The Providence Steamrollers were a short lived professional basketball team that existed from 1946 to 1949. Their biggest legacy is the historically bad ’47-’48 team that still ranks as one of the worst teams in National Basketball Association (NBA) history
The Providence Steamrollers were founded in 1946 as a member of the Basketball Association of America (BBA). They played their home games at the Rhode Island Auditorium, and their uniform colors were burgundy, pink, and black. The inaugural season of the Steamrollers, with a record of 28-32, was sadly by far the best of the team’s existence. In their second season, they weren’t just bad, they were historically bad. The team finished the season with a record of 6-42 and a winning percentage of .125. The 6 wins still as of this writing remains the fewest in league history, though the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats have a worse winning percentage (.106). The only real highlights of the team occurred when Providence played the New York Knicks, and of course lost, on Christmas Day in 1947; the first game played on Christmas in NBA history. Then on January 28, 1948 Steamrollers coach Nat Hickey activated himself for a game against the Washington Capitols(no, the NBA team), becoming at the age of 45 years and 363 days the oldest player to play in an NBA game. A record that still stands to this day.
On August 2, 1949 the BAA merged with the rival National Basketball League (NBL). The feeble Providence Steamrollers along with the not much better Indianapolis Jets were not invited to join the newly formed NBA and a little more than a week later the team would cease to exist; with most of the players absorbed into the Boston Celtics. Though they never truly played in the NBA all the records and statistics from both the BAA and NBL carried over to the new league.
In 1980 a local businessman/promoter/huckster named Robert ‘Skip’ Chernov tried to bring back the Providence Steamrollers, but NBA Chief Counsel, and future Commissioner, David Stern rejected the bid. Chernov tried to sue the NBA but the courts ruled in the NBA’s favor and the attempt to resurrect the franchise failed.
The Providence Steamrollers, as of this writing, remain the last team in the four major North American men’s professional leagues to be based in the State of Rhode Island