The Sacramento Kings — born the Rochester Seagrams in 1923 — survived a full 26 years before the NBA existed. One hundred years ago the U.S. didn't have any kind of unified professional basketball league. There were just a bunch of independent, semi-professional teams who got together to play standalone games. NBA Hoops Online tells us that come 1945, many of the most talented players on independent teams were leaving to join the National Basketball League (NBL). To keep their roster, the Rochester Pros (the King's name at that point) converted their team to a professional club and joined the NBL. They stayed in Rochester, but changed their name to the Royals, and stayed the Royals even when they moved to Cincinnati in 1957.
The 1930s and '40s were volatile years for the NBL, as Retro Seasons show us. Some teams cropped up and vanished in a year. Some lasted years and then died out. Many folded because their players got consolidated into new NBA teams. But by some miracle, the future Sacramento Kings not only survived this time period to make it all the way to the present but they also thrived. The team's few years in the NBL — before the NBL joined with the Basketball Association of America (BAA) to form the NBA in 1949 — proved to be the most successful in the club's history. They won the league championship their first year in the NBL, and made it to the finals the next two.
