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Frank's Place: Remembering the NBA's territorial draft

The sports draft, devised 79 years ago in Philadelphia because Bert Bell knew his Eagles couldn't otherwise compete, is a curious institution.

Tom Gola tries on the jacket of the Philadelphia Warriors basketball team held by coach Eddie Gottlieb. (Inquirer file photo)
Tom Gola tries on the jacket of the Philadelphia Warriors basketball team held by coach Eddie Gottlieb. (Inquirer file photo)Read more

The sports draft, devised 79 years ago in Philadelphia because Bert Bell knew his Eagles couldn't otherwise compete, is a curious institution.

Without one, wealthy teams such as the 1927-1964 New York Yankees can dominate. But with one, shrewdly run franchises such as the 1957-69 Boston Celtics can do the same.

Though its worst-goes-first structure is meant to level the playing field, the system, as tank-ful 76ers fans understand, can still be manipulated.

To preserve parity and integrity, leagues have tinkered constantly with their drafts. Just last week we witnessed again the spectacle of an NBA draft lottery. There are supplemental picks, sandwich picks, and compensatory picks. There are bonus pools and salary-cap restrictions for draftees.

But there's never been anything quite like the NBA's territorial draft, a loophole that, though employed only 23 times in its 17-year existence, yielded 12 Hall of Famers.

Like the NFL draft, it too was the brainchild of a desperate Philadelphia owner, and no team used it as often or as wisely as his.

The 1946-47 championship that Eddie Gottlieb's Warriors won did little to enrich him. Unlike counterparts in New York, Boston, and elsewhere, Gottlieb didn't own an arena. Cash-flow and attendance were constant concerns for the little man they called, somewhat ironically, "The Mogul," especially in Philadelphia, where college basketball was a formidable competitor.

Though perpetually underfinanced, Gottlieb never lacked for ideas. At a 1949 owners meeting, he told his colleagues he'd formulated a way for the struggling pro game to capitalize on college basketball's greater popularity:

Why not give each franchise exclusive draft rights to the collegians in their area?

And so the territorial draft was born. If a team wanted a player from a college within 50 miles of its arena, it could forfeit its normal first-round pick and claim him.

Bypassing a territorial pick in 1949 - when Easy Ed Macauley (St. Louis) and Vern Mikkelsen (Minneapolis) became the first two players chosen via the scheme - Gottlieb took Villanova's Paul Arizin in 1950. He added Penn's Ernie Beck in 1953 and La Salle's Tom Gola in 1955.

Together, those three native Philadelphians would win the 1955-56 NBA title. They got help in 1958, when the Warriors used another territorial pick on Temple's Guy Rodgers.

But the most significant moment in territorial draft history - and Gottlieb's master stroke - came in April 1955.

While Minneapolis was selecting Minnesota's Dick Garmaker, Gottlieb worked the room like the salesman he was at heart. By then, the world was becoming aware of a 7-foot-1 Overbrook High phenom named Wilton Norman Chamberlain. No one knew him better - or coveted him more intently - than the Warriors owner.

"I could win a title with that kid and four guys from the B'nai B'rith," Gottlieb told friends.

The problem was that Chamberlain, a senior, was being courted by 200 colleges. Whichever he chose, Gottlieb feared - and it eventually was Kansas - might not be near Philadelphia.

So The Mogul made his case. Suppose, he said, a high school player was extremely popular in his hometown. Wouldn't it be a shame if that same youngster had to play elsewhere as a professional, regardless of where he went to college? Why not amend the territorial rule to include him as well?

Gottlieb wasn't fooling anyone. The Celtics, for one, knew he was angling for Chamberlain. Boston wanted him too. Coach Red Auerbach even visited the precocious high schooler, suggesting he consider enrolling at Harvard.

"Sure, this time it will help me," Gottlieb pleaded, wearing the sad-sack expression that came naturally. "But next time it could be you."

In part because his 1954-55 Warriors had finished last, Gottlieb got his way. The vote was 7-1, with Knicks owner Ned Irish the only opposition.

"The league felt sorry for Eddie," Auerbach later explained. "We didn't like it, but back then deals were made all the time."

The same day Gottlieb used a territorial pick on Gola, he made it known that four years hence, his Warriors would take Chamberlain.

Once he had his man in 1959, Gottlieb proposed another rule change. Home teams would be benefiting from the crowds the tall Warriors star attracted, so shouldn't they share ticket receipts with the visitors?

This time the owners weren't swayed. Undeterred, Gottlieb scheduled 31 exhibition games for the Warriors, nearly half as many as the regular season's 72.

With the league and the talent pool expanding, the territorial draft was eliminated in 1965. That year, UCLA's Gail Goodrich became the last of the 23 players selected that way, going to the Lakers.

Though overall draft results during that same period were spotty at best, NBA teams recognized talent under their noses. Goodrich, Macauley, Mikkelsen, Arizin, Gola, Rodgers, Chamberlain, Bill Bradley, Tom Heinsohn, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, and Dave DeBusschere would all go from being territorial picks to Hall of Famers.

Despite Chamberlain's enormous talent and mind-boggling statistics, the Warriors couldn't win a championship. Philly's fickle fans soon soured on them, and in 1962 Gottlieb sold them to San Franciscans who moved the franchise there.

In 1963, when the Syracuse Nationals hoped to fill the void and come here, Irish's Knicks exacted their revenge. New York would agree to the move only if the Nats conceded that Princeton, where Bradley was college basketball's hottest commodity, fell within their drafting territory.

Chamberlain was traded back to Philadelphia in 1965. Two years later he and the 76ers won an NBA championship. By then Gottlieb had a diminished role with the league he'd help create.

One night in 1968, Chamberlain, with the Lakers then, summoned Gottlieb to a Spectrum locker room. There he gave the old man the ball with which he'd become the first NBA player to score 20,000 points.

It was a touching moment. But it wasn't what Gottlieb had envisioned when he'd persuaded the NBA to give him the greatest player ever.

"I always felt bad," Chamberlain admitted in 1990, "that we couldn't win a title for Gotty."

@philafitz