they dropped the Omaha from their name.

In 1985, the Kings moved to Sacramento, but this time they didn't change their name.

3 Phoenix Suns

Like many, Bergner may not remember what he had for lunch three days ago, but if you ask him about the letter he wrote to the then-Phoenix basketball team 30 years ago, he'll remember it clearly.

Begner was only 12 at the time, and he thought he had a good name for the newly formed Phoenix professional basketball team. So he wrote to Al, one of the team's owners. On January 23, 1968, the letter was mailed to Al, who suggested the name "Firebirds". At the end of the letter, Bergner asked Al to write him back at his convenience. But the letter went unanswered, and later Bergner realized that the name he had come up with had not been accepted.

Coincidentally the self-respecting die-hard Suns fan owns an insurance company, and Al's namesake, Al Media, happens to be a client of theirs. So Bergner decided to pay his client a visit. He said, "I think I need to give him a good look at that letter. I'm going to ask him why he didn't write me back."

So he took his wife, Lynn, with him to the Suns' office. There they met Al. Al to Bergner: "That's a good name. In fact, Firebird was one of the names we thought was more appropriate."

But general manager Jerry Colangelo chose "Sun" as the team's name out of 28,000 entries in a "team name" contest. A fan named Selinda who entered a contest under the name "Suns" has since won a year's worth of season tickets and $1,000 in cash.

"I wanted those tickets," said a disgruntled Bergner, adding, "I think I came up with a better name than any of the others. In fact, "Firebird" is a good name. It's just that Bergner sent his letter to the wrong place.

In 1986, the San Francisco Giants, a Triple-A minor league team in the Major League Baseball, decided to change their team name. The winner was the Firebirds. Poor Bergner missed out on a trip to Hawaii courtesy of the Giants.

4 Golden State Warriors

The Golden State Warriors were one of the first 11 teams to join the NBA, and in 1946 in Philadelphia, his owners decided to name the team after an old Philadelphia basketball team, the Warriors. The team was already a member of the National Basketball Association back in 1925.

The team's name changed depending on where the team was located; in 1962, after moving to the West Coast, the team changed their name to the San Francisco Warriors to symbolize the team's affiliation with the entire state of California; and in 1971, when the team moved to Oakland, the name was changed to the Golden State Warriors.

5 Los Angeles Clippers

In 1978, the coastal city of San Diego, California, welcomed the Buffalo Warriors to the city, as San Diego's team, the Rockets, had moved to Houston seven years earlier.

But San Diego officials in charge of sports felt that the name Warriors did not represent the spirit of the city. For that reason, San Diego held a call for names. In the end, the name Clippers was chosen because San Diego is known for the big ships that cross the San Diego Bay.

In 1984, the Clippers traveled to Los Angeles, but kept their original name.

Peak Northwest Division

1 Minnesota Timberwolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves haven't been in the NBA league for very long. This team only officially became a part of the league in 1989. The reason why the Timberwolves were chosen as the name of the team is because Minnesota is the main habitat of the Timberwolves in the United States.

The logo was also chosen through a "team name" contest. Fans*** cast 6,076 ballots and provided 1,284 distinctive names. The Timberwolves, who were nominated 17 times, and the North Pole were the two finalists. The other 1,282 entries were also distinctive, and even included names that still had to be looked up in the dictionary.

② Utah Jazz

In 1974, the city of New Orleans held a name drive for its professional basketball team. Citizens from all over the city submitted over 6,500 names to the organizing committee. Eight names made it to the "review stage": the Jazz, the Dukes, the Crescent, the Pilots, the Acadians, the Bruins, the Delta and the Knights. After much heated discussion, team officials announced on June 7, 1974, that the new team would be called the New Orleans Jazz.

Three of those who participated in the name drive suggested the name "Jazz". So team officials invited the 1974 Miss New Orleans to draw a lucky winner from the three. In the end, 27-year-old businessman Steve Brown was the winner. The former New York player, who played in the same basketball league as the famous "Dr. J," received two season tickets to the Jazz as a prize. The Jazz also invited him to watch the 1975 NBA All-Star Game.

The city of New Orleans, the "Jazz Capital," loved the name that characterized the team. The romantic colors of blue, gold and dark green became the main colors of the team's logo.

For the next five years, New Orleans was the home of the Jazz. However, when the team finished the 78-79 season with the worst regular-season record in NBA history, team management decided to move its home to Salt Lake City, Utah. Although the new home of the team does not have the tradition of "jazz," the name was retained.

3 Denver Nuggets

This team was born from the Denver Rockets, who joined the ABA in 1967. That same year, the San Diego Rockets (now the Houston Rockets) joined the NBA league.

Seven years later, Denver joined the NBA league. But since there was already a Rockets team in the league. So the Denver team had to change its name. So in honor of the gold rush that broke out in Colorado in the 1800s, the Denver Rockets became the Denver Nuggets. Of course, this is also to honor the "Old Denver Nuggets" who played one year in the NBA in the 1949-1950 season.

4 Portland Trail Blazers

On February 10, 1970, NBA officials agreed to allow Portland to form a professional basketball team and join the league. Two weeks later, Harry Glickman, the club's executive vice president, launched a "team name" campaign. "There were about 10,000 pieces of mail," he recalls. The most popular of the entries was "Pioneers," but that name had already been used by the team at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. So they decided to use Pioneer as the team's name

"There were 172 people who named the team 'Pioneer,' and the team committee ended up making it the team's name," Glickman said.

"They decided to choose one lucky winner by lottery among those 172 fans who named the team 'Blazers.' The drawing took place during the regular-season game between Seattle and New York on March 13," he said. Blake Bourne was the eventual winner, receiving two season tickets to the Blazers that year.

5 Seattle Supersonics

The team, which joined the NBA in 1967, got its name from the Boeing airplanes that frequently landed and took off from Seattle. A year before the team was founded, Boeing announced their plans to develop the Concorde jet as a supersonic means of transportation.

While the plans to develop a new concept of supersonic airliners didn't materialize, the supersonic speed left a lasting impression on the public mind. The name "Supersonic" won the team name contest by a landslide.

3 Southwest Division

1 New Orleans Hornets

The city of Charlotte was known as the Charlotte Ghosts until an NBA team came to the city (where the New Orleans Hornets used to be located), but the name was consistently objected to by Carolinians.

For that reason, the club solicited team names among fans, and six names were in the final running. In the end, the Hornets won, and in 1988, the team was officially named the Hornets.

The Hornets' name dates back to the Revolutionary War. At the time, British General Charles Cornwallis wrote from Carolina to the King of England, "Fighting in this place is like fighting in a beehive."

The team moved to New Orleans for the 2002-03 season, but still used the Hornets name.

The team temporarily moved to Oklahoma City during Hurricane Katrina during August 2005, but still kept the Hornets name.

2) Dallas Mavericks

In 1979 Don Carter petitioned the NBA to start an NBA team in Dallas. Previously, Dallas had had a professional basketball team (the Coyotes, who belonged to the ABA affiliate). But that team moved to San Antonio and later became the current Spurs.

In the 1980 league meeting, NBA league officials agreed to Carter's request. Approval was given for the Dallas team to compete in the NBA league beginning with the 80--81 season.In March 1980, WBAP radio launched a call for names for the new NBA team. Shortly thereafter, a list of more than 4,600 names was submitted to a five-member arbitration panel. The arbitration panel singled out three names among them - Mavericks, Contenders and Express - for team owner Donald Carter to pick. In the end, Mavericks became the team's name.

Mavericks should be interpreted as either the unburned branded calves (horses) of the Old West or the departed and lost calves (horses). Dallas is a Texas city in the western part of the United States, and the name Mavericks honors the cowboy life of the region. Similar to the local NFL team, the Dallas Cowboys .

③ San Antonio Spurs

In 1967, the Dallas Coyotes, the predecessor of the San Antonio Spurs, which belonged to the ABA league, was founded in Dallas. The team was named the Jungle because when the owners decided to form the team, they were having dinner at a fancy club called the Jungle Club.

The team changed its name to the Texas Coyotes in 1970, but its home stadium remained in Dallas.

In 1973 a group of San Antonio businessmen bought the Texas Coyotes and relocated the team to the city of San Antonio, due to the fact that San Antonio is also a Texas city. In honor of the local cowboys, the team was named after the spurs on the heels of the cowboys' leather boots that were used to drive the horses.

In 1976 the Spurs joined three other ABA teams - the New York Nets, Denver Nuggets, and the Indiana Walking Horses - in the NBA.

4 Houston Rockets

In 1967, San Diego became the 12th member of the NBA. The city government called on the public to name the team. After several choices, "Rockets," reflecting the rapidly growing space-age industry in the area, became the team's name.

Although the Rockets moved to Houston in 1971, the Rocket name is still relevant. But the Rocket name is just as relevant. Because NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Center, is located there.

5 Memphis Grizzlies

Before the 1995-96 season, the NBA league expanded and the Grizzlies were born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The team's owners wanted to choose a name that would fit in with Vancouver and the British Columbia area.

After initial negotiations, the team chose MOUNTIES as the team's name, in honor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. However, it didn't take long for the team to decide to use the name Grizzly instead. Grizzly bears are endemic to British Columbia and hold a special place both in the culture of northwestern Canada and in Canada as a whole.

However, when the team moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 2001, there was a desire to give the team a new name. in an effort to reflect certain characteristics of the team's new home.

But team management, after discussing the issue with season ticket holders, fans and the business community, said people tended to keep the name Grizzlies, despite the fact that there is no history of grizzly bears coming out of Tennessee.

While the team's name hasn't changed, the team's logo has. The new logo embodies strength, ability, courage, character, perseverance and fearlessness. The base color of the team logo is blue.

That's it, hope that helps.