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SteveThe Lakers franchise has a total of Seventeen National Championships.
1 National Basketball League title in 1947-48
1 Basketball Association of America (BAA) title in 1948-49
15 National Basketball Association titles from 1949-50 to 2090-10.
The NBL was a League that had the most talent in 1947-48 and that was clear when the greatest teams of the NBL joined the BAA a year after and the rest of them 2 years after that.
The NBL teams would be the Champions of the BAA/NBA from 1948-49 to 1954-55:
49 Lakers
50 Lakers
51 Royals (now Kings)
52 Lakers
53 Lakers
54 Lakers
55 Nationals (now Sixers)
So is no denying that the 1948 NBL Championship was way better than the 1948 BAA Championship.
The reason why the NBL Championship isn't in the history books is clearly because of financial reasons. The NBL had the talent but its teams were playing in small cities in the Midwest. The BAA was created by hockey teams owners in major cities so they had a way to lure the best teams of the NBL to come and play in the BAA.
That happened in the summer of 1948 when Lakers Royals Pistons and Jets changed leagues. Missing those teams the NBL a year later was dismantled and the teams that survived and could pay a fee to enter the BAA did that so the BAA changed its name to NBA.
Officially there was a merger between BAA and NBL. But haw could it be a merger between 2 equally strong leagues when BAA kept its history from the very begining (1946) and didn't even bothter to keep srecords of the NBL's 12 seasons? (1937-49)
In 1948 the BAA Champion was the Baltimore Bullets. Bullets was a ABL league team before. ABL was the first attempt to create a professional basketball league but when both NBL and ABL stopped playing because of the World War the NBL came back strong unlike ABL that till the late 40s became a minor league. The Bullets came into the BAA because the league had only 7 teams and they needed one more.
The league was so weak that after making some additions to the team they became the 1948 BAA Champs out of nowhere. The Bullets folded in 1955 after making the playoffs only once having to deal a league having the top NBL teams in it.
The Bottmline is that the NBA recognizes only the BAA as its predecesor and its first and second Champions are officially the Philadelphia Warriors and the Baltimore Bullets.
That results to the Seventeenth National Championship of the Lakers not be in the leagues records but still be a championship worthy to be celebrated and mentioned by any fan of the franchise.
And if someone wants to separate the Minneapolis titles from the Los Angeles Lakers organization it would be good to think that some of the Lakers fans like some of the fans of any other team in the NBA are not Los Angeles natives neither Minneapolis natives.
They are Lakers fans and they celebrate their 17 Championships and the teams history, from the first season of the Detroit Gems (1946-47) with the worst 4-40 record that resulted to the 1947-48 Minneapolis Lakers having the no1 pick and take George Mikan till the 2011-12 NBA season.
Even the Lakers owners in LA shown luck of respect at times for the part of the franchises history that wasn't "written" in LA but every true LAKERS fan should know and honor the entire franchise history.
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