Eastern Basketball Association (1973-1974)
Tombstone
Born: 1973
Folded: 1974
First Game: November 24, 1973 (L 103-102 vs. Hazleton Bullets)
Last Game:
EBA Championships: None
Arena
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owner: Rich Iannarella
Editor's Pick
Boxed Out
Remembering The Eastern Professional Basketball League
In Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League, Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal “King” Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players.
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Background
This short-lived minor league basketball outfit operated in Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey during the winter of 1973-74. Former Philadelphia 76ers executive Rich Iannarella purchased the Eastern Basketball Association franchise rights in 1973. It was a decision the promoter later characterized as “stupid” and “the worst financial mistake I ever made in my life” in an August 1977 interview with Delaware County Times columnist Gene Gomolka.1Gomolka, Gene. “Rich Iannarella deserves break”. The Delaware County Daily Times (Chester, PA). August 1, 1977
In February 1974, towards the end of the Rookies’ first season in the EBA, the wild former ABA All-Star John Brisker appeared briefly for Cherry Hill. Brisker played for the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics at the time, but didn’t get along with Sonics head coach Bill Russell. Russell banished Brisker to Cherry Hill for three games in the middle of the 1973-74 season. Brisker poured in 58 and 51 points in the only two full games he played. Brisker’s career petered out in Seattle in 1975 at age 27. He vanished in Idi Amin’s Uganda in 1978 under murky circumstances. The medical examiner in King County, Washington declared Brisker legally dead in 1985.
The Rookies finished their only season with a 5-22 record. 6′ 10″ Luther Rackley, a veteran of both the NBA and the ABA before arriving in Cherry Hill, was a bright spot, earning EBA All-Star honors at the center position.
Rich Iannarella fled the Rookies after one season to become an executive with the Philadelphia Bell of the similarly doomed World Football League.
The Rookies were replaced on the Eastern Basketball Association schedule by a new Cherry Hill entry, the Pros, for the 1974-75 season. The Pros also lasted only one season.
In Memoriam
John Brisker was declared legally dead in 1985 seven years after his disappearance in Uganda.
1974 All-Star center Luther Rackley passed away on November 19, 2017 at age 71.
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