Eddie Gottlieb

Edward Gottlieb (born Isadore Gottlieb; September 15, 1898 – December 7, 1979) was a Jewish-Ukrainian professional basketball coach and executive. Nicknamed "Mr. Basketball" and "The Mogul", he was the first coach and manager of the Philadelphia Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and later became the owner of the team from 1951 to 1962. A native of Kiev, Ukraine, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor on April 20, 1972. The NBA Rookie of the Year Award, the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy, was formerly named after him.

Gottlieb organized, and played for, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association teams in the 1920s. He was in charge of semipro baseball in Philadelphia, financed and partly owned the Negro league Philadelphia Stars, and made the schedule for the Negro National League. He also helped coordinate the overseas tours of the Harlem Globetrotters. Along with a few other sports promoters, he organized the Basketball Association of America (BAA), the league that later became the NBA. Gottlieb coached the original Philadelphia Warriors, bought the team, and sent it to San Francisco in order to expand the game westward. He headed the NBA rules committee for 25 years and was solely in charge of NBA scheduling for the last three decades of his life. Fellow Hall of Famer Harry Litwack stated: "Gottlieb was about as important to the game of basketball as the basketball."