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The Miami Heat came into the NBA for the 1988-89 season as part of a two-phase league expansion that also included the Orlando Magic, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Charlotte Hornets. After spending its first few years in the cellar, the franchise began to make progress thanks to a series of shrewd draft selections. Although the Heat failed to achieve a winning season during their first five campaigns, the team stayed close to the break-even point and made it into the playoffs faster than any of its expansion peers. The campaign to install an NBA franchise in Miami began in the mid-1980s. The two main movers were Zev Buffman, a producer of stage extravaganzas, and Billy Cunningham, an NBA Hall of Famer and successful head coach. In 1987 the NBA voted to expand by four teams. Charlotte and Miami were admitted for the 1988-89 season after paying an entry fee of $32.5 million apiece, and Orlando and Minnesota came aboard the following year.
Miami's front-office strength lay in the basketball savvy of part-owner Cunningham. After a distinguished college career at the University of North Carolina, he had been a first-round draft pick of the Philadelphia 76ers. He played 11 years with the Sixers and with the Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association, was named to the 1966 NBA All-Rookie Team, made four All-NBA squads, and in 1972-73 was named Most Valuable Player in the ABA. In 1977 Cunningham became head coach of the 76ers. During his career he compiled a 454-196 record for a .698 winning percentage. He guided the team to three NBA Finals and an NBA championship in 1982-83.
The expansion draft wasn't very productive for Miami, but the Heat did nab Billy Thompson and Jon Sundvold, both of whom gave the young team some stability. Miami fared better in the 1988 NBA Draft. With the ninth selection the Heat chose Rony Seikaly, a 6-11 center from Syracuse University. Miami used another first-round selection (20th overall) to acquire shooting guard Kevin Edwards of DePaul. In the second round the Heat picked Grant Long, a powerful 6-9, 230-pound forward from Eastern Michigan University who later developed into one of the team's most effective players.

Expansion teams are rarely competitive, and the inaugural Miami squad, coached by former Detroit Pistons assistant Ron Rothstein, was no exception. The Heat finished 15-67, which was not entirely unexpected, but the team took first-year losing to new extremes in the early part of the season.



The Lakers franchise predates the NBA. The Minneapolis Lakers' first season was 1947-48, when the team entered the National Basketball League. A strange series of events early that year landed the Lakers the biggest prize in the game at that time-center George Mikan.
Mikan was a 6-10 giant of a man who had dominated college basketball in his four years at DePaul. He joined the Chicago American Gears at the end of the 1945-46 season, then led the Gears to the NBL Championship the following year.
Prior to the 1947-48 campaign Maurice White, president of the American Gear Company and owner of the Chicago team, pulled the club out of the NBL. White's plan was to create a 24-team circuit called the Professional Basketball League of America, in which he would own all of the teams and all of the arenas. But the new league lasted barely a month, and the players on White's teams were distributed among the 11 NBL franchises. The first-year Minneapolis Lakers landed Mikan strictly by chance.

The Lakers were a good team even without Mikan. The club featured a fine forward named Jim Pollard and one of the better playmakers in the league in Herm Schaefer. Coaching the squad was John Kundla, who had been hired away from the University of Minnesota. But once the bespectacled Mikan joined the Lakers there was no stopping them.

QUITE simply, the Boston Celtics are "the Franchise," Celtics Green is "the color," and the winking leprechaun that serves as the team's logo symbolizes five decades of NBA tradition.

A charter member of the Basketball Association of America (which evolved into the NBA), Boston flies more title banners from the rafters of its home arena than any other