on august 3, 1949, the baa combined with the nbl. the national basketball association was born. the new league had 17 teams. they came from cities of different sizes. the league got rid of several teams. it reached its smallest size of eight teams in the 1954–55 season. they were the new york knicks, boston celtics, philadelphia warriors (now golden state warriors), minneapolis lakers (now los angeles lakers), rochester royals (now sacramento kings), fort wayne zollner pistons (now detroit pistons), milwaukee hawks (now atlanta hawks), and syracuse nationals (now philadelphia 76ers). teams in small cities moved to larger cities.