Rockford Lightning

Continental Basketball Association (1986-2006)
International Basketball League (2001)

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Before the NBA had the G-League, it had the CBA with teams stretched from Puerto Rico to Honolulu. During the CBA’s 1980’s and 90’s heyday, the league provided a launching pad for future NBA All-Stars such as John Starks and  Michael Adams as well as coaching legends Phil Jackson and George Karl. 

 

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Background

The Rockford Lightning were a popular attraction in Illinois’ third-largest city from 1986 until 2006. The Lightning’s twenty-season run was unusually long by the standards of minor league basketball. The club played in the Continental Basketball Association championship series on four occasions but never managed to win a title.

Throughout most of the Lightning’s run in Rockford, the CBA served as the Official Development League of the NBA. Players went back and forth from Rockford to the NBA a few times a season, typically on 10-day contracts as injury replacements. Rockford’s greatest success story was small forward Bruce Bowen. Bowen played parts of two CBA seasons in Rockford between 1995 and 1997 before earning a spot and sticking with the Boston Celtics. Bowen went on to win three NBA titles with the San Antonio Spurs and to earn eight NBA All-Defensive Team selections. The Spurs retired Bowen’s uniform number 12 in 2012.

Isaiah Thomas Fiasco

The team nearly folded in 2001 following the disastrous intrusion of former NBA star Isaiah Thomas into CBA affairs.  Thomas purchased the entire league and all of its individually-owned franchises in August of 1999 for $10 million. Thomas destroyed the relationship with the NBA, spurning that league’s $11 million offer to buy the CBA outright in early 2000. The NBA then announced the formation of its own minor league (known commonly today as the “G-League“) and terminated its long-time developmental partnership with the CBA. When Thomas was offered the opportunity to coach the NBA’s Indiana Pacers in 2000, he was forced to divest his CBA holdings.  He placed the league into a blind trust, which ultimately starved the franchises of operating capital and forced the league into bankruptcy. The CBA folded midway through its 55th season on February 8, 2001.

Long-time Lightning owner Wayne Timpe swooped in to rescue the club after the CBA imploded. He re-acquired the franchise, reportedly for $1.00, and entered it into the rival International Basketball League to finish out the 2000-01 season. Timpe and a group of other former CBA owners then re-acquired the Continental Basketball Association’s name and marks from the bankruptcy court and re-launched the league in the fall of 2001.

Demise

The Lightning would go on to play another five seasons at Rockford’s MetroCentre. Wayne Timpe’s death from cancer in 2004 marked the beginning of the end for the franchise. Timpe’s widow Judy kept the Lightning going for two more seasons before announcing that the 2005-06 season would be its last.

In 2014, former Lightning player Carson Cunningham published Underbelly Hoops, a memoir of his time in the mid-2000’s CBA. Grab a copy on Amazon using our store link below.

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Editor's Pick

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Underbelly Hoops

Adventures in the CBA
A.K.A. The Crazy Basketball Association

By Carson Cunningham

UNDERBELLY HOOPS covers Carson Cunningham’s final season in the storied and now defunct Continental Basketball Association (CBA). In the process, it takes a sober look at minor league professional basketball, as Cunningham tries to navigate a poor relationship with his coach and yet finish his career on his own terms by playing a final season and winning a championship.

 

“The hoops answer to Ball Four. By turns funny and poignant—and always self aware—this book allows fans into the locker room and huddle, yes, but also into the cortex of a professional basketball player. If Carson Cunningham could have jumped, run and created his shot off the dribble as masterfully as he writes and observes, he’d be starring in the NBA.”

—L. Jon Wertheim, Senior Writer for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

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Life On The Rim: A Year in the Continental Basketball Association
by David Levine
Order Today at Amazon

In Memoriam

Lightning owner Wayne Timpe died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in January 2004 at the age of 62.

Ex-Chicago Bulls great Norm Van Lier, who served a brief tenure as the Lightning’s first head coach in 1986, died on February 26, 2009 at his home in Chicago. He was 61 years old. Chicago Tribune obituary.

Downloads

2-6-1987 Rockford Lightning vs. Wisconsin Flyers Game Notes

Links

Continental Basketball Association Media Guides

Continental Basketball Association Programs

International Basketball League Programs

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