Danny Ainge and Wayne Rollins Rumble

On April 24, 1983, a classic NBA altercation takes place.

In a first round meeting between the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks, Boston sharp-shooter Danny Ainge takes one too many elbows from Hawks center Wayne "Tree" Rollins.

Ainge, who had allegedly called Rollins a "sissy," finally ran up and tackled the 7-footer, causing a bench-clearing brawl to ensue. While Ainge and Rollins were scuffling on the floor, Rollins took a bite at Ainge's middle finger.

"He almost bit my finger off,'' Ainge said in a  Sports Illustrated interview. "He bit it all the way through. I had to get two stitches.''

Ainge was ejected from the game, as was Atlanta guard Mike Glenn. Rollins, however, was not ejected. Boston went on to win the game and sweep the Hawks out of the postseason. Rollins was later given a $5,000 fine and a five-game suspension to be assessed at the beginning of the '83-84 season.

The Boston Herald covered the story with the headline: "Tree Bites Man." In later years, the facts of the incident began to strain, and people began to believe that it was Ainge who had bitten Rollins, and not the other way around. Ainge was able to dispell these rumors, though only after displaying the scar that had been made on his middle finger.

Lenny Wilkens Sets NBA Record

On March 17, 1999, Hall of Fame basketball coach Lenny Wilkens coaches game number 2,051 setting a new NBA record.

Lenny Wilkens after receiving his Coach of the Year award from 1994.

Before Wilkens was a coach he was a player in the NBA, the St. Louis Hawks drafted him in the first round sixth overall.

He played in the NBA from 1960-1975, with the Hawks, Seattle SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trailblazers and scored 17,772 points, had 5,030 rebounds and 7,211 assists.

As a player he was a nine time All-Star, and the All-Star Game MVP in 1971. He was named to the NBA’s 50 Anniversary All-Time Team and his no. 19 jersey were retired by the SuperSonics.

Wilkens started coaching in 1969 with the SuperSonics, and coached with them until 1972 as a player coach, and in his one season as a player with Portland, he was a player-coach.

Wilkens retired from playing in 1975 and was the full-time coach of the Trail Blazers for one more season.

After a season off from coaching, he again became coach of the SuperSonics when he replaced Bob Hopkins who was fired 22 games into the 1977–1978 season after a dismal 5-17 start.

The SuperSonics won 11 of their first 12 games under Wilkens, made the playoffs, and ultimately reached the 1978 NBA Finals before losing in seven games to the Washington Bullets.

He coached in Seattle for eight seasons (1977–1985), winning his and Seattle's only NBA Championship in 1979.

He would go on to coach Cleveland (1986–1993), Atlanta (1993–2000), with Atlanta he won the NBA Coach of the Year in 1994, Toronto (2000–2003) and New York (2004–2005).

The Hall of Famer was named head coach of the New York Knicks on Jan. 15, 2004. After the Knicks' slow start to the 2004–2005 season, Wilkens resigned from the team on Jan. 22, 2005.

 

During the 1994-95 season Wilkens won career game 939, surpassing Boston Celtics legendary head coach Red Auerbach's record. He was the first coach to record 1,000 career victories and retired with a 1,332-1,155 won-loss record. He had the most wins all-time in the NBA until Golden State Warriors Coach Don Nelson surpassed the record in the 2009-2010 season.

Wilkens is in the Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, and is only one of three players to earn that honor; the other two are John Wooden and Bill Sharman. He was inducted as a player in 1989 and a coach in 1996.

Wilkens won a Gold medal coaching the USA basketball team at the 1996 Olympics and was named one of the Top 50 Players and Top 10 Coaches in NBA History in 1996, and is the only player on both lists.

Petit Scores 20,000

On Nov. 13, 1964, two-time NBA MVP Bob Pettit became the first player in NBA history to score 20,000 points in his career. Pettit spent his entire career with the St. Louis Hawks franchise. The 1964-65 season was the final one of his career. He would wind up scoring 20,880 points when all was said and done. He had a career average of 26.4 points per game.

In 1954, the Milwaukee Hawks selected Pettit in the first round of the NBA Draft. Many were skeptical about Pettit making the transition from college to the rough-and-tumble NBA. Rookies often struggle adjusting to the pro game, but not Pettit — in 1955 he won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 20.4 points and 13.8 rebounds per game.

After the 1954-1955 season, the Hawks moved to St. Louis.

Pettit was moved to forward as a pro. "In college I played the standing pivot," he said in an April 1957 issue of SPORT magazine interview. "My back was to the basket. In the pros, I'm always outside. Everything I do is facing the basket now. That was my chief difficulty in adjusting, the fact that I had never played forward before."

In his second season, Pettit won his first scoring title with a 25.7 average, and led the league in rebounding (1164 for a 16.2 average). He was also named MVP of the 1956 NBA All-Star Game after scoring 20 points with 24 rebounds; he would win subsequent MVP All-Star Game honors in 1958, 1959, and 1962. He also won his first of two NBA regular season MVP awards (the other was in 1959).

In 1958, Pettit, Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan led the Hawks to an NBA Championship, defeating the Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals (the Hawks had acquired Macauley and Hagan from Boston for the draft rights to Russell). Pettit put an exclamation point on the Hawks' 110-109 game 6 victory by scoring a then-playoff record of 50 points. Both teams would also meet in the 1957, 1960 and 1961 Finals, with Boston winning each time.

Pettit's league leading scoring average of 29.2 points per game in the 1958-59 season was an NBA record at the time, and he was named the Sporting News NBA MVP. In the 1960-61 season, Pettit pulled down 20.3 rebounds per game, making him one of only five players to ever break the 20 rebounds per game barrier. In the following season, he scored a career best 31.1 points per game.

His 12,849 rebounds were second most in league history at the time he retired, and his 16.2 rebounds per game career average remains third only to Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.

Pettit was an NBA All-Star in each of his 11 seasons, was named to the All-NBA First Team ten times, and was name to the All-NBA Second Team once. Pettit still holds the top two NBA All-Star Game rebounding performances with 26 in 1958 and 27 in 1962, and has the second highest All-Star Game points per game average with 20.4 (behind only Oscar Robertson).

Pettit averaged at least 20 points per game and at least 12 rebounds per game in each of his 11 NBA seasons. No other retired player in NBA history other than Pettit and Alex Groza (who played only two seasons) has averaged more than 20 points per game in every season they've played (note: Michael Jordan averaged exactly 20 points per game in his final season).

In 1970, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and the Atlanta Hawks retired his no. 9 jersey.

Basketball Association of America Is Born

On Nov. 1, 1946, professional basketball was officially born.

The Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.

On Nov. 1, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now regards as the first played in its history.

Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play primarily in large arenas in major cities.

During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not significantly better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters.

For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, and the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title.

On August 3, 1949, the BAA agreed to merge with the NBL, creating the new National Basketball Association.

The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories.

In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises, all of which are still in the league (the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Royals/Kings, Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks, and Nationals/76ers). 

The process of contraction saw the league's smaller-city franchises move to larger cities. The Hawks shifted from "Tri-Cities" (the area now known as the Quad Cities) to Milwaukee (in 1951) and then to St. Louis, Missouri (in 1955); the Royals from Rochester, New York to Cincinnati (in 1957); and the Pistons from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Detroit (in 1957).

Since the NBA has been formed the Boston Celtics have won the most titles with 17.