1947
Golden State Warriors
Series Flow
0
Wins
0
Losses
Regular Season
35–25
Win–Loss
Playoff Record
8–2
Win–Loss
Finals
0–0
vs Chicago Stags
Finals MVP
Fulks
Joe
Golden State Warriors
35–25Chicago Stags
39–22The Chicago Stags were one of the BAA's strongest early franchises, reaching the Finals in the league's inaugural season. They could not match the Warriors' offensive firepower led by Fulks, falling 4–1 in a series that established Philadelphia as the sport's first championship benchmark.
Finals MVP
Joe Fulks
#10 · Forward
23.6
PPG
6.0
RPG
Joe "Jumpin' Joe" Fulks was the first great scorer of the professional basketball era — a player whose jump shot was so novel and so effective that contemporaries called him a revolutionary. In the inaugural BAA Finals, Fulks led all scorers and gave the Philadelphia Warriors a dominant offensive presence that the Chicago Stags could not replicate. His style — shooting off the dribble and creating his own shot in ways that most forwards of the era never attempted — was a direct ancestor of modern offensive basketball.
Led the Philadelphia Warriors to the first BAA championship in professional basketball history
Averaged over 23 points per game in a Finals era when 20 PPG was extraordinary
His jump shot technique was so ahead of its time that coaches initially tried to persuade him to shoot set shots instead
Finished the inaugural BAA season as the league's leading scorer — establishing the Warriors as a star-driven offensive franchise from day one
How the Series Unfolded
The Champions
10.2
PPG
The veteran backcourt presence who distributed the ball and kept the Warriors' offense running. Musi was the floor general of a championship team that combined Fulks's scoring with disciplined team basketball under Eddie Gottlieb's system.
Key backcourt organizer of the first BAA championship team in professional basketball history
They Pushed Us to the Limit
The Chicago Stags were one of the BAA's strongest early franchises, reaching the Finals in the league's inaugural season. They could not match the Warriors' offensive firepower led by Fulks, falling 4–1 in a series that established Philadelphia as the sport's first championship benchmark.
Max Zaslofsky
#10 · Guard
14.0
PPG
The Stags' offensive leader who would go on to be one of the BAA's great early scorers.
History Written in 1947
Philadelphia Warriors
Won the first championship in BAA history — the direct predecessor organization of the NBA.
Joe Fulks
Established himself as professional basketball's first true offensive star with his revolutionary jump shot.
Eddie Gottlieb
The Warriors' founder-coach became the first championship coach in professional basketball's top league.
Philadelphia Warriors
Set the template for Warriors basketball: elite individual scoring paired with professional team structure.
Beyond the Box Score
The 1947 BAA championship was won in the professional basketball era's infancy — a time when the sport was competing for attention against established professional leagues in other sports. The Philadelphia Warriors' victory helped legitimize the BAA as a serious professional basketball enterprise.
Eddie Gottlieb, the Warriors' founder and coach, was one of the most important figures in early professional basketball. He later helped draft the NBA's scheduling calendar by hand for decades, earning his place in the Hall of Fame as a contributor rather than a player.
Joe Fulks's jump shot — dismissed by many coaches of the era as a showboating gimmick — became the foundation of modern offensive basketball. His 23.2 points per game average in the regular season was a number so far ahead of the field that the Warriors' championship felt inevitable to anyone who watched him play.
The Full Story
In the very first season of what would become the NBA, the Philadelphia Warriors established a franchise tradition that continues today: elite offensive star, intelligent team structure, and championship results. Joe Fulks — "Jumpin' Joe" — was the sport's first great scorer, a forward whose jump shot was so unusual that defenders had no reliable counter for it.
The 1946-47 BAA season was chaotic by modern standards: franchises folding mid-year, rules still being established, arenas shared with ice hockey teams. But the Warriors navigated it all under coach and founder Eddie Gottlieb, finishing 35-25 and entering the playoffs as one of the league's elite teams.
The Finals against the Chicago Stags was a showcase for Fulks's individual brilliance. In a four-games-to-one series that went the Warriors' way throughout, Fulks's scoring was the decisive difference. The Stags had no answer for a forward who could pull up from anywhere and deliver the ball through the net with a technique that most players of the era had never seen in organized competition.
The 1947 championship is the origin point of a franchise story that spans nearly eight decades: from the courts of post-war Philadelphia to the gleaming Chase Center on San Francisco Bay, the Warriors have always been defined by offensive innovation and the willingness to embrace players who do the game differently.
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