Continental Basketball Association (1986-1988)
Tombstone
Born: April 1986 – The Detroit Spirits relocate to Savannah, GA
Moved: June 24, 1988 (Tulsa Fast Breakers)
First Game: December 4, 1986 (L 137-114 @ Tampa Bay Thrillers)
Last Game: March 25, 1988 (L 135-91 vs. Albany Patroons)
CBA Championships: None
Arena
Savannah Civic Center (6,862)
Opened: 1974
Branding
Team Colors: Red, Black & Silver11986-87 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Ownership
Owner: Reginald Henderson
OUR FAVORITE STUFF
Continental Basketball Association
Logo T-Shirt
This Old School Shirts release is strictly for the hardcore hoop heads.
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 Savannah Spirits were a were a brief entry in the minor league Continental Basketball Association for two winters in the mid-1980’s. The team originated in Detroit in 1982 and won a CBA title in 1983. But the Spirit struggled for relevance in the Motor City thanks to competition from the NBA’s Detroit Pistons.
The Detroit Spirits’ final owner was a man named Reginald Henderson who owned a blood testing laboratory. He continued to run the Spirits as an absentee owner after moving the team to Georgia in April of 1986.
Cast of Characters
The Savannah Spirits were undistinguished on the court, failing to make the playoffs their first year and losing in the opening round their second. But the team had a great line-up of characters, including the gonzo Chaucer scholar-turned-basketball coach Charley Rosen and former Georgia Tech star Tico Brown, who was the Crash Davis of the CBA. Brown would play the last two seasons of his long minor league career in Savannah and finish as the CBA’s all-time leading scorer (8,538 points). The Spirits’ 24-year old radio play-by-play man in Savannah was Craig Kilborn, later of Sportscenter, The Daily Show and Old School fame.
Move To Tulsa & Epilogue
According to Rosen’s memoir Crazy Basketball: A Life In and Out of Bounds, Henderson was indicted and jailed during the Savannah Spirits’ second season for defrauding the federal government at his blood labs. At the end of that season, in June of 1988, an Oklahoma convenience store kingpin bought and moved the team to Tulsa. The former Spirits franchise went through several more sales , name changes and relocations over the next decade, roaming the continent from North Dakota to Mexico City. Eventually the team landed in San Diego where it finally ran out of money and closed down in January 1996.
In 1998, former Spirits coach Charley Rosen published The Cockroach Basketball League: A Novel. The novel followed the adventures of a Rosen-esque coach in charge of the Savannah Stars of the Commercial Basketball League.
Savannah Spirits Shop
Editor's Pick
Crazy Basketball
A Life In and Out of Bounds
By Charley Rosen
Former Spirits coach Charley Rosen is an acclaimed author of both fiction and non-fiction. Crazy Basketball begins during Rosen’s undergraduate days at Hunter College, where his basketball exploits were equally triumphant and embarrassing.
Things really got interesting when he made his way into the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), the breeding ground for nothing less than the second-best gathering of basketball players in the world. In the circus that was the CBA, Rosen found his place alongside Phil Jackson, then the newly hired coach of the Albany Patroons. Life in the CBA, as Rosen tells it, was never dull, with players doing illegal substances on van rides through snowstorms and teams financed by porn producers. His journey from the CBA to a desk at Fox Sports is a one-of-a-kind basketball story—only to be believed in the words of the guy who actually lived it.
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Savannah Spirits Video
ESPN broadcast of a 1987-88 Spirits game against the Mississippi Jets at the Savannah Civic Center.
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