The Louisville Catbirds were a minor league basketball outfit that played for two seasons in the Continental Basketball Association. The Catbirds identity was selected to try to appeal to both University of Kentucky fans (“Cats”) and University of Louisville (“Birds”) hoops fans. The team signed a pair of troubled former UK stars on radically different trajectories: Dirk Minniefield and Tom Payne. Read more…
Short-lived Bay Area minor league basketball outfit in the Continental Basketball Association. The San Jose Jammers were formed in the spring of 1989 as part of an ill-fated California expansion effort by the CBA. The CBA, at the time, was the Official Developmental League of the NBA. Both the Jammers and their expansion partner, the Santa Barbara Islanders, would be out of business within two years. The Jammers’ biggest name player was probably Pearl Washington, the former Syracuse star and #1 draft pick of the New Jersey Nets in 1986.
The Grand Rapids Hoops were a durable minor league basketball operation that played 14 Continental Basketball Association seasons in various buildings in and around the Western Michigan city. The team was known as the Grand Rapids Mackers for a period (1994-1996) after ownership briefly passed into the hands of Scott and Mitch McNeal, founders of the Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament empire. When the McNeals unloaded the team in 1996, new owner Bob Prsybysz quickly restored the “Hoops” identity.
The Tulsa Fast Breakers were a minor league basketball outfit that played three seasons in the Continental Basketball Association. The team drew its name from owner Larry Stone’s chain of Fast Break convenient stores. The Fast Breakers won the 1989 CBA championship during their debut season with former UCLA star and NBA veteran Henry Bibby serving as head coach.
The Utica Olympics were a minor league basketball outfit that lasted for just one season at the Utica Memorial Auditorium during the winter of 1979-80. Read more…
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