Western Division.

About Western Division

The Western Division was a division in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and its forerunner, the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The division was created at the start of the 1946–47 BAA season, when the league was created, and was then kept as one of the divisions when BAA merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) to create the NBA on August 3, 1949. Originally, when the merger between the BAA and NBL happened, it was planned for the Western and Eastern divisions to be renamed into the American and National divisions with the divisions being re-divided between the Western and Eastern teams in both leagues not long afterward, but the sudden dropout of the Oshkosh All-Stars from the initial BAA–NBL merger into the NBA by September 3, 1949, led to the Western and Eastern divisions returning as planned alongside the temporary creation of a Central Division for that season. The division existed until the 1970–71 NBA season when the NBA expanded from 14 to 17 teams and realigned into the Eastern and Western conferences with two divisions each.