Nat Holman, Mr. Basketball - by Arieh Sclar

During the 1920s, many sports commentators considered Nat Holman the best player in professional basketball.  Born on the lower East Side to Jewish immigrant parents, Holman played in settlements and public schools before moving to a variety of Northeastern leagues in the late 1910s.  Unlike the majority of professional players of the era, Holman attended college and began his professional career while still at the Savage School of Physical Education.  After his first full season of professional basketball in 1918, Reach recognized his ability, and stated that he “is a natural-born basket ball player, has a wonderful physique, a good head, and there is every reason to believe that with a little experience, he will exceed in skill and cleverness the best man that ever stepped on the court.”[1] 

In 1920-21, Holman played with Barney Sedran and Marty Friedman for the New York Whirlwinds.  That season, the Whirlwinds scheduled a three-game series against the Original Celtics to determine basketball’s ‘world champion.’  The first two games drew thousands of fans in New York City.  They did not play the third game.  The reason remains unclear, although the Reach basketball guide indicated that gamblers attempted to fix the game.  Although the teams did not complete the series, it illustrated the popularity of professional basketball and helped launch the sport into a new era.[2]

The Celtics’ owners took advantage of the growing importance of spectators in America’s post-war athletic culture.  The Celtics offered exclusive contracts to players, and turned the former settlement house team into an all-star team.  For instance, two weeks after the 1921 series, Holman signed with the Celtics.  These contracts allowed the team to take long barnstorming tours to the Midwest and South, which increased the team’s popularity and profitability.[3]  The Celtics frequently played over 100 games in a single year, and rarely lost more than ten games in one season.  One basketball historian emphatically stated: “The Celtics were so superior to most of the teams they played that they were able to perfect their new theories under actual game conditions without much fear of losing.”[4]

During the early 1920s, the Celtics perfected a switching man-to-man defense, a give-and-go offense, and the pivot play, in which a player stood with his back to the basket and either passed to teammates cutting to the basket or pivoted and went to the basket himself.  Holman later explained that the Celtics “built its offense around it [the pivot play] with such startling success that it captivated the East and Middle West, where the Celtics flourished, and found its way into the offensive systems of a great many teams.”[5]  The Celtic players also used their free throw shooting acumen to their advantage. “Whenever the Celtics were involved in a tight game, Holman would handle the ball and invariably draw a foul, frequently as a result of imaginary contact that sent Holman careening and drew a sympathetic whistle from the official.”[6]

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[1] For information on the Holman’s career, see Murry Nelson, The Originals: The New York Celtics Invent Modern Basketball (Bowling Green, OH.: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1999), 1, 5-6, 34-36.  Quote from “Norwalk, CT,” Reach Official Basketball Guide 1917-18 (Philadelphia, A.J. Reach & Co.: 1917).  Upon his retirement, Holman had become widely considered the greatest player in the history of the young game. In 1950, the Associated Press named Holman the third best basketball player of the first half of the twentieth century. 

[2] Peterson, From Cages to Jump Shots, 70-72; Postal, Silver, and Silver, Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports, 86-88. The series attracted close to 10,000 fans, but was not mentioned in the New York Times.

[3] On the reaction of intellectuals to spectatorship in the 1920s, see Dyreson, “The Emergence of Consumer Culture and the Transformation of Physical Culture,” 262-279. On the importance of contracts, see Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots, 69-79.

[4] Zander Hollander, ed., The Modern Encyclopedia of Basketball (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1979), 274.

[5] Nat Holman, Winning Basketball (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), x.

[6] A. Hollander and A. Sachare, The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia (New York: Villard Books, 1989), 19.