Philippine Basketball Association (PBA)

Welcome to the **Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Wiki**
**PBA** The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of twelve company-branded franchised teams. Founded in 1975, it is the first professional basketball league in Asia and is the second oldest continuously professional basketball league existing in the world after the NBA, established before the "open era" of basketball in 1990 where FIBA allowed longstanding domestic leagues, which mostly had predated the PBA, to become professional. The league's regulations are a hybrid of rules from the NBA and FIBA.

The Philippine Basketball Association was founded when nine teams left the now-defunct Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), which was tightly controlled by the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), the FIBA-recognized national association at the time. With the BAP controlling the MICAA, the league was de jure amateur, as players were only paid allowances. This is much like what was done in other countries to circumvent the amateur requirement and to play in FIBA-sanctioned tournaments such as the Olympics. MICAA team owners were not pleased with how BAP, then led by Gonzalo "Lito" Puyat are taking away their players to join the national team without consulting them first. The teams that bolted away from the MICAA are the Carrier Weathermakers, Crispa Redmanizers, Mariwasa-Noritake Porcelainmakers, Presto Ice Cream, Royal Tru-Orange, Seven-Up Uncolas, Tanduay Distillery, Toyota Comets and the U/Tex Weavers. Leopoldo Prieto, the coach for the Philippines at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, was appointed as the first commissioner and Emerson Coseteng of Mariwasa-Noritake was chosen as the first president of the league's Board of Governors. The first game of the league was held at the Araneta Coliseum on April 9, 1975, featuring Mariwasa-Noritake and Concepcion Carrier.
The PBA partly owns the teams representing the companies like, San Miguel Beermen, NorthPort Batang Pier, Columbian Dyip, Magnolia Hotshots, Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, TNT KaTropa, Meralco Bolts, Alaska Aces, Phoenix Super LPG Fuel Masters, NLEX Road Warriors, Rain or Shine Elasto Painters and Blackwater Elite
The PBA has no *season champion* in the league. Instead, the season is divided into conferences or tournaments (not to be confused with the definition of a "conference" in a sporting context as a grouping of teams based on geography or historical affiliation), wherein the teams compete for a conference cup. The winners of the conference cups do not face each other at the end of the season to determine the season champion; instead all conference champions are league champions, with the Philippine Cup being the most prestigious conference of the season.

A season is usually composed of three conferences. Since the 2010–11 season, the conferences were named Philippine, Commissioner's and Governors' Cups, usually ending in a best-of-seven series where the winner took the conference cup. If the same team won all of the conferences, the team was said to be the "Grand Slam" champion. A draft is held after the season-ending Governors' Cup. An opening ceremony is held before the start of the first game of the season. The conference format is similar to Apertura and Clausura in Latin American football.

* Leopoldo Prieto (1975–1983)
* Col. Mariano Yenko (1983–1987)
* Rodrigo Salud (1988–1992)
* Reynaldo Marquez (1992–1993)
* Emilio Bernardino (1993–2002)
* Jose Emanuel Eala (2003–2007)
* Renauld Barrios (2007–2010)
* Atty. Angelico Salud (2010–2015)
* Andres Narvasa Jr. (2015–2017)
* Wilfrido O. Marcial (January 2018 as officer-in-charge and January 25, 2018–present as Commissioner)

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