← NBA seasons

1946-47 NBA season

11 teams · 26 weeks · through 1947-04-27 · Elo from the project workbook

Philadelphia Warriors won the title. The season's highest rating belonged to Washington Capitols, at 1449.

Jump to any season1946-472026-27

The race

Elo rating by week. Higher is stronger; 1500 is average.

How this is measured

Elo moves after every game by how surprising the result was and by how big the margin was, damped so a blowout by a heavy favourite counts for less than the same blowout by an underdog. One pool per season, so the ratings are comparable across the whole league but not across eras.

Week 0 is the preseason seed, carried over from the previous season and adjusted by hand for the roster as it stands. It is an input to the season, not a result of it.

full season
CapitolsWarriorsStagsBombers11 of 11 shown · tap or drag any point for that week · tap a line to lock it

Tap or drag on the chart: the nearest team's rating that week.

The table

Where every team stood, scrubbed to the week above.

How this is measured

Three records, because they are three different things. Regular season is the 82-game year and is what the seeding comes from. Playoffs is the postseason run, blank for a team that did not make it, which is not the same as 0-0. Total is the two added together. The Elo column keeps moving through the postseason, so a team can climb after its regular season has finished.

1
Washington CapitolsConf. Finals
49-11 +2-4 · Eastern · seed 1
1449
2
35-25 +8-2 · Eastern · seed 2
1401
3
Chicago StagsFinals
39-22 +5-6 · Western · seed 1
1378
4
St. Louis BombersPlayoffs
38-23 +1-2 · Western · seed 2
1347
5
New York KnicksConf. Finals
33-27 +2-3 · Eastern · seed 3
1307
6
Cleveland RebelsPlayoffs
30-30 +1-2 · Western · seed 3
1289
7
Providence Steamrollers
28-32 · Eastern
1280
8
22-38 · Eastern
1230
9
Detroit Falcons
20-40 · Western
1230
10
Toronto Huskies
22-38 · Eastern
1227
11
Pittsburgh Ironmen
15-45 · Western
1162

The postseason

Every series, round by round, with the seeds that met.

How this is measured

Rounds run left to right in the order they were played. The field, the number of rounds and the series length have all changed repeatedly, so the shape here is whatever that season actually had rather than a modern bracket imposed on it. From 2020 the play-in sits below the bracket: those games decided who entered, so a team beaten there did not have a playoff run.

Eastern

NBA Finals

Chicago Stags1

Warriors won the 1947 title.

The honours

Who won what, and who was picked.

How this is measured

Every other section on this page is a club. These are the people: the individual awards, the All-NBA teams and the All-Star selections, all as the workbook records them. A player’s All-Star entry carries which appearance it was for them, so a seventh selection reads differently from a first.

All-NBA

1st Team All NBA
  • Bob FeerickCapitols
  • Bones McKinneyCapitols
  • Joe FulksWarriors
  • Max ZaslofskyStags
  • Stan MiasekPistons
2nd Team All NBA
  • Chuck HalbertStags
  • Ernie CalverleySteamrollers
  • Frank BaumholtzRebels
  • Fred ScolariCapitols
  • John LoganHawks

The best games

The 20 highest-rated games of the season, best first.

How this is measured

Game Score is a composite rating of how good a game was to watch, built from how close it finished, how much the result went against the odds, how far the ratings moved, what was at stake and how highly rated both sides were. It is roughly zero-centred, so an average game sits near zero and anything past two is rare. It is the same metric the all-time and by-decade boards use, so a game keeps the same score wherever it appears.

1
Philadelphia WarriorsbeatChicago Stags
22 Apr 47 · NBA Finals
83-80
1.20
2
Chicago StagsbeatWashington Capitols
13 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
66-61
1.12
3
Chicago StagsbeatPhiladelphia Warriors
20 Apr 47 · NBA Finals
74-73
1.10
4
Philadelphia WarriorsbeatChicago Stags
19 Apr 47 · NBA Finals
75-72
1.00
5
Washington CapitolsbeatChicago Stags
10 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
76-69
0.85
6
Washington CapitolsbeatChicago Stags
12 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
67-55
0.74
7
Philadelphia WarriorsbeatChicago Stags
17 Apr 47 · NBA Finals
85-74
0.57
8
Philadelphia WarriorsbeatChicago Stags
16 Apr 47 · NBA Finals
84-71
0.46
9
Chicago StagsbeatWashington Capitols
8 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
67-55
0.35
10
Philadelphia WarriorsbeatSt. Louis Bombers
2 Apr 47 · Semifinals
73-68
0.29
Show all 20 games
11
New York KnicksbeatWashington Capitols
22 Mar 47
68-63
0.27
12
Chicago StagsbeatWashington Capitols
2 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
81-65
0.25
13
Washington CapitolsbeatPhiladelphia Warriors
11 Mar 47
80-77
0.25
14
Washington CapitolsbeatSt. Louis Bombers
8 Feb 47
68-65
0.21
15
Chicago StagsbeatWashington Capitols
3 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
69-53
0.20
16
Chicago StagsbeatCleveland Rebels
29 Dec 46
87-79OT
0.14
17
12 Apr 47 · Conf. Finals
82-70
0.13
18
New York KnicksbeatWashington Capitols
12 Feb 47
76-72
0.11
19
Washington CapitolsbeatSt. Louis Bombers
8 Mar 47
74-73
0.10
20
Chicago StagsbeatCleveland Rebels
17 Nov 46
78-76
0.10

Sources

Weekly Elo ratings and records are maintained in the project's NBA workbook and refreshed when it is updated. Season results and honours come from the same workbook. Basketball-Reference, 1946-47.