The Houston Rockets got their start in 1967, when they joined the NBA as an expansion team. The club was originally based in San Diego, Calif., but moved to Houston in 1971. The team’s first coach was Jack McMahon, and the team’s first draft pick, in 1967, was Pat Riley (who went on to play [...]

Longtime fans of the NBA may still think of the Dallas Mavericks as an expansion franchise, but in fact, they have been a part of the league for nearly 30 years now. Donald Carter petitioned the NBA for a new basketball team in 1979, and the other league owners approved the move over the 1980 [...]

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the National Basketball Association’s highest-profile teams. Like the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League, the Lakers are synonymous with glamour. The purple-and-gold uniforms, the hordes of celebrity spectators regularly found in the stands, the “Showtime” teams of the 1980s – all add to the glamorous mystique of [...]

The San Antonio Spurs began their existence in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and are one of the four ABA teams that survived the 1976 merger with the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Spurs, who play at the AT&T Center, are the closest thing the modern NBA has to a dynasty, having won four league [...]

The Utah Jazz is, quite possibly, the most oddly juxtaposed team name in sports (the mention of the state of Utah does not inspire visions of jazz bands). The team is also one of the most consistently successful franchises in the NBA. In the late 1980s and 1990s, they were playoff perennials, and they have [...]